Our babies were unborn. They were manufactured by Mattel. Plastic or not, we had no capacity to deal with crying children. We had no time for child rearing. Didn’t we struggle enough in managing the minutiae of our own lives? We masturbated far too frequently to care for another human being.
“Sophomore Choices,” by Anthony Inverso Read More »
That was what they were looking for, at least in part, when they’d booked the honeymoon for Nova Scotia: the happiness of the catch. So far, they hadn’t found it. Instead, they were trying to find their satisfaction in unexpected places: blackberries on the brambles, eagles perched on branches, moles on the run.
“Six-X,” by Elizabeth Gaffney Read More »
Before he is dead, Grandad misses his funeral. The ceremony is supposed to be Thursday, has been Thursday for weeks. But Grandad doesn’t die on time. He doesn’t do anything on time, hasn’t done anything right for a while now, so he misses the funeral and drinks red Gatorade with what’s supposed to be his final meal.
“A.K.A. Living,” by Ally Glass-Katz Read More »
When you finally realize what it is you’ve been doing this whole time, you learn it’s called choking the chicken.
“That Thing You Will Do Again,” by Fahima Haque Read More »
After twenty years of postponing her love life and toiling as a professor of immunology at Cal Tech, Moonie finally has a breakthrough. She has been studying the humoral and cellular system of an earthworm named Carlos for fifteen years.
“Singing Worm,” by Marilyn Chin Read More »
Time is a color-shifting jelly. They move through it slowly, achieving new positions in which they stay suspended until another change is forced. He answers certain knocks at the door and certain phone calls. He addresses what he can address, and then breaststrokes his way back to her.
“Worry,” by Jenny Irish Read More »
Two thousand years after her people left Jerusalem and eighty years after they left Turkey and fifty years after they left Poland and twenty-​nine years after the death of her daughter, the woman walks down the desert road and she feels her body letting go of her.
“High Desert,” by Ramona Ausubel Read More »
He’s brown-eyed and big: six-foot three, two-thirty or so, and running a little to fat, which I never liked in a man but didn’t much mind in him. He has beautiful hands, and a smile that says everything’s easy. And although he’s only twenty-eight, not much older than me, he has a wife and three kids and a beat-up car with a baby-seat in the back. He has responsibilities.
“Here at the Starlight Motel,” by Andrea Barrett Read More »
Presumably, we’d all once found something magic in making art—why else were we taking this class? Yet no one ever described the joy they felt in witnessing something beautiful. All of Elliott’s prints were beautiful. It was as simple as that.
“The Invention of Love,” by Sara Schaff Read More »
To be honest, I don’t quite know what to write: I love you, Simon? No autopsy, please? Humanity blows? None of these seems substantial enough for a statement of such finality.
“Absolute Zero,” by Marléne Zadig Read More »
