Contributor: Gary Clifton - - Hillary Washington had been Mrs. Clarence Washington until two years earlier. Then cancer took Clarence.  In a neighborhood where ninety-eight percent of the population was terrified of the other two percent, she was unafraid - Clarences's.32 still lay in a kitchen drawer.  She opened the door to a young white man.  The pirate-like bandana atop his head was probably a costume - it was Halloween.  But no treat was involved.  Her trick reward was rape, murder, arson.     Homicide sent out Detectives Harper and Garnet.  Red Harper, in Homicide since before electricity, with a thin rim of red hair surrounding plenty of bald head, was big, tough, and never without a nasty cigar polluting the atmosphere.  Margaret "Maggs" Garnet, new in Homicide, was...

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: Shannon Barber - - “I had my hands around your throat last night while you were sleeping.” I’ve been watching you all morning. I watched you shave and carefully put on your blue shirt with white French collar and cuffs, your matching tie. Now I’m looking at your face while you give me one of your ever-patient smiles. “I’ll be that was a whopper of a dream.” I try to laugh and you kiss me on the cheek, then the nose then so tenderly on the lips that I want to punch you in the face. “Don’t forget to take your pills.” You don’t understand and I don’t have the words to tell you. What I meant to say was that last night while you were sleeping I turned over and looked down at you and put my hands around your throat, I felt your pulse under my thumb and the only thing I wanted to do was squeeze. I wanted to squeeze until...

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Author: Shannon Barber

Contributor: Marie Chavez - - I have a friend who is a storyteller. Which is, in my opinion, just a nice way of saying he's a liar. The trick to being a convincing liar, I’ve heard, is to believe the story you’re telling. I always wanted to believe the stories he told. The temptation, I think, was that there was always a tantalizing amount of truth in his lies. Over the years, the Liar has told me bits and pieces of a story. When he was a child, he lived in an old house out in the country. Way in the back, nestled along the wooded tree line, there was a shed. In the shed lived a little boy who would often play with my friend the Liar. When he got a little older, the Liar moved away, leaving the shed and the old house behind. The boy from the shed followed the Liar, making his new home in the Liar’s closet. Though he’s moved many times...

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Author: Marie Chavez

Contributor: Erik Storey - - Mike stumbled down the dim corridor. He couldn't remember where he had been. He knew he was headed somewhere, but couldn't recall where. The distant lights above him were dim, making it hard to see his shuffling feet as he watched himself put one in front of the other. He abruptly fell when his forehead smacked into something solid. Somehow he managed to get to his feet and stared in awe at the shimmering portal before him. It glittered and waved, weaved and shined. It seemed to transform every time he looked at it from a different angle. There was a white aura surrounding it, and around that was nothing but darkness. While standing on his left foot, it seemed to be round, and started to split into two, but when he shifted his weight to his right, it became a rectangle and, amazingly, solid. But if he leaned...

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Author: Erik Storey

Contributor: Jesse Campen - - As a retired man, the thought of stealing someone’s car never even occurred to me. That is, until the doctors said that I only had six months to live. Since then, I’ve taken walks every day just to take the suburban neighborhood in. Five and a half month’s later, I was there, in the suited man’s sixties hot-rod. Nearly every day I took a walk, I saw it parked just a few blocks between my place and Shining Grove Hospital. The suited man always had a dark, strictly business style about him. To be honest, I was always looking at his car more than him. It was sleek, black, and souped up. It roared louder than a panther, and went from zero to sixty in less time than it’d take you to say “black mamba.” I’m not exaggerating when I say I was actually scared of it at first, but when...

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Author: Jesse Campen

Contributor: Victoria Elizabeth Ann - - Palliative care. She read it again. That couldn’t be right. Patient is receiving palliative care. Terminal renal cancer. Metastasized. Lymphatic system. The words jumped off of the page. Her father’s cancer was far worse than he had admitted. He had entered the final moments of his life and it was a surprise. Last winter, he called her at the start of her final semester in college. He let her know of the diagnosis, assuring her that they had caught it early, it could be easily treated, and that she shouldn’t worry about him. Focus on her life. Enjoy her last few months before the “real world” roared into focus. “Michelle,” he had chastised her, “This is the spring of your life. Everything is open and blossoming for you. Don’t waste it worrying about me. Enjoy the last bloom of your adolescence...

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Author: Victoria Elizabeth Ann

Contributor: Pranas Perkunas - - For lunch I strolled over to the Reality Café. It was a clean-looking, red brick building in a friendly enough neighborhood, so I was a little surprised to see only a few patrons there, especially after I got a gander at the menu; my eyes lingered long on the items advertised with bold, colorful letters or written in fancy fonts: TRUE LOVE, HARD WORK=SUCCESS, GOOD KARMA FOR GOOD PEOPLE, IF IT’s ON TV IT’s TRUE, etc. And the prices were so reasonable! I shook my hoary head with smiling disbelief. “Herow, may I hep you?” I looked up from my menu to see an astonishingly lovely waitress of the Asian kind, rockin’ that famous jet-black hair cut straight across her forehead and sporting lips like first-prize cherry blossoms. “I bet you have a lot of Facebook friends,” I said. “They shut my account...

