Nell was skinny and wan. Her hair was brown, darkening to black, and her eyes were brown and sad. Henry did not understand why he loved her, for he had always considered himself a shallow man when it came down to it, with a head turned by shallow beauty and flashy teeth and eyes. Nell was a calm, dark pool. She was also probably the greatest artist of her generation.

archived 24 Aug 2022 13:52:56 UTC

I am dying of the war, though not in it. Such is the nature of wars. A person doesn’t have to die in battle to be killed by a war. A person doesn’t even have to be a soldier to die of one. Wars have always been slow killers as well as quick. The war […]

Author: Samuel Stapleton My brain was working faster than my eyes as I took in the flood of information through my augment hud at my desk. I quickly began realizing that whoever this person was, they were completely serious. I spent maybe twenty minutes having meltdown after complete meltdown, and then I shut everything off. […]

archived 5 Oct 2019 17:39:24 UTC

We have a history of missed connections, you and I. Years ago, when you called goodbye from the shuttle launch, my flight was landing in Zurich. I’d changed planes, been re-routed from Frankfurt. That’s why you got my voicemail. I’d have answered if I could, and would’ve wished you luck, even if you wanted a life without me. I never managed to see Europa, like you did—just Europe, where I met my first husband. The one I wished was you.

archived 5 Mar 2014 21:20:13 UTC

archived 10 Sep 2019 12:34:12 UTC

archived 18 Sep 2019 12:43:08 UTC

Author: Chris Hobson George was the company’s fired man. Every chain had one, and George was Talljeef’s. It worked like this: a customer would grow irate about a mixup with their groceries, eyes even with their shoulders. Unappeased by the offer of store credit or vouchers, they’d demand satisfaction from a fired man. Dialing up […]

archived 24 Aug 2022 13:38:04 UTC

archived 8 Sep 2019 18:42:50 UTC

The street is wrong; it is obvious now. On the way back to the house, wrapped square in right-hand pocket, the disarrangement is visible to her. It is in the position of the branches. Last night she heard the storm, her eyes locked on the claw marks of ceiling light, her ears dividing the sounds into subcategories: paper whipping the pavement, a somersaulting tin can, the low vocal scrape of a plastic lid. The downed branches lie where the storm left them. The way they lie is wrong. The detail takes time to present. She stands for a while looking and eventually it comes into focus. By David Hering.

You don’t know if you were born wrong or if it’s because on the way home from the hospital there was a big storm and your daddy wrecked the car and your mama dropped you in the floorboard. Y’all all survive but you aren’t right. You are the oldest son. You grow up to be the tallest of your brothers and sisters. A short story by Ashleigh Bryant Phillips.

archived 1 Oct 2019 12:25:29 UTC

This is the title of my son’s next book as he dictated it to me this past Saturday, sitting on my lap. Then he got distracted by the fact that my computer doesn’t have emojis, and his father’s does, but his father, my ex, doesn’t live with us anymore. He lives around the block, per… Continue reading All About Things That Can Hurt

archived 24 Aug 2022 12:17:42 UTC

When an alien walks into a human kite maker’s store, coveting her kites, the human struggles with her guilt over her part in the alien massacres…

Sungrass Girl by Uchechukwu Nwaka   My first memory of the Light is her face. Her round eyes that swelled in curious wonder and innocent inquisition. I remember the way the light from the incandescent bulb fell on her face, outlining her dark skin in paint strokes of shimmering gold that twinkled right into her […]

archived 23 Aug 2022 13:51:19 UTC

Author: Rachel Sievers The old man sat with the shotgun in his lap. He sat in the wooden rocker facing the door. He had survived on this earth for eighty-seven years and when death came he would face it as he had lived, eyes open and hands full. The wooden cabin had been built by […]

archived 23 Aug 2022 13:50:10 UTC

archived 23 Aug 2022 13:46:46 UTC