Dylan James Brock While Sarah Witherspoon was still alive she was a mockingbird with a tin ear. Her attempts to recreate beauty never did justice to what she mimicked. When not insulting her outright, people called her Spoony. She was a plain brunette with thin hair and a thick brow that kept her from being pretty. The most remarkable aspect of her was how hard she tried and failed to be remarkable. Spoony wore different colored sneakers to...

Alan Drew PART 3 OF 4 Read Part 1 Here Read Part 2 Here She made the mistake of turning on the television–something to relieve the silence of the house–and there he was on the evening news, a headline, one of three bodies. On a radio talk show a psychologist discussed the state of our children and included David in an epidemic of childhood immorality that included the burning of a church, the beating of a woman in Golden Gate...

Alan Drew PART 2 OF 4 Read Part 1 Here She and Dominic had only been meeting for three weeks, but it had really started months before that with a journal entry she wasn’t supposed to read. Nothing about Seth’s appearance betrayed a bat wielding attacker, and Bryson, he was on his way to UCLA, a good student, one of her favorites. What the fuck happens to people? I mean, they get old and turn into fascist dictator nazis who’ve...

Daniel Frankenfield Rick and I sat in the living room, breath falling from our mouths. The television was on but no cable to watch. We needed money. We needed cigarettes, food, heat and all the other things, but mostly money. There was a Uni-Mart up the street. Rick toyed with a hand rolled cigarette until the thing fell apart in his hands. It was true. It was a solid looking piece and could have fooled anyone. Rick paced the...

The first installment of "Gardens of Water" author Alan Drew's original novella, which will be serialized in our three subsequent issues.

Sam Ramos The balloon drifted into the clouds and then a thousand more joined it. The pilots inside leaned out to her, each becoming ever smaller in the offing. It wasn’t that she was sad, though she was. It was life’s awful brilliance – the eternity of every single thing, small and big. A flood brought misery with it, but the click of her heels when she walked was sublime. Families were executed in turbulent times, but the scent of...

Nick Kimbro I listened for the fourth beat and felt how, as it passed, my entire body seemed suspended. 1-12-2011, 8:42 pm—Deceased brought in from snow. After signing transfer form, delivering officer, Deputy Desmond Fogle [#347], makes crass remark about deceased’s ‘knockers’ before surrendering Oklahoma state license with the name ‘Heidi Gordon’ printed beside an approximate picture of the deceased. I examine picture, and...

Robert Rosenberg Her days are structured by the repetition of small unanswerable questions: The Silver State. Why only silver? In the morning, in slippers, Asail steps down the hall, stops to check that he’s still sleeping, and opens the front door. A grey towel is draped over her shoulder. She changes to flip flops she found for 99 cents at the Walgreens across the street. She loves that Walgreens, loves its miraculous selection of...

Lissa Franz Ian knew the pieces didn’t fit, but he wanted them to fit very badly, and the angrier Ian got, the harder he tried to make his anger into something that would change the way things worked. It was Kurt’s turn to host the neighborhood playgroup, and he felt uneasy as he located the Equal packets behind the sugar bowl. The women attending his little gala – his nascent fête – were all women who discussed him. He was a...

Saramanda Swigart 1. Twins, Age 34 Small One-Bedroom Apartment, East Village, Manhattan The knocking lasts an hour and forty-seven minutes. As always, the neighbors stay quiet. I lie still, listening. It begins timidly at 1:32 a.m. and ceases at 2:49 a.m., according to my bedroom clock. I keep the clock six minutes fast, so truly the sobbing begins at precisely 2:43 a.m., and it savages my heart. I chew at a nail. I chew two or...