fiction

[fiction]

Pentecost

Dear Sir: As requested, I shall begin by providing background information about myself. My name is Vernon Lantry. I am fifty-one years of age.

[fiction]

Quentin Compson Time

By Joseph Kenyon

I took the truck down the rough, narrow trail, rounding the final rutted bend out of the woods and onto the rocky beach surrounding the lake.

[fiction]

This morning Yeorgi woke up in his backyard feeling a bruise on his lower back, convinced that stacked chairs and vodka were not his friends, nor was his wife, if he was being honest, or his goat Omar, whose pretense of loyalty clashed with Yeorgi’s trusting nature—and poor little Boots lying dead with light bulb fragments decorating her scant cleavage, well, she was no great pal either, always shoving him into hazardous, life-threatening tasks, always trying to get out of paying him, criticizing.

[fiction]

Amma's Achaar

By Sharanya Tiwari

He dug and dug and dug. Under the scorching summer sun, Balram toiled endlessly.

[fiction]

Missing Letter to Albrecht

By Anya Reeve

The smoke tasted on my tongue that morning, mingled with fresh bite of air. Once on my tongue, the sapidity of ashing wood exhaled from my breath and nostrils. Clear, oh so clear.

[fiction]

Clotlets

By Aagneyo Mitra

Don’t hope

[fiction]

Your Destination

By Peter Rustin

Thirty minutes ago: the calm droning of the red-eye from JFK to Los Angeles. The cabin lights dimmed. Two teenage sisters sleeping, in pastel sweatshirts, heads nestled, sharing a pair of earbuds linked to an iPhone.

[fiction]

Netherworld

By J. A. Hersh

They were driving straight down a dark road, their little green car bumping on the potholes. It wasn’t a long drive back to their apartment. Fifteen minutes or so.

[fiction]

UNITE?

By R. P. Singletary

“Jane, the taste the taste, you have no idea, Jane.” Typing texting toiling tighter to a tik-tok than ever paid to do in an office.

[fiction]

Until My Dying Breath

By Stefanie Lee

I’ll tell you about how I’ve been remembering myself in the silver crucifixes and imaginary cracks of light underneath a centuries-old door frame. About how I find smudges of my soul on everything I touch, bones, dirt, the paper-thin resolve in my hands. It’s dark, you know.