Issue #14
Good People by Josh Russell

We take our boys to church. It’s been a while. We remember the Hello My Name Is badges stuck between their then-tiny shoulder blades when we fetched them from childcare the last time we came.

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Three Days by Salvatore Difalco

I opened my eyes from a deep sleep with a start. Nonna’s toothless face hovered over mine, her eyes swollen and red, her breath hot and coffee-tinged.

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Migration by Joy Allen

In the thick of fall migration, all the city kept watch. We’d heard the warnings; this year would yield more birds than usual, louder and hungrier than any season before.

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Pretty Girl by Jacqueline Doyle

Her head throbs. She has no idea how long it’s been since he came up behind her in the dark parking garage, one hand squeezing her throat, one holding a gun to her head, whispering “Don’t scream, pretty girl.”

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No Monster by Eric Bosse

I wanted chocolate chip cookies, so I made a batch with extra chocolate chips then passed off my indulgence as a gesture of love for my wife and kids.

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Café Mozart Dreamin’ by Tracey Meloni

Judie bangs on my hotel door. “The dressmaker is here! Hurry! You have Christmas lunch with Noah at Café Mozart at 1PM!” 

Fun House by Robert Scotellaro

She’d gotten the fun house mirrors at an auction and had them put up in the spare bedroom.

The Girl In Purple by Bobbie Ann Mason

Near dawn, Dennis Moore saw the iron gate to the courtyard inch open and the wisp of a girl squeeze through, clanging the gate behind her. Two minutes later, on the boardwalk, she halted as if for an invisible dog, then resumed her dog-walker gait. He followed her...

Their Closet by Pamela Painter

“What are you thinking?” her husband asked her. In their twenty years of marriage he had never asked her that.

Conversation in Hotel Lounge by Lydia Davis

Two women sit together on the sofa in the hotel lounge, bent over and deep in conversation.  I am walking through, on my way to my room.