Fictional Worlds

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 […]

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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 […]

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Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer How were we to know How far this war would go? We weren’t ready, We’re never ready, To be over. Bombs rained down without warning. The Keloden landed on the planet the next day, while we huddled in a shattered basement. Clinging to each other, and the things we thought […]

archived 23 Aug 2022 13:39:20 UTC

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer Silicon ash flutes through ink and glints as ascending blackened leaves in my wake. I can hear my vertebrae as they torque. I hear them and the chatter shatters as they arch. I hear them even as my ears sear from my head and the torque turns to a gut-spat […]

Author: Hillary Lyon “It happened right here,” I breathlessly exclaim to my friend. She grins and looks towards the old office building. I point to a corner window on the topmost floor. The gaggle of tourists behind us gasp and raise their cameras to take snaps of the old five-story red brick building. My friend […]

archived 23 Aug 2022 13:37:02 UTC

Author: Majoki “A solution to our problem requires a certain amount of ordered chaos,” Hsiang explained to his cellmate as they used the guard’s severed head to gain entry into DeadPan’s nerve center. “To find a workable answer we need to invite a wide range of possible solutions. Early on, this requires a certain amount […]