Fiction – Page 2 – Caustic Frolic

The Good It

Bryana Lorenzo

My friend, Stacy, once asked why I feared the bad boy—the rebel without a cause who took a drag of a cigarette in the school parking lot. Why I feared the bruises and the burn scars. Why I feared a project. Stacy asked how I could ever fall in love with a beautiful boy if I couldn’t withstand tragedy. My friend wanted a beautiful boy, needed one so much she took AP Psychology just to understand the neurons of his brain. My friend asked when I’d fall for my beautiful […]

The Good ItAdminCF2023-05-10T14:48:27+00:00

No daisy, no grass

Lucie Culerrier

I was leaving Japan soon. Something in my bones was telling me it was time. The meals had started to taste sour. The sunrises felt shorter and fainter. My feet longed for familiarity and rest. I had become too acquainted with Tokyo’s intricate streets. Each neighborhood so different from the other that my initial surprise and discovery had now made me overwhelmed with choice. I decided to go south before leaving. My mind was made. I would visit Hiroshima.

The air […]

No daisy, no grassAdminCF2023-05-10T14:48:36+00:00

Comatose

M. Blain-Hartung

Y-E-S.

Holy Mother of Mercy, I’ve actually pulled it off.

My fingers trembled as I hovered above the pale man, lying prone and completely still. Alive but not living, frozen in a deep coma. A human shell: the skin and bones, sinew and flesh, of what remained from a horrific motor vehicle accident four years past. But no — no, this was no longer quite the truth. That same human shell had just responded.

ComatoseAdminCF2023-05-10T14:48:46+00:00

Warm Drives

Quin Willets

You’re stuck on Union Turnpike. The red stoplight glares in the darkness, projecting its authority like rays from the sun.

There are cars in front of you, behind you, and to the right of you, all packed between the white lines painted on the road.

Your left is open; there’s no traffic on the other side of the street. It must be nice to drive that way.

Your thought is interrupted; your heart […]

Warm DrivesAdminCF2023-05-10T14:49:00+00:00

Portrait in Blue

V.A. Bettencourt

I’m jolted awake by a banging noise and a flashlight beaming into my tent.

“Hello, it’s the police, you need to come out,” an impatient voice announces.

I stumble out of the tent, heart racing, head still foggy from sleep. “What’s the matter?” I murmur.

“Are those your things over there, ma’am?” he asks, pointing to the suitcase and duffel bag next to my tent.

“Yes sir.”

Portrait in BlueAdminCF2023-05-10T14:49:12+00:00

Land’s End

Kate Hunneyball

I saw the job listing taped to a lamppost at Land’s End. It seemed like a strange place for an ad, but I figured they must be trying to catch people at their lowest, right before they jumped off the cliffs. And I was definitely at my lowest. After four months of unemployment, I was about ready to apply for a job in telesales. So, when I saw the flyer that read “Human Sacrifice urgently needed. £12 an hour”, I couldn’t believe my luck. £12 is way […]

Land’s EndAdminCF2022-12-29T15:54:11+00:00

After

Perdita Stott

Karl had an obsessive need for quiet.

Mary felt her eyes lingering on his face, cold now after years of silence. It had been a handsome face. Once upon a time, the strong chin and high cheekbones had seemed chiselled, manly. Now everything about him was a hard edge, jutting and serious.

“It’s going to rain,” she offers up a useless observation as a means of breaking the stifling silence at the breakfast table.

He nods once in acknowledgement before turning his attention back […]

AfterAdminCF2022-12-29T15:54:19+00:00

Darkness of the Night

Julia LaFond

The water sluiced past, singing without words to the rhythm of my rowing. The current’s melody rang out in clear tones, punctuated by the droplets that fell from the oar’s blade like my own tears. This river, dark gray beneath the clouds that blocked out the moon and stars, understood my sadness in a way no human had.

No pier waited for me on the other side: only the looming shadows of the forest, and the night breeze that rustled the leaves as it passed through […]

Darkness of the NightAdminCF2022-12-29T15:54:27+00:00

Divine Intervention

Jimmy Huff

Actually, Adam sinned a lot. Until the apple debacle, he hadn’t been caught. But he had not known the implications of his fleshly actions, either. He was simply taking inventory of them: hedging bets with the pigeons, smoking grass with the monkeys, exploring Eve’s body… all in the name of discovery. Had that not, in the final analysis, been his task, to name and to know? He was just another animal. He was new at this. But bliss—maybe it was in not knowing.

Divine InterventionAdminCF2022-12-29T15:54:33+00:00

Penances

Don Noel

Peter seemed insatiable; it was irksome.

Willie had always known, even in his earlier life, that letting anger show was a bad idea. He hadn’t been here very long, but he intuited that anger at powerful people up here was an even worse idea. Still, the man kept loading him up with work.

“Willie, call Peter,” the pager he’d been given rasped from his hip almost every day. “Call” was not to be taken literally. It meant “go see.” Or rather, […]

PenancesAdminCF2022-12-29T15:54:39+00:00