El-Rokba
by J.P. Apruzzese
for Nahla
“What will you look like when you turn thirty?” baba says. He’s sitting at the table, his face turned toward a plate of ful medames and a steaming glass of black tea. A narrow white beard dips along his angular jawline toward a rigid under-bite. Determined to exit the apartment before he spots her lipstick, Rasha says nothing. But at the door she notices him shaking his head. “You’re lying to yourself, Rasha.”
Sky Lobby to Big Bubble in Under Five Minutes
by Jason Brandt Schaefer
David O’Corley did it, so we had to beat him. Ain’t nobody thought it could be done, but he had the pics on his phone to prove it. There it was, his finger on the red button, them digital numbers on his Timex just under the five-minute mark. He even took a screenshot so you could see the time at the top of his iPhone. He’s got a matching one from Sky Lobby before he made the run, and the math worked, but some folks still didn’t believe him. They said he just camped out and let his watch run or took the pics on different days. But they’re all idiots and they know better.
An Early History Of The Three-Faced Race
by Aug Stone
Local flâneurs Puffy Pullman and Cheeks Redborne lay in the grass under the cool shade of the oak trees as the afternoon reached 3PM on the 1972 Summer Solstice and the festivities of the Harrisonburg Summer Fair showed no signs of abating. They had been drinking red wine since the cock crowed the morning, for while they never participated in the town’s activities, they relished the Fair as an excuse for making merry, believing their witty commentary on all things Harrisonburg to reach its peak just as year reached its own. They were quite drunk by now, their long moustaches stained various shades of burgundy from the myriad bottles scattered about their feet. While they took pride in their appearance, for both were well-dressed in floral pattern collared shirts under dark suit jackets with matching custom leather shoes, even donning capes for this most special event, the same care could not be said of their physiques. Their already far from athletic builds were running to mush, exacerbated by the switch to the legal side of being able to purchase alcohol, both having turned 18 the previous autumn. This they did plenty of, believing themselves, in some respects correctly, to be bon vivants, and now that the weather was more copacetic they relished relishing the good life out situated in it. Cheeks was letting loose a torrent of guffaws at the proceedings on the field while Puffy had his face buried in the crook of his arm, giving him, had it not been for the presence of the Sun, a most vampire-like appearance, having had to avert his eyes due to an overdose of hilarity some moments before. The two were watching the annual three-legged race.
Your Important American Historical Figure
by Kristen Felicetti
In middle school, I enjoyed some moderate popularity with a clique of girls named Jenny, Jen, Kendall, and Naomi. Halfway through eighth grade, Jenny called my home and ceremoniously informed me, “I don’t want to be friends anymore.”
I had been sorely friend dumped and the next day the other girls followed suit.
Kendall repeated a variation of the same thing Jenny said, and Jen, the little coward, couldn’t even tell me in person. She passed me a note folded like a fortune cookie that when opened read, “We shouldn’t be friends. Nothing in common. Sorry.”
Still
by Yurina Yoshikawa
Clara lies down horizontally inside what looks like a science fiction sleep capsule, wearing nothing but a thin paper gown. She stares up at the white plastic ceiling, though it’s so close to her face that maybe it’s less of a ceiling, more like a lid to a coff—
“Ms. Hoshino? We’re about to start,” the technician says into his mic. “Try not to move.”
Homeowners’ Association
by Alicia Oltuski
We were watching House Brothers or House Hunters in Margaret Thatcher’s parents’ living room—none of us were cool enough to go on real spring break or nice enough to go on Alternative Spring Break (we called her Margaret Thatcher because her name was Margaret and someone, maybe a teacher, had said Margaret Thatcher in class once and my takeaway from ninth grade was that a nickname was like a grab)— and I was pretty bored listening to a couple about to drop their first baby complaining about dirty carpets or something. I was always bored watching house shows—I’m sure Dom was, too—but we were at an age when it felt, I don’t know, hot to do something you didn’t want to do for a girl. I was in the kitchen taking a break. Dom kept saying, “When’s your mom getting home?” and Margaret Thatcher was about to catch on that he was trying to steal another one of her fountain pens from the den. It was my opinion that if he was going to take something, it should be money, but Dom said, did I see twenty hundreds hanging out on their table? And he was right.
Honey Murder
by Sylvia Math
I could tell he thought I was younger than I was, and so when he got that adorable predatory look men get, when he started to strategize, I accepted it as a challenge. I was going to draw it out, take him on a wild ride called “I’m Not An Ingenue.” But I made such a good honey- tractioned trap that I got stuck in it too.
Cabin
by Jon Fotch
We hiked up the hill. Bailey was ahead, looking for what she called arrow points.
“Think of it like destiny,” Rebecca said.
She huffed next to me the whole way up. Too close. Her breath a mix of old pennies and sourdough. I watched Bailey disappear up the trail. Todd right behind her. Like a puppy. Or a predator.
“She could do better,” I said.
“Oh yeah? Like you?”
I watched my feet.