When Deidre crossed Broadway against the traffic and stepped onto the curb, phone in hand, it was a transformative—albeit confusing—moment. A moment when the choice, for Henry, was to stare with stunned amazement or suddenly perform surrealist-influenced performance art. She was a good kid until she chose to manipulate and triangulate, until she was trapped in a corner, like a cheap 1950s wind-up doll, arms … Continue reading Turning the Corner by Mike Lee
“You know we could kill all these people, and they wouldn’t even see it coming,” Aaron said, as we were walking around Nick’s neighborhood in Pelham, after getting shot at by farmers on four-wheelers in a cow field in Chelsea for trespassing to harvest mushrooms. Psilocybe cubensis, if you wanna get specific. We all just looked at Aaron, pretending to be in shock. We weren’t … Continue reading Cathedral for Bad Decisions by Dee P. R. Kay
I look up again at the tree above me—the kind that seems to appear only in childhood. Parisian spring light filters through its young branches and lays itself across my body. I have no wish to disparage Paris in spring; her sun is warm, dazzling even, and yet she feels cold to me—not in temperature, but in tone. This season’s light carries no golden filter, … Continue reading Post-Spring by Leon Sun
The Worker riffles through the pages of his black binder, going through the motions of preparing for his next meeting. After a moment, bored, he claps the binder shut. No need to bother with this sort of thing anymore. Success like his has its rewards. He stands quietly in the center of his immense office—his sanctuary—each detail of which he has personally chosen. Bright and … Continue reading Walls by Caroline Tilley
His daughter, Penny, perches on the piano stool, delivering an exegesis on being dissociative as the father sits calmly on the cat-clawed leather chair, gob-smacked. Fortunately, this ramble only comes occasionally, but when she starts, he sinks into the worn black leather until he is one with the fabric. Penny has been erratic since the summer before college. This included arguments that ended with the … Continue reading A Morning by Mike Lee
“We’ll fall into a chaos.” Renee’s tone is mundane, like ordering breakfast at a diner. I should not have gotten drunk with her, knowing the psychotropic medications she is prescribed and how ineffective they become under the influence, and how fucking crazy she gets. Yet she was buying, and I am cheap. The fields of regret expanded as the effects of the scotches I drank … Continue reading Theater by Mike Lee
On the cold blister of a dead, broken highway walked the spectral blurs of three figures. A minuscule speck of dim light glowed from the center of the group. Ethereal beings? Perhaps…once upon a long ago time. Now just three individuals looking for a hot meal and a dry bed. The light itself felt like a memory, was nothing but a feeble tin lantern to guide their way, … Continue reading Three Strangers by Josiah Golojuh
He got me with The Thin Man. But first he had to get my attention. It wasn’t tough. Colin had all the equipment: pearl-gray eyes, fauxhawk hair and a deft way of embedding words like “soporific” and “inculcate” in that vermouth-over-ice voice of his. I’d come to the bar as a refugee from a recent breakup. So had he. We found our way to a … Continue reading Thin Man Binge by Steven Fromm
It was with a pep in his step that Robert Quinlan, a recently retired corporate attorney hailed in his firm’s parting tribute for, among other fine qualities, his “unfailing courtliness,” emerged one bright autumn morning from a 66th Street medical building. Here he was, the brand-new recipient of a cardiologist’s clean bill of health, which followed last week’s thumbs up from his general practitioner, and on … Continue reading The Office of the Presidency by Michael Tilley
I don’t know. Can you drink enough coffee to keep properly alert all night just staring at a fresh dead body? Listening for the slightest sound? That most delicate twitch of the lips. A finger twitch. We do it, but come morning, who can remember if they’ve managed to stay fully awake enough to do the job? There’s always that chance you’ve drifted off and … Continue reading A New Sittin’ Up by Larry D. Thacker
