by Janelle Hardacre She doesn’t cry. She didn’t when she was attacked by a punter last week or when another woman stole the trainers off her feet. She didn’t cry when she was rattling and only had …

by Adam Lock The toilet seat was cold and wet beneath her; he’d been pissing on it for months — for as long as the lightbulb had blown. She sighed, imagined him standing over the toilet, his eyes c…

by Rebecca Williams The hockey stick cracks down on his head like a spoon bashing an egg, blood oozes out like yolk. The look on his face is one of extreme surprise, as if he’d found his passport a…

by Meg Tuite Words do everything but shut-up. Many times once over is never the same once. Ester loses a spelling bee twice to Thomas the earwig. Three times Ester hooks a backpack around her arms …

by Rebecca Field I cried in the bank that day. Fat tears slid down my cheeks, making dark spots on my corduroy skirt. Lord knows what they must have thought of me. Maybe that I was grieving; that I…

A Brief and Fearful Star A new short story from Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties. via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2MsVFSC

The sky is on fire. Bright oranges and deep reds collide with wisps of smoke that mark the location of our last camp. Every day they come for us. Every day we flee toward a prize marked with a flag…

The sun was just setting when a car with heavy tinted windows pulled up to the dilapidated plantation at the end of an overgrown private way. A beefy, dark skinned woman wearing a secondhand flower…

Welcome The snow whipped at his eyes, nearly blinding him. Frostbitten and exhausted, he could go no farther. He’d been walking for two days. That’s when the blizzard hit and…

MRS. UNDERWOOD By Daniel C. Roche Mrs. Underwood lifts a cup of coffee toward her lips. Black. No cream or sugar allowed. A woman of her advanced age can no longer af…

PLEASE STAND CLEAR I have mastered the art of being alone without succumbing to loneliness. Anyone on the outside looking in through the tinted train windows might think such a statem…

It was after the toilet scrubber was delivered that she saw them. It was dark, save for the security lights, and Paula rarely went out at night to collect her online shopping deliveries. But she&…

The road didn’t change, strangely enough, the further south that she drove. Same dash lights inside the car, and same songs on the radio, she’d switch stations and cities, but the songs stayed the …

Whit had been standing in the frozen meat aisle for a few minutes before he noticed her, reflected in the glass of the freezer door he was analyzing meats through. She was large, enormous even, her…

When I’m tired enough that I think I can lay down to sleep without having any thoughts, a woman enters my mind. She’s been waiting for me, I imagine, waiting her whole life behind her dark hair, al…

Six months. Maybe a year. I thought, make up your mind. When you’re teetering on the edge, the difference between six months and twelve months really matters. Did I have the extra six months or did…

The Tsar was alive. His wife and children were alive. The story about their deaths in Yekaterinburg was fabricated by those hoping to liberate – rather than liquidate – the imperial family. Rescued…

Summer was the worst for wearing galoshes. Sweat pooled in the bottoms making every step feel like Gonzo was sloshing through a swamp. They had become an unfortunate necessity with the muck on the …

He pries out one of her eyeballs with the tip of a screwdriver and rolls it between his fingers while her good eye stares out at him. He’d expected to see some blood. Maybe if he pushes the screwdr…

The woman was awakened by the sliver of light that peeked through the crack of the window, where the tattered sheet was unable to cover. Drawing her knees closer to her chest, she shivered in the m…

Paul was running. His goal within reach, he picked up his pace, as usual, dodging any obstacles in his path. Nothing could prevent him from getting there and seeing his shadow racing alongside hi…

Stella finds herself standing in an unlit laneway. The entertainment strip, in all its tacky glory, glitters in the night a block closer to the river from where she is. It’s full to the brim …

At six a.m. he strode back and forth in the road. Across the ditch and the big front yard, he could see the lights in the kitchen. He sidled over to the next window. The candle burned on the dining…

I see my sister’s face everywhere. It’s on magazine covers, collectors’ edition stamps, and giant billboards at the side of the motorway advertising furniture deals that are out of this world. Even…

I’m assaulted by the afternoon sun as I step out of the airport and wait for a taxi. I’d forgotten how hot the European sun is at midday; can practically feel the freckles bursting across my nose. …

I know a man who has had a goldfish for seven years. In captivity, I understand, a goldfish’s life rarely stretches beyond three. So, upon learning at a dinner party the other day about this wonder…

My hands shook so badly I could barely grip the controls of my wheelchair. I had been in the lavatory trying to clean spaghetti off the front of my shirt when I heard something like firecrackers c…

“This is the place” “Yes, I remember.” Her seventy-nine-year-old eyes were large and ripply behind her thick spectacles. Her face a mass of ridges topped by a puff of grey-white hair. We walked up …

Wincing as she burnt her tongue on her coffee Charlotte set the mug down on the table and turned the page of the photo album. A bride and groom filled the pages, their smiles leaping out from their…

He stood on the screened-in front porch, shifting from foot to foot. Though it was a cool fall afternoon in the little South Dakota town, a thin runner of sweat fell down the collar of the starched…