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Fiction
Heavenly Bodies
As the new millennium drew near, Erin’s family began preparing for the apocalypse. Jesus was going to return at the stroke of midnight, appearing in the New York City skyline as the ball dropped on TV and the moon turned to blood.
June 2023Shock Value
In general my job was predicated on my ability to suppress rage. I was an itinerant instructor, an adjunct whose career depended on good reviews from my co-instructor.
May 2023Sound Art
Outside the airport he saw a white girl with dreads in a T-shirt with the Rising Phoenix logo — a bird with wings on fire. She’d even written his name with a Sharpie on a piece of paper, along with the word Media, which is what he’d claimed to be.
April 2023Dating Profile
What’s on my mind lately: How to survive the winter alone with a roaming catamount who needs a snack. I asked advice from the guy who plows our driveway. “What should I do if I see it?” He stuck his head out of the truck window: “Don’t act like food.”
March 2023The Den Mother Has Her Say
Before we eat our snow cones, pet this dog. Don’t expect to earn a Wolf badge for your troubles. . . . Move slowly down the back, like you’re taking your fingers on a trip, until you get to the bulge on the haunch. Yes, it’s a tumor. Yes, it’s cancerous. Pet it like it’s nothing special, just part of the dog.
February 2023A Sandwich Is A Concept
Our biggest fear was dogs. Ronnie and I looked up dog facts like maniacs. Can dogs smell through plastic? Does the USPS use drug dogs? How do you trick drug dogs? How effective are drug dogs? Are drug dogs a scam that the government uses to justify illegal searches?
January 2023Frights
Ellie was a bedroom ghost: a dream-visitant, a gentle levitator, a classic cold-sweat presence-in-the-corner, but she felt under-sung. It’s not like the old days, she told us. They attribute everything I do to Ambien—
December 2022Thursdays For Haru
Haru Jenkins’s husband has been abducted at 3:23 AM every Thursday for six years. . . . It should go without saying that aliens abduct him.
December 2022Pinecones
When my wife said, “Linda? Really?” I found myself stammering, denying it. “What?” I asked. “No.” Like my wife was being crazy. Why do men do that: act like women are crazy when they see us most clearly?
November 2022Beachcombers In Doggerland
As he watches his daughter vanish in one direction and his wife in another, he thinks whatever it was that once held his family together has long since gone the way of that doomed landmass, swallowed by the sea.
October 2022Has something we published moved you? Fired you up? Did we miss the mark? Send A Letter