Fiction
Fiction • 6/13/06
About Bob
By Andrew Madigan"Bob was a forty-three year old restaurant manager living in a cramped, dusty studio apartment. Suspiciously unread-looking journals littered the windowsills and end-tables. He liked to tell people it was a one-bedroom, trying to include the little alcove outside the kitchenette..."
Fiction • 5/3/06
Looking for a Present Tense in Artifacts of Parody: Grits and Choates, and Empty Booty Boats
By D.T. Harris"Charleston always packed his overnight bag carefully. Before each business trip. Before his weekends at the 'tel in At Cit, playing roulette, chance and pachyderm till he'd lost his chips and the wheels and balls and swinging trunks began to fathom in his dreams. Before his sister's wedding in the B'shires to the future, singing waiter up from Bard..."
3/22/06
Tuesday Blues
By Tammy R. Kitchen"On Tuesdays, Missy wears everything blue. Pale blue, denim blue, electric blue flashing on her eyelashes. It's her gimme color, her shirt unbuttoned to her lacy blue bra and her jeans riding low on her hips. Ladies' night at Joe's Bar, Missy sits on the corner stool closest to the door and watches the boys play pool..."
Short Fiction • 3/1/06
At the End of the Day
By Corey Mesler"Marcia went to bed that night as usual with her Golliwog she’s had since a child. Fred had called about ten-thirty but he was distant. Something’s wrong, Marcia thought..."
1/31/06
Allegory of a Cave
By Brent Powers"I mean, just because they are talking about me does not mean they are judging me. They could be saying something entirely complimentary. For instance about the back of my head, or the back of me in general. What I’m wearing, the cut of my suit. Even from the back it must look good..."
1/25/06
250
By Masha Tupitsyn"Underneath a huge tree. Not the one that is 250 years old. But maybe same age bracket. Now that I no longer write in fits, I no longer think in them. No longer work, think, on a fit basis. I’m giving you a lot of time. I’m giving you a lot of space. Not that you want it, but I’m enjoying it somehow. This isn’t me being typical..."
11/30/05
Marble Work
By Nate House"Few people here, some professors, maybe some alumni, a few parents, notice how clean the marble is becoming. The students don’t notice. To them we are just people who clean the walls; people to step around on the way to class. Even Tommy, the man I work with, doesn’t seem to notice how clean the marble becomes. He only notices that the job is done..."
11/23/05
Hootenanny Pancakes
By Sarah Moon"They are as they would have been forty years ago - wearing worn dungarees, button-down work shirts and fisherman caps. They are pouring their hearts out. They are strumming and clapping. And holding hands. When they finish you applaud and ask if they like pancakes. You’ve always wanted this. Friend/musician/artist/bohemians sitting down to breakfast in a sun-filled kitchen..."
Fiction • 11/9/05
Batman Cards
By Brandon Hunter Murphy"I quit babysitting recently for obvious reasons. I haven’t had any money since and have been living at my parent’s new house, here in Canada. They had to flee America, land of the free, home of the brave… for obvious reasons as well..."
10/26/05
Another Story About Me
By Corey Mesler"The night I saw her naked I heard a coyote. It was the first coyote I had ever heard. I want to talk about that coyote, what his life must be like, running through the thinning woods, tripping into the sewer pipes, killing the occasional rat or small child. God loves the coyote..."
5/11/05
Coma
John McCaffrey
"Marty 'Blue' Barbone had a spy, an orderly at the hospital where his unconscious landlord lay. He paid the kid fifty bucks a month for updates on the coma...'There’re signs it’s ebbing,' the orderly reported, 'some twitching in both feet and an increase of electromagnetic waves in the right brain. One nurse said she heard a gurgle, but wasn’t sure if it came from the patient or the water dispenser...'”
"I write this letter on behalf of Clarissa Fairmont, who has been my lawfully wedded for the past three years. In the time that I have known her she has become a remarkable lover, as well as an esteemed domestic partner. She is quite the multi-tasker -- with fine tastes in white wines, handbags, and even nightclubs. It is painful to see her leave, but I’m confident that she will continue her hard work in any household that welcomes her..."
2/23/05
Resurrection
By Ashley O'Dell
"You may not be able to get blood from a turnip, but you can get $150 for a room of a house that makes the Paper Street house from Fight Club look palatial. But at some point, the landlord gives up, or he kicks out the tenants, and the fire department comes and sets the house ablaze as a training exercise. They hang around and chew the fat for a while, and then they leave the house to blaze and crackle in a frozen field of soybeans..."
2/2/05
Bloodline
By Fiona Yates"Amid the droning of empty feminine chitchat and the electric mixer in potatoes, Margaret cut off her finger. Not all of it, she realized, instinctively clamping her hand over the bloody digit. She could feel most of the finger within her grasp. She took a deep breath, willing that Thanksgiving would not be ruined. It probably looks worse than it is, she reasoned..."
