We’re different things to different people. Someone I know, though now dead, is a saint in one woman’s mind. That’s because that woman inherited the dead person’s house, worth probably two million dollars. That woman was the dead person’s step-daughter. She came into the person’s life as a hitchhiker, basically, hitching on her father’s coattails.… Read More We’re Different Things to Different People ~ fiction by Kevin Brennan

Of The Artist Septober 53rd For the first morning since I arrived, the mist has withdrawn. It’s clear enough for me to Caesarean my way out of my tent and see to the edge of this rocky outcrop I’ve ended up perched upon. The stone’s been blasted bare since before I was born, rigor mortis… Read More Of the Artist ~ fiction by Avouleance

Violet molds her palms around the glass and watches the ice settle into the green liquid. She’s sweating despite the chill. Across the patio, through the black bars of the railing, the shrubbery shivers, making a blur the same color as the substance in the glass. She glances at her watch. He’s five minutes later… Read More Foreign Bodies ~ fiction by Audrey Kalman

At the end of the world, with civilization in ruin, Mad Marx’s cell phone rang again. The words “unknown caller” flashed across a screen that was cracked and scratched from an Armageddon that even an Otterbox couldn’t fully defend against. Despite the mystery, Mad Marx knew who it was–he only got one kind of call… Read More Mad Marx’s Post-Modern Post-Apocalypse ~ fiction by Barlow Adams

Donnie was going through yet another standard tutorial area in yet another free-to-play MMO when he heard his roommate come home. The door swung open, a key scraped against its lock, and Eli said something. A woman responded. Donnie quit typing, let the automated battle play out, and then he smirked instead of smiled. “Where’s… Read More Bakery Girl ~ fiction by Lee Blevins

Wanda Strickland was seventy years old when she moved to Florida from Canada. Nice home with a grassy lawn overlooking the bay. There was a pool where she could swim daily to loosen her joints. Pretty gardens lined the pathway down to the water’s edge. Sunshiny days kept her outside. Wanda loved her gardens and… Read More Rain, Reign, Go Away ~ fiction by S. K. Nicholls

I. A FEW PRELIMINARY WORDS The term “eternal baby” originated from a story* of that title by Marion Cohen. (The story, in the author’s words, is “a Kafkaesque deal about a child who refuses to be toilet trained.) The actual medical phenomenon is most isolated. One out of every some huge number of babies is… Read More The A.M.E.B. Newsletter ~ fiction by Marion Deutsche Cohen

Nice day isn’t it, I asked my husband. Yes, it reminds me of that día cuando viajamos a la playa. What did you say? Le jour last summer, pour l’anniversaire de ma sœur.  No te recuerdes? Wait, slow down. I can’t understand you. I said I agree. It’s a beautiful day. Maybe we should go inside. It’s too… Read More What We Have Here … ~ fiction by Lori Bonati

We were worried. It was late evening. The sun was about to set. The sky hung over the Wednesday night crowd like a mat of red hot flames. It was as if the heavens were against us too. We wanted to do our jobs. They wanted us gone. It was them against us. Our group… Read More Blessed Are They ~ fiction by Katrina Byrd

1 The first time he was aware that his brother was somehow installed inside him, like a piece of covert software or a pacemaker, the two of them were in a crib. It was nighttime, and the moon was shining through the window of the room they lived in. He was anxious for some reason,… Read More 6 stillborn novels ~ fiction by Kevin Brennan

Once upon a time, a child was born with long, silky blond hair. In fact, she came out of the womb, not head first, but hair first. The doctors and nurses and her parents were both fascinated and repulsed by the sight of the bloody blond hair that lay pooled on the hospital bed. A… Read More Rapunzel, A Different Kind of Fairy Tale ~ fiction by Marie A Bailey

November 7th, 1985 Grigory kept the window rolled down because he was fighting the Sandman. A cold Siberian gale whipped through thin strands of brown hair which stretched from the top of his forehead to just below his bald crown, like long clumps of seaweed reaching out over an empty seabed. A contraband copy of… Read More Andreiana ~ fiction by Phillip McCollum

The target was coming into view. This operation had been rushed but the pieces had fallen into place and there was no reason not to expect success. Less than a week ago we had learned of a plan to sell the product from a small shop near the outskirts of Seattle. This was our chance… Read More Lucky Strike ~ fiction by Stevan Fisher

No one asked me to do this, but I think it’s a public service that needs to be performed so I’ve taken it on. I’m a cell phone Luddite – there, I said it – and see no reason to be connected to the internet at all times, or tracked by governmental entities through the… Read More The Pay Phone Project ~ fiction by Giles McDonald

The idea got into his head that nothing is for certain. What is for certain is that not much can be concluded from so-called reality, but since nothing is for certain even that is uncertain. So, better not to jump to conclusions. Then while Googling randomly one day he came upon the name of Pyrrho,… Read More The Wisdom of Pyrrho ~ fiction by Sung Lalata

… a squalid little squid of a bar possessing all the moist charm of a toxic fart laid at the root of the nose. The Three Jolly Maggots, the sign said, and offered to the discerning pubic eye three creatures eerily glowing, and these I unquestionably supposed to be the maggots in question. One of… Read More The Dreamer’s Dream ~ fiction by Boaz MacNutt