The robber raised a gun and I peeled an orange. I figured that’s what he wanted. He didn’t look like a robber.
The Live Dog Show by Angela Readman
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Issue #24
Twigs by A.E. Weisgerber
Don handed the letters over my gate, asked how things were going. All I had to say was, “It’s today.”
Codes to Live By by Jude Higgins
We’re communicating in semaphore now. Out on the lake with our red and yellow flags in separate little row boats. It takes most of the morning to spell out everything.
In the Company of My Loving Family by Lisa K. Buchanan
Given the size and scope of my family, I consider myself lucky that we are so close.
Come, Come by Kim Magowan
They say that ghosts can slip through walls, but we can’t. We don’t know if it is something special about us, and by “special,” we mean the opposite, of course—some further way we can’t do what others take for granted.
I Am a Rose Thrust at the Heavens by Ron Burch
Grief rubs a red rose against the top pane of the front window during a pleasant time where the day unfurls like a carpet, disappearing under our feet.
Child’s Play by Cheryl Markosky
It’s a pipedream in the playground with Sierra. She runs to the swing. I tally each arc into the air. ‘I can count too,’ squeals the three-year-old. ‘One, two, five, 40-hundred.’
Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree by Sage Tyrtle
You don’t remember, but I was thirteen when I met Mort. I’d forgotten my scarf in the church pew and when I went back to get it I found him, sitting alone.
Passion Play by Katie Burgess
Once she finishes her scene, Claire puts on a pot of coffee to be ready once they wrap up for the day. It’s become a ritual, coffee and fellowshipping after Easter pageant rehearsals.
Unremarkable by Jill Witty
The woods behind our house, leaves crunching underfoot, trees towering above, their branches keeping out most of the light.
The Zoo by Gabrielle Barnby
Mrs. Argyll had been adamant on one.
‘If it was me I’d take both,’ said Mrs. Forsyth. Mrs. Argyll’s gaze swept towards the window. The sun was as brazen as the daffodils.
A Living Ghost by Megan Colgan
Yellow jackets swarm out of an old tire. Stinging me and my brother on every exposed part of our small bodies. My mother hits them with some Raid.
The Flammable Fabric of a Flash by Melissa Ostrom
The earliest ones aren’t yours. You steal them from whoever raised you. Remnants rescued from the garbage: your mother’s perfume bottle, a lipstick worn flat, the paper-towel cardboard you use to trumpet your arrivals.