A Story Can Be A Sonnet, A Sonnet Can Be A Dear John by Nichole LeFebvre We eat grapes with our raisins. Compare the nature of dried up to new. We pick scabs off our face to make sure we look mean. We sit at work and stare at screens. We look at your photos but never like them. We are useless stretched-out sports bras. We are flinching. We are sickly sweaty sheets. We were stalwart now we whistle. We […]
Sunday Stories: “The Living Room”
The Living Room by Shane Cashman Dad has no idea he’s watching porn on the TV when I walk into the living room. It could be from experience, but I can tell this one only just began: co-eds still clothed, little dialogue, all body language. Our POV is the man’s POV. We scan her with his eyes, as if we’re supposed to be him. Close-ups of her lipstick and her pale skin and her clavicle, like we’re there, like we’re […]
Sunday Stories: “Notes of an Adjunct Professor”
Notes of an Adjunct Professor by Kayla Blatchley I am looking forward to my inevitable, extreme wealth. I understand many trainers will be there, and nutritionists to console me. Experts to whom I can finally give up my body. I am looking forward to this time when I will make no decisions, and become this very perfect, round shell. I will be like this plastic shade of a nightlight I used to plug into the wall.
Sunday Stories: “The Cookie Sun”
The Cookie Sun by James Yates Miles thought his son’s birthday party looked like a festival for an international dictator. Jack’s birthday gifts were made of plastic, not diamonds or gold, piled up on tabletops, stacked against the wall. Wrapping paper bunched on the floor like tumbleweed, and the decorations–a mix of balloons and Iron Man cutouts–were as excessive as they were gaudy. Jack was first in line for food, punch, and cake, and as the party went on, with […]
Sunday Stories: “Fast False Forward”
Fast False Forward by Inbar Kaminsky The last movie Adam had seen was Enemy, it opened at a small cinema near where he lived on mid March, a cool month before he joined Fast False Forward. It was a fitting farewell from the world of movies, an English debut of a French-speaking director, an adaptation of Saramago’s The Double; so many split identities preceding the actual footage. They shared the same name too, which wasn’t unusual; there were so many […]
Sunday Stories: “The Workout”
The Workout by Allen Guy Wilcox 1 —You want to come finish your workout upstairs? he asked her. The woman did not look up from her stretch, but turned her head to the side. He was certain she had heard him because her mouth had curlicued. She clutched at the sides of her sneakers, perspiration coalescing at her temples, and replayed the man’s words in her mind. What was the precise wording he had used? His mid-Atlantic tone of voice […]
Sunday Stories: “Hugo and the Lynx”
Hugo and the Lynx by Jo-Ann Bekker Hugo visited an Oudtshoorn wildlife ranch and spoke to the owner. He wanted a lynx. Not all men would be suited to keeping a lynx, but Hugo was tall with strong shoulders. He had thick eyebrows and size twelve feet. Hugo had twenty-twenty vision. Once in the Karoo he saw a leopard. We were having sundowners in a Gamkaberg camp when we heard a snort of alarm. Hugo stared at the cliff. Klipspringer, […]
Sunday Stories: “My Back Door Someday”
My Back Door Someday by Stephen Policoff So, maybe this was a mistake. Even with wildflowers along the side of the road aflame in early autumn light, even with my Haunted by the Blues compilation CD blasting melodic laments in my battered Subaru, all I can think is, Too many fucking cars. Vans full of children and dogs, BMWs ferrying white-haired couples in jaunty caps, convertibles full of 20-somethings swilling sports drinks. Even after I careen past the Harriman exit, […]