The Waster
by1. TWENTY MINUTES INTO WHAT THE HISTORY MAJOR’S DATE—her mother’s friend’s son—had referred to as “the film about lesbians,” a man who’d been sitting at the end of the front…
Stories
Femur
byWE ARE TWELVE WHEN WE SHARE OUR FIRST CIGARETTE ON THE BALCONY OF A POST-WAR BUDGET MOTEL. She wears her mother’s dress and I wear ill-fitting, low-rise jeans and together…
Self-Portrait with Bandaged Penis
byI. OH, SURE, HE LEARNED FROM HIS BUDDIES. Once, when he was four years old, his best friend reached into the back of his teddy bear and extracted a flask…
Salt
byTHERE’S A LEGEND IN OUR VILLAGE. One that tells the tale of our founder, our beginnings, and what she left behind to protect us. Αλας, the woman made of salt….
Goulash for a Ghoul
byMY FRIENDS WILL TELL YOU THAT I’M ECLECTIC. I’ve had a varied career having been at one point in my life a Jesuit specializing in exorcism. But eventually the collar…
Return to Nowhere
byTWO RIDERS MATERIALIZE FROM A SHIMMERING MIRAGE of heatwaves that dance on the blasted surface of this desert wasteland. They are men of legend, El Sombrero Blanco, the Pistolero de…
Coins Over Flowers
byWinner of the Bridge Eight Summer Short Story Prize Estimates suggest Nellie Plink started sheening sometime in late December. Her husband of two years first noticed the characteristic iridescent film…
Picture 54
byNamed a Finalist for the 2022 Summer Short Fiction Prize Content Warning: Racism, Death, Suicide, OCD, and Self Harm ALEKS WAS A BURDENED MAN OF TWENTY-EIGHT WHO GUARANTEED THE DEATHS…
How to Cut a Pomegranate
byNamed a Finalist for the 2022 Summer Short Fiction Prize POMEGRANATE IS HARD FOR KIDS TO PRONOUNCE. It is difficult to wash the red stains from their fingertips and shirt…
Earthbound
byNamed a Finalist for the 2022 Summer Short Fiction Prize TEDDY SENT A LEGO MAN INTO SPACE. He sent a pirate into the stars. The macabre, execution style method was…