Issue #30
Bog Iron by Shane Larkin

We make stops on the way to our bog plot to look at the little skeletons. Dad tells me about them. Curlews and skylarks in dancing poses. Tiny skulls.

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The Storyteller of Aleppo by Donna Obeid

In the barren cold camp, you wear a dusty cape and top hat, wave my cane as if it were a wand and tell me your dream-stories, one after the next, your words spun and tossed like tethers into the air.

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Magic Fingers by Elizabeth Fletcher

By the fourth motel, I knew to hold my breath for the exhale of mildew when mom unlocked the door. In the shadows of the blackout curtains, we spied the coin box between the two doubles.

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Stranger in the Bright Light by Jennifer Lai

I heard about the abductions from Lisa. First, it was a Doberman. Next, a Ball Python. Then, just yesterday, someone’s Maine Coon. Why they were out in Gladstone Field in the first place is anyone’s guess.

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No Chocolate For You by Lynn Powers

The café hostess hesitates about giving away a prized outdoor seat, but Christine’s raised “don’t-fuck-with-me-right-now” eyebrow gets her a patio table. A harried waiter slaps down a menu. Christine scans it for anything fitting her doctor’s recommendation.

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Love Lies Bleeding by JP Relph

I can’t stop staring at her mouth. Lipstick feathering into the strained sympathy lines there. Like the lines on flower petals, to tempt the bee. Her cheap pink words – nothing medically wrong, just keep trying – aren’t exactly sweet, more like slogans on sad tee-shirts.

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Fulfilling by Fiona McKay

Kate is not ‘imagining it’. There are small tufts of pale fluff on her neck, and no, it’s not ‘just a tissue in the washing machine’ as John suggests. There’s nothing drifting off his shirts, nothing clinging to Ella’s favourite black top, Josh’s Minecraft t-shirts. It’s more solid than tissue, just on her clothes. And only she can see it.

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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.

Husband by Sara Cappell Thomason

I want a house, a wife, a steak dinner and all my bills paid on time. I want to settle down in a house and get paid. Dinner from my wife served on time

The Truths Behind a Pumpjack Dare, Northern Alberta, 3rd July, 1991 by Kate Axeford

I’d hauled myself skywards on steep metal rungs. You were safe below, hurling taunts like stones. We’re two brothers, poles apart, but I’d climbed the ladder. I’d had to. You’d dared me to rodeo the Donkey.

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.

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.