Certainty
By James F. McGrath, “I’m recording this so that you can be certain, as I am…” Kelly Wallace pushed the button on the console again and stopped the recording. Before she finalized it, and recorded the concluding phrase, before she made it final and sent it off, she wanted to listen to the entire thing one […]
An Unforgettable Float
By Daisy Cashin, Linda woke up with the summer sun and reached over to her bed’s cold right side. Startled not to find anyone there, she reached for a pack of Parliament cigarettes on her bedside table, then plucked one out with her front teeth. In the table’s drawer, Linda found a pink lighter and […]
Under the Midnight Sun
By Debra J. Tillar There was a commotion in the penguin colony. Frantic screeching and clamor. A skua had stolen a pin-feathered chick from a nest left unattended and the outraged parent was trying to snatch back the tiny, lifeless creature. Devin watched the skua win the tug-of-war and sail with its plunder into the […]
Pomelos
By Ellis Shuman, The war had been raging for 40 days when Eli reported to the orchards. Seven in the morning and he was the first one. The only one. Was he in the right place? Was he in his right mind to have driven an hour and a half from his relatively safe home […]
The End of Days
By Rowan Keller Smith, The End Days kicked off like any other, with a walk to work. Headphones in, NPR on. The story of a dying toddler, and her mother and her father and her brother. One after another their lungs gave out. A silent prayer for all of them, the thought “God, that’s awful.” […]
In Yorktown, Her Name Is Sharon
By Brian Mosher, There are things you expect when you step inside a whorehouse or a brothel. Or, as Helene liked to call her place, a House of Entertainment. You expect women, obviously. Whisky and gin. You expect to leave with less money than you came in with. And, of course, you expect to have […]
An Unwelcome Guest
By Jonathan Papernick, (NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I wrote the short story “An Unwelcome Guest,” exactly 25 years ago in October 1998, during my first semester of graduate school. It was my attempt to encapsulate the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its horrifying spiral of violence in one short story. I had spent a year in […]
Comedy Act: A Ghost Story
By Meg Pokrass My father has never believed in ghosts, at least in the houses of others. “But here in our house, we do have a legitimate ghost,” he concedes, shaking his head like there’s something lodged inside his ear canals. “Ssssss,” Ghost Mom says. “Now, Martha, let it go…” “Ffffff…” Mom says. These days, […]
Cat or Crow?
By Jordan Nishkian, Rena missed the quiet of the morning—before Charmaine’s uninterrupted stream of consciousness steeped through the kitchen like the sun through the apartment’s east-facing window. “I had the most stressful dream. You wouldn’t believe it,” her voice ricocheted against the goldenrod-colored walls. Moments before Charmaine had traipsed in, Rena shared a breath with […]
Fredericksburg
By Andrew Clark The Hyatt Place hotel in Fredericksburg is a five-minute drive from the Virginia field where 12,500 Union soldiers were killed or wounded in the month of December 1863. The Hyatt Place Fredericksburg has ninety-three well-appointed rooms and is right next to Mary Washington Hospital. It has a pool and each booking comes […]