Issue #24
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.

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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.

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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.’

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Prudence by Christy Stillwell

They put the shock collar on the boy and that was it for the nanny. First they put the collar on one another. They were professors in English and Philosophy, all of them smart people.

Glass Flamingos by Catherine Roberts

I smash them all. Because who the fuck collects glass flamingos? Around me, pink shards sparkle in the carpet like pretty vomit.

Rosetta Post-its by Guy Biederman

Los Gatos Tienen Hambre, says the post-it on the fridge. Since when did the cats learn Spanish, since when did they learn to write? The same could be asked of you, says another post-it.

After by Claudia Monpere

and after and after and nothing changes, just the names of the children. This one drew birds wearing hats. That one had an orange juice popsicle for an imaginary friend.

The Subtle Light by Hetty Mosforth

Word of mouth gets him the job and gets him past the gatehouse. He tramps towards the house like a stray dog, turrets and crenelations coming into focus.