by Christine Seifert Ellen’s room could hardly be called a room; it was more of a storage closet, a tiny, airless enclosure right off the kitchen. Just big enough for a bed and a wooden shelf where she kept her clothes neatly folded. Underneath the … Continue readingDeterminism

by Kimaya Kulkarni She sits down on the cold stone floor and settles back between the legs of her ancestor. Her hair let down, she closes her eyes as the wrinkled fingers find every dry space on her scalp and flourish it with coconut oil. … Continue readingSapiens

When I learned the universe was going to give us a Neil Clark flash collection, I pressed the preorder button faster than a packet of photons screaming from the Sun. … Continue readingReview: Time. Wow.

by Neil Clark … my head made holes in the ceiling, then my neck tore strips through the beautiful mansard roof of our perfect imperfect home. I told you I was sorry. I told you if you wanted to go and live somewhere that protected … Continue readingWhen I Turned Into a Giraffe…

by Lou Vargo Nylons, makeup, hair, lipstick. That’s been her routine for over twenty-five years if she so much as steps foot outside the house. She did it during the war when she worked at the plant and all the men were overseas. She’s done … Continue readingLeftovers

by Barbara O’Byrne At thirteen, us girls pony; men bounce on the moon. Our suburban world is symmetrical lawns, split levels, and Dairy Queen. Vietnam is something on TV, an American thing. Facts are true. Anyone can look them up. The talk is all football … Continue readingTriangulation

by Aryanna Denk When I first brought home the boy who would be my husband, he insisted on walking up the wheelchair ramp leading into the side of my house. This is stellar, he said. He heel-toed the slight incline and I wheeled behind him. … Continue readingLesser Known Erogenous Zones

by Chella Courington The radio, on low, played constantly. Muriel lay in her bed listening to Hank Williams wail. She could see her mother in a red flowered apron, bow at the back, turning up the volume. Her favorite was “I’m So Lonesome I Could … Continue readingWhen Leaves Begin to Die

by Laurie McCulloch Through the kitchen window she spies the parachute, a tiny scrap of cloth poking through the melting snow. Attached to a plastic soldier once, it lies unburdened, flat as a collapsed lung. He commandeered a whole troop, she remembers. Sergeants and lieutenants … Continue readingThe Brave Must Land Softly (An Ambush)

by Shelagh Powers Johnson The story begins like a closed fist, tight and finite. The facts are simple, unchanging. It happened how it happened; no need to wonder. But over time, the fingers begin to uncurl, stretching and searching, as if maybe there is more … Continue readingJump