By Kristen Henderson Carlos discovered an open box of D-con rat poison under a pile of shoes in the back of his grandmother’s closet. He’d been called home from ‘Nam after his grandmother was found dead, rigid, straight as…
By: Alan Berger What stories to chooseWhich ones to tellThey choose youAnd tell you what to sellI’d rather be a year too earlyThen a second too lateRather not be out with someoneThat I just can’t takeRather stay home and masturbateAnd…
By: Francine Witte “So, let’s review,” says Man 1 “Right,” says Man 2, “we kill her at noon.” They lean over the high lip of the bridge rail. Straight down to the blue of the stream. “Not kill,” says Man…
By: Francine Witte There is suddenly no weather. Rain dries up before it falls and wind is all puffed out. “It’s a show of respect,” the anchor man says, and his lovely co-host agrees. The sun is gone, too, leaving…
By: Robin Long cling to the submitted words, disfigured,like the leather face of plaguewith spices shoved into a protruding beak herbs, to protect and stave off stenchpestilencenoxiousdisease—writing?it never felt like my disease, before only a dressing of another wound. Those…
By: Zach Murphy Sierra liked to eat ice cream during blizzards. She’d make snow angels and draw funny faces on them. In the Spring, she liked to bask in the grass for hours and hours, as if the insects were…
By: Stephen Kingsnorth Meeting Delhi We drop suddenly,overtaking the ox ploughingbeside the tarmac. Heat-hit,little mascara boyswrest the bags from usbefore, bewildered and affronted,we grab them back. We overload Ambassadors,unsuited cases and rucksacksbulging, over-flowingthe gaping jaws of convoy boots. Soon, undergraduating,…
By: Miss Sasheera Mehrani Gounden Nearly four centuries ago, a Muslim traveller named Baba Budan brought back seven coffee seeds from Yemen to India. He planted these seeds near a mountain, commonly known today as “The Cradle of Indian Coffee.”…
By: Lynn White Against The Tide Will we wait for the tide to turn.to carry us awaywave after wavegathering up the debriswhich surrounds ussucking it up like so much dustgetting rid of it all,everything goingwith the flowsinkingbeneath the waters.Everything.But not…
By: Elena Mordovina The thing that surprises me in this pictureis the cat painting exactly my portrait(you need to put your glasses on to see) –The one you shot then, ten years ago, on the balcony.Don’t worry, I’m quite happy…