1/11/05
The Blueprint
By Janelle Hopkins"One way is if the nose is flat at the bridge. Flat further down the nose can work, too. It makes sense, if these judgments can be said to be capable of such a thing. What doesn’t make sense is when the tip of the nose hooks down, which should remind us of a witch or a granny, but on the right face it’s the best thing ever..."
12/15/04
Obsession, By Calvin Coyne
By Mick Rainsford"Calvin was examining a blister on his tongue when he realized his teeth were rotting. He pulled his lips wide and peered into the mirror. All the molars on the left were spotted. At least three on the right were as bad. He brought his face right up to the glass. Tilted his head left then right then back. He opened his jaws until it hurt and tugged his lips this way and that..."
12/8/04
Please, the Dead Shined on Us
By Pitchaya Sudbanthad"It was midsummer and we were coming home from a concert in the city. Her breath steaming against my neck, she told me about the boy from Stockholm. But he’s dead, I said. I expected her to snap out of it. She didn’t. She confessed for the whole ride. His name was Sigvard, tall and handsome, the smartest boy she’d ever met. He killed himself eight years ago..."
Fiction • 11/30/04
Me and Old Granny
By Brandon Hunter Murphy"I was pretending that I was a crazy circus performer that smoked cigarettes all day long, but still made a good buck doing tricks for the locals that came to see the show. I was swinging from the chandelier like a crazed junky when I flipped backwards and nearly broke my ass on the floor. I think I was unconscious for about a minute. When I finally came to, I was upside down on the floor with my face smashed up against the window facing my front yard. That’s when I first saw her..."
Fiction • 11/24/04
Fathers, Sons, and Sandwiches
By Chris Sullivan"Before joining the mortal world, Sandwich God had resided on Mount Olympus. But Sandwich God made the mistake of falling in love with a mortal woman. She had originally loved the prestige of her new address, not to mention the view, but she came to obsess over the fact that she was the only mortal for miles. Technically, there were other mortals on the Mount, but only if you included the swans, goats and other assorted zoo animals that Zeus had knocked up and brought home over the years..."
Fiction • 11/17/04
Crank Call
By Thomas J. Hubschman"Bob Morrissey came to see me for a checkup every six months regular as clockwork. The usual X rays, a routine cleaning. Six months later the same deal. In five years never a cancellation I can recall...Imagine my surprise when Sonia tells me someone’s called to cancel Mr. Morrissey’s one o’clock appointment because the man has died..."
Satire • 11/16/04
A Newspaper Columnist Takes a Vacation
By Lionel Beehner"Yes, columnists too take vacations. Not often, but enough to notice. They sure are missed around here. Their jobs make our jobs, and our lives, better and a bit more bearable. Their weekly assignment – to write 750 words per week on anything of their choosing, provided it has some relevance to normal folks’ lives and is full of snappy one-liners, gossipy bits, and sensational viewpoints that often polarize the readers..."
2004:
11.25 Sugar Spun Sister: Chapter Two, By Darren Kaminsky
11.18 Sugar Spun Sisters, Chapter One, By Darren Kaminsky
10.26 To Scale (An Epiphany Story), By Sarah M. Balcomb
9.28 Summer Satire Contest Second Place Winner: Letters To and From the Big Top, By John Blair
9.14 Randy's Part in the Ongoing Thing, By Lee Wilkins
8.17 You are a Cliche, By Dorian Bensen
8.10 My Word is Law, By Marcy Greene
7.22 Weapon Inspector, By Nicholas Allanach
7.15 A Review of Wake Up, Sir! By Mark Grueter
7.13 Avoidance, By Dorian Bensen
6.31 Worry, By Herbert Foster Kaufman
6.22 You Once Said: An Interview with Jonathan Ames, By Sarah Stodola
6.23 The Private Wars, By Joyce Angleberger
6.15 You First, Then I, By Sarah Stodola
6.3 Runaway Train Chronicles, By Max Lawrence Eastwood
5.27 If Conselyea Street Could Talk, By Richard Grayson
5.26 The Silent Sunday, By Jamie Fortin
3.31 Through the Mirror, Lightly, By Dan McCarthy
3.16 Excerpt from Urdoxa, By Kane X. Faucher
2.25 Frank's Neighborhood, By Corey Mesler
1.7 Eating In, By Sarah M. Balcomb
2003:
12.16 The Rapidly Disappearing Life of R. Shumway, By Nathan Eckstrom
11.4 A Place to Land, By K.J. Stevens
9.26 Oddity, By Thomas Roberge
Going Medieval On Iraq, By Meredith Clermont-Ferrand
Milk and Pee, By Tommy Schrider
Box in the Closet, By Sarah Stodola
