The Birds of Joy by Luke Rolfes

Anton Chekhov Award for Very Short Fiction 2020 – 3rd Runner Up The Birds of Joy Down the hall of screams, men in plastic suits go by with another body in a wheelbarrow. The fifth one today—a woman in her…
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Anton Chekhov Award for Very Short Fiction 2020 – 3rd Runner Up The Birds of Joy Down the hall of screams, men in plastic suits go by with another body in a wheelbarrow. The fifth one today—a woman in her…
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Anton Chekhov Award for Very Short Fiction 2020 – Second Runner Up My grandmother in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1943, when they were building an atomic bomb Lucy arrived into a city of clattering. Metal on metal on packed dirt on…
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Anton Chekhov Award for Very Short Fiction 2020 – First Runner Up Tiers of Joy My mom sent me to Carmen’s house with banana bread because her brother Theo died. He had just turned seventeen. Theo was the first person…
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Anton Chekhov Award for Very Short Fiction 2020 – First Prize Pursed Her change purse was always hungry, but today she had nothing to feed it. I’m hungry, it said, as if she couldn’t tell. Its gold lips tarnished, its…
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