Short Story

The Smoke in the Room

Courtney Patterson

I’m inside the smoke filled claustrophobia of his barracks apartment. The carpet is uncomfortable and tight, a dingy grey green in color. My mother is drunk. She always is when we come here. It’s been a few weeks since Donald. Or maybe it’s been days, I can’t be sure. Daylight seems to pass slowly and quickly simultaneously, and my nightmares are only getting worse and more persistent. My mother won’t stop talking about it. I wish she would just stop. I relive it enough inside my own head on a daily basis. Every time […]

The Smoke in the Room2020-06-08T06:56:34+00:00

Fare

Rowan O’Neal

When the old man boarded the bus dragging his rolling metal basket, laden with groceries, he joked that he had nearly 200 pounds. The driver asked how far he was going, to which the old man replied, “Oh two, three stops, just up to the top of the hill.” There really was not much of a hill, but it was clear that the old man would not have been able to drag his groceries that far. The driver told the man not to worry about his fare which seemed sensible, […]

Fare2020-06-08T06:56:23+00:00

On The Night You Were Angry

Fiona Haborak

In the reflective glass, you spy a distorted version of yourself. An agitated woman stares back. So, you shrink a little further into yourself, shoulders hunched to avoid attention. Dark circles hang under your eyes far heavier than your Burlington bag bargain find. Cheap, purple earbuds jostle with every stop announced over the intercom. You sigh and shuffle closer to the sliding doors to make for a swift exit.

You must be tired of the songs they write about girls: the ones you will never be. You’re drowning in your oversized sweater, your woolen […]

On The Night You Were Angry2020-06-08T06:56:16+00:00

The Rise and Fall of Prince Charming

Mark Axelrod-Sokolov

Not too long ago, but sometime after the break up, Malarkey happened to be in Paris for a writer’s conference. He generally avoided writers’ conferences because they tended to be a bit too pretentious for Malarkey, what with everyone there thinking he or she was a better writer than everyone else who was there there thinking he or she was a better writer than everyone else who was there thinking he or she was a better writer than everyone else who was there cacoethes scribendi. That […]

The Rise and Fall of Prince Charming2020-06-08T06:56:09+00:00

Scotch

J. David Liss

I

The train was about to pull out of Union Station, the conductor talking and talking over the loudspeaker system so that nobody could make a phone call. I’d gotten on board early and found my favorite seat — the aisle seat at the front of the car facing back. I liked being able to see the faces of the people riding with me, even if it meant looking back where we came from. 

The front of the train always has a four-seater, two facing forward, […]

Scotch2020-06-08T06:56:04+00:00

Psychosomatic

Sarah Jane Weill

It was in her head. Mostly along the length of her jaw, radiating upwards and outwards and backwards so that it often gripped the whole globe of her skull. A gnawing pain. A sensation unlike anything she’d experienced before. Alive and furious at all hours. 

Phoebe didn’t remember when the pain started, only when it became something she couldn’t ignore. A Tuesday, last month, the drizzle outside threatening to swell into drops. Normally, Phoebe liked this kind of day, easily aligned with an afternoon sheltered in the university […]

Psychosomatic2020-09-14T16:38:24+00:00

Free Counseling

Scott Reel

“No one takes mental health seriously—or seriously takes people without mental health. I guess the result is the same. It’s easier nowadays to gain a handicap spot for being colorblind than it is an extension on a class paper for depression and anxiety. But that’s not why I’m here, although I wish it were that simple. And to answer your next two questions, yes, I’ve thought about hurting myself, and, yes, I’ve thought about hurting others, but only philosophically in the first case and romantically in the second. 

“By philosophically, I mean […]

Free Counseling2020-06-08T06:45:37+00:00

Mirage


Mirage

Fiona Haborak

These days, he’s a corpse. An automaton crookedly shambling down the migraine-inducing neon strip, wrinkled suit wet from stale liquor and sweat. He squints while trying to bring her lazy image into focus. An out-of-focus apparition makes him lose track of time. The face of his watch suffers a splinter from his most recent bender. 

‘Lo and behold, there she is, amongst the sea of tourists and one-day marriage lovebirds, with that handsome magazine man by her stick-thin side. Mafia, he suspects, by the way he’s packing, […]

Mirage2020-06-08T06:55:14+00:00
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