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.
Conversation in Hotel Lounge by Lydia Davis
read more
Issue #4
Vocation by Joseph Starr
One employee at the Chinese restaurant chops the heads off ducks.
All the Terrible Things by Kuzhali Manickavel
All the terrible things were the same size. They were furred over with dust and seemed to slouch in the heavy sunlight.
The Most New Sport by Tania Hershman
When there is a New Sport they find the players to fit: Elongated for basketball; sleek for swimming; flexibly jointed for golf.
Gacy’s Wife by Claudia Smith Chen
John Wayne Gacy buried twenty-three victims in the crawl space of his house. But when Carol Hoff, Gacy’s wife, was asked if she smelled anything, she said Gacy told her the smell was because of mice.
Wake Up by Josip Novakovich
My pet peeve, I told my writing class, is a story that starts with, I woke up and . . . Why not start later, in the middle of the morning, with the action? But after my class, at 11:59 a.m., I reconsidered my writing teleology.
The Library Shelves of Babel by Pedro Ponce
The Library’s closure went largely unremarked, apart from a segment or two on the nightly news.
Padanaram by Peter Orner
They had to live, didn’t they? Well, didn’t they? Didn’t they?
Imagining Matanzas by Alicita Rodríguez
Matanzas is called Matanzas because of the Matanzas. I’m not being flip. The first killings took place when Cuban fishermen upset the boats on which they were ferrying armor-heavy Spaniards across the river.
Slap & Royalty by Eric Rugara
The woman strode into the room. She was followed by many men—her supporters. On tall heels, she strode across the room.
Time Without Number by Robert Lopez
Sam told us it was a free for all and we believed him. We always believed what Sam told us and this business with the free for all was no different.
Initiation by Stuart Dybek
The doors snap open on Addison, and the kid in dirty hightops and a sleeveless denim jacket that shows off a blue pitchfork tattooed on his bicep jogs forward beneath a backward baseball cap and grabs the purse off a babushka’s lap.
Hermit & Bleeding Faucet by Ana María Shua
With the population now well aware of the physical and mental benefits of asceticism (low cholesterol, bradycardia, a delicate sense of happiness, spiritual fulfillment), everyone wants to become a hermit.
Paper Dolls by Robert Scotellaro
The slick booklets are spread out, and he is looking at snapshots of young women, my father, late in life. (Four wives later, two in the ground—my mother was his first.)
The Nouns by Daryl Scroggins
He couldn’t say what he wanted to say, so he decided to write it—but that didn’t work either because he had to make big spiraling motions with his arm before he could get the pen down to the letter he wanted to write.