By: Rachel Reyes October 21st, 2017 According to the newspaper clippings on your office wall, you are the brilliant Oscar Markovich, fourth-generation business owner, scrappy and shrewd, fast-talking and foul-mouthed, seventy-six years old but still going strong like a sturdy…

By: Alan Berger There she was. Just sitting there. At the local bowling alley with her friends. As she was waiting for her turn, she thought how lovely it would be if later that evening, the sounds of the bowling…

By: Kusum Choppra Oftentimes waking up is accompanied by a sickening realisation: That some sleep time was devoted to a new painless suicide method. This morning the window net went up to peer down, checking for a clear fall down…

By: Joel E. Turner Three jobs should be enough, I mean none of them is what you’d really call a job, not like when I was clocking in at the refractory plant, lifting heavy shit to make bricks, running a…

By: Debraj Bhattacharya I. A Worried DM  The District Magistrate of district Ajeebpur, Mr. Hari Sachdev IAS, looked worried. He had just received a letter that a high-profile delegation from the UN would be visiting his district to see the…

By: Mary Bone Mrs. Euphoria looked at the list of people in town that she had just sent to the editor of her local newspaper. The names on the list were people who believed a malicious rumor that she, Mrs….

By: Jim Bates Dad pointed, “Tyler, take this bag and put those decoys way out by the corn stalks. Not too close to us. We don’t want to spook them.” I dutifully followed his instructions and hiked through the snow,…

By: Patricia Tramble A smoky white mist slowly moves across the lake. The fog is so thick, I could barely see in front of me and if not careful, I could easily walk into a watery grave. The smell in…

By E. J. Bradley I am a foster carer who happened to overhear the end of a conversation about foster caring. “I’d be no good at foster care,” explained my sister-in-law to my wife. “I could never love someone else’s…

By: Mike Sharlow I was watching the Lakers play the Heat Sunday afternoon when the local weather geek interrupted the game to announce a severe storm warning. This clean cut, slightly post pubescent weather guy tried to, in a less…