Potassium
by Arianna Reiche
I always think I’m too tired to go. Even as I’m telling myself I’ll skip this one, even as I turn my phone onto its face to suffocate the light, even as I wrap myself in my duvet, the one that smells like teenage me, curve my spine, and try to re-settle into the abyss of sleep – there my feet are, hitting the carpet. There I am, standing. I’m getting my coat.
Pro/Con
by Julia Meinwald
Good caviar was a vote against ending it all. When the night began, Sasha hadn’t known her own feelings on Royal Ossetra Caviar, but as the evening progressed, it emerged that she was a fan. She kept slinking back up to the counter, taking another of the small plastic espresso spoons the host seemed to have in endless supply, and dipping it directly into the jar, then side-stepping a few feet away to nibble the salty treat unnoticed. Not that there was anything wrong with eating caviar by itself, directly from the jar, she thought. And not that there was anything wrong with attending a party just to stand alone while people who knew each other trotted out stories about the time they ran into Maury Yeston at the opera but at first had not even recognized him. If she didn’t talk to someone in the next twenty minutes, Sasha decided, she would leave.
Jaywalker
by Ravi Mangla
My wife worries about my habit of walking into traffic. We can be stopped at an intersection, the light red, and she’ll have to grab my shirt collar to spare some Uber fare the trauma of being an unwitting party to manslaughter. Whether my incaution is the product of a subconscious death wish or simple absentmindedness is anyone’s guess.
Night Plane
by Ian S. Maloney
Dad woke me from a deep slumber. The call came in at 2:50 am. My head was covered in my Star Wars sheets. I was seven years old, living in Marine Park, Brooklyn and tagging along with my dad, Jimmy “Bugs.” His footsteps creaked across the parquet floors upstairs and a light tap followed on my bedroom door.
“Buddy, up for an adventure for a few bucks?”
Everyone’s Getting Old for the First Time
by Perry Genovesi
While her husband, Stan, relayed to Carson a story about something indelicate their CEO had said, she decided it was time to bring out the baby. Blair set her wine on the coaster and smoothed her skirt.
She left the living room and stepped to Declan’s crib, scooping him up, carefully, so he wouldn’t have one of his outbursts. She snapped on his overalls with the big, goldfinch-yellow buttons Stan’s mother had pushed on her from BINK. She smoothed Declan’s silky hair over his forehead and his warm lips pecked her shoulders. She looked at herself in the mirror with the baby and thought about her husband’s wish, expressed before Carson arrived, of wanting Carson to settle down with Charlotte from work. Carson didn’t even bring Charlotte. What was the point? And why did they settle down? She’d been the right age and Stan expected it. She swaddled up Declan and cha-cha’d into the living room.
The Big TV and the Little TV
by Sylvia Math
I never read my dad’s comic books. I was not interested. Not even later, as a teenager. My brother shared his interest though, and together they amassed a huge collection. There were comic books everywhere in our house. So I knew a few basic things by osmosis. And one story in particular.
like me
by Andrea McCullough
When my daughter Alice was two, and my husband had been gone for about eight months, I went to work at a new school. I couldn’t return to Hillside Elementary after he died. I couldn’t face the kids and the families, and my colleagues. They looked at me full of pity and tilted their heads to the side. I needed a fresh start where no one knew of my loss and grief—a place where I could pretend.
Where Were You When Mick Foley Fell from 10,000 Feet?
by J.B. Stone
…I know I was in the Civic Arena here in Pittsburgh, front row & live at King of the Ring 1998, and young enough to confuse 10,000 feet with 16. Mick Foley’s body might as well have fallen from the stars that night. I watched as Mankind and The Undertaker grated each other’s bodies, shredding skin like blocs of Swiss and at one point turned this tarpaulin-covered canvas into a coffin bed of thumbtacks.