Saguaro Cacti Hold up Their Arms by Sudha Balagopal
I ride the 120 miles of desert road―Phoenix to Tucson―on Amy’s bike. Pink tassels hang from the handlebars of her woman’s bike.
Something Like Drowning by Gaynor Jones
We always planned to take my Barbie, the one with the match-burned hair, and toss her into the silo. We bent her arms, shrimp-pink and puckered from the hiss-press-melt of our games, high above her head, a contorted synchronised swimmer.
More Than Sex by Carmen Marcus
Good hurt. Wake up in well danced bones hurt. Wake up in last night’s clothes hurt. Wake up in your clothes.
Urineworts by Bruce Meyer
When we were living in the mining community, a place that is now a ghost town with nothing left to show for everyone’s hard work except curb cuts for the long-lost driveways and a pine tree that has grown up between the arms of a carousel clothesline, I was told to stay away from the ditches.
Special Issue: Anton Chekhov Prize for Very Short Fiction 2019
Congratulations to Bruce Meyer, Carmen Marcus, Gaynor Jones, and all of our finalists. Guest judge Angela Readman.