John Paul Jaramillo When the green line bus cried to a stop near La Veta, Colorado, Lena sat alone. Tired and nervous, she finally sank into sleep as most of the passengers read or conversed to pass the miles. Within minutes she woke to worry and wonder. She told herself not to think too much about rejection or children. For a moment she cheered herself as she unhurriedly looked through her purse and then her wallet for her mama’s rosary....

Perle Besserman “Rosie had in fact approached the bar, placed one purple-veined elephant leg on the brass rail, and was preparing to launch one of her unsolicited performances.” The doctors in Mexico City learned early not to cry. Sergio, a visiting surgery fellow in our Roosevelt Hospital residency training program, would describe the operations he’d performed in cemeteries without so much as a catch in his voice; and his...

Amanda Viviani Anne-Marie and Emily both wore eyeliner and purple iridescent lipstick by sixth grade; they blotted their shiny mouths in the third-floor girls’ bathroom and traced thick lines onto their lips. Except Celeste was the first to buy department store lip gloss and leggings. Celeste was always first, and she liked it that way. Hannah always followed Celeste, even when she stole her mother’s Dunhill cigarettes and...

Kirsten Clodfelter Alone in Michael’s car, I steal moments of sleep without meaning to. I try to keep my eyes open, and each time they close I instinctively jerk myself awake. It’s early, a few minutes before seven. My husband thinks I’m at the gym, and in twenty minutes he’ll start to wonder why I’m not back at home getting ready for work. Michael is inside Kara’s Coffee buying breakfast. This is where we go after we’ve...

Sam Ramos Jerome’s collar put pressure on his windpipe and his backpack dug into his shoulders. It was the discomfort typical to every morning’s train ride and he soon forgot it. His thoughts drifted back to where they’d been since the previous night when Meg shut off the T.V. and arranged her body to face his. He’d heard her words and a moment later he took her in his arms. He looked over her shoulder at the room and wondered when,...

Marcos Soriano Cradled within his palm, slightly brighter in color than the pink of his skin, was a single pill. Roughly triangular in shape, and no larger than a child’s first tooth, the pill had cost him more than the equivalent of a year’s lease on his Volvo V70. It was love itself. He’d spent more than three weeks searching for it. He’d met with strangers in dark alleyways and the backs of booming clubs. He’d paid dearly...

Ryan McCarl It began, to pick an arbitrary beginning, with a key that would not turn in a lock. I hauled my first load of bags and boxes into a Mass Ave complex, struggling through two heavy gates with my car against the curb. Up a slow, sweating elevator, and I gratefully dropped everything in the hallway, inserted the key, and turned – and nothing happened. A half-hour of phone calls later it came to light that the place for which I...

Marcos Soriano “Teach me how to pray,” she says, and gets down on her knees. Becky Sims, a wispy, straw-haired freshman. Eyes blackened with mascara, a wash of rouge painted over blemished skin. You’ve only seen her once before, in the first meeting of your “Mystery of God” course. Now she kneels in front of you, barely a breath away, on the Persian rug that covers your office floor. The resource bookshelf looms at...

Terry Sanville I hadn’t seen him for days. The seat next to me on the bus to San Fernando Junior High stayed empty. There were rumors: a fiery car crash, a crippling polio attack, the Russians kidnapping his whole family. The Sanders’ Studebaker was missing from their driveway. My mind conjured fantastic tales. But on Saturday afternoon, something bounced against my bedroom window and I saw him climbing our walnut tree. “Aaron,...

J. Andersen The assignment was simple, the man, not so. All I had to do was spend a week poking, probing, and if necessary, pulling from him the information required. After waiting a half hour at the pub, I was about to leave, flustered, when I saw my quarry enter…sharp, exact, and malign. He headed straight towards me, glowing cigarette leading the way, hat at a jaunty angle, worn sports jacket highlighting his small frame. Extending...