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Author: Pranas Perkunas

Contributor: Sean Crose - - We drove on, past the marshlands and amateur photographers, past the pavilions and dog walkers and made our way to the end of the park. It was a bright, warm day in early May. Stepping out of the Chevy, we tossed our Dunkin Donuts cups in the public trash can and looked around. Couples, young and old, were scattered about, along with shirtless stoners and fishermen. The most striking thing about the park, though, was the silence. “Quiet,” Tara whispered as we headed toward the trail. I nodded my head. “Sometimes there's nothing louder than silence.” We worked our way up to a set of wooden steps that led to a rocky hill overlooking the water. It was steeper than I had remembered. “What's keeping you? I'm already at the top.” “Gimme a minute,” I said. “I'm getting there.” It was still quiet at the top of the...

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Author: Sean Crose

Contributor: Jeff Suwak - - Several dozen little people lived inside Marcia’s head. At night while Marcia slept they crawled out of her ears to talk to me. Their appearance was initially disturbing, but I came to enjoy their company. Marcia was an angry and abusive person. She often mocked me and said I was stupid, lazy, and pathetic. So it was that I laughed when the little people told me they had been poisoning Marcia for years–not enough to kill her, but just enough to make her feel sick and rundown. One night the little people invited me to meet their queen. They gave me a thimble full of elixir that turned me into a little person, and I followed them into the dark complex of caves inside Marcia’s head. The queen lived in a chamber in the heart of the caves. Inside the chamber was a well, and at the bottom of the well lived a little...

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Author: Jeff Suwak

Contributor: John Laneri - - Most Saturday mornings, I bypass the town cafe and head straight for breakfast at Aunt Jillie's Boarding House. It's a large Victorian known throughout Texas as the finest establishment in Neverton, a small community along the cattle trail to Fort Worth. Once there, I always eat breakfast with Jillie, my best friend. She's an good looking, fun loving woman that folks call, 'Aunt Jillie'. That day though, Lucinda, Jillie’s maid, stopped me in the foyer of her house, whispering, “Miss Jillie's too busy for pancakes.” Surprised, I replied, “But, she always eats a stack of your pancakes on Saturdays… says it’s her favorite.” “She's too flustered to eat,” Lucinda said. “All she’s been doing is flying around like a whirlwind. I’ve never seen her in such an excitement.” Hearing a flurry of activity coming...

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Author: John Laneri

Contributor: Robert Srange - - Seventeen-year-old Christine Anderson had been missing for twelve years and eleven months. No ransom note had ever been sent and no body had been recovered. The police and the FBI had searched under every rock, in every place they could think of to look, but had given up the search. Her mother and father had given up hope of ever seeing her alive again and closure is what they sought most desperately. Just to know what had happened would have been a release. But no news ever arrived. No call had ever been received. They sat silently and waited, staring at the walls, together. Dorothy Mae Swanson was a quiet girl. She was the kind that enjoyed serene meadows and babbling brooks. She also loved poetry books and every month, when a new volume of prose arrived she would find a quiet place and read. She had...

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Author: Robert Srange

Contributor: Hannah Garrard - - I followed the woman’s head nodding forward as she teetered on the brink of sleep. Her hair fell about her face and her jaw slackened. On her lap she clutched a designer handbag and a cake in a box with a clear lid, through which I could just make out some birthday text amongst the whipped cream. That cake won’t make it home in one piece, I said to myself. I was suddenly struck by a stab of Schadenfreude, triggered perhaps by the expensive handbag. It wasn’t difficult to spot the haircut to my left, because it belonged to a man a clear head above the rest of the crowd- squashed against the doors of the rumbling carriage. But the haircut was just the beginning: Armani sunglasses flashed reflected neon as the train sped past LED advertisements. I surreptitiously followed the angular lines which began...

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Author: Hannah Garrard

Contributor: Gary Clifton - - She was female and appeared young, burn damage too severe to really tell. "Tied to that bed, McCoy," the Medical Examiner bent over the carnage. "The autopsy will tell more." "They's been a man comin' up there nights...when her roommate is away at work," the apartment manager worked on a tall boy and a menthol filter tip at 3:00 A.M. "Tonight?" McCoy asked. It was his turn in the barrel for Homicide deep night call-outs. He'd handle the preliminaries and begin the follow up on Monday - so he thought. "Dunno...could be...just dunno." she exhaled smoke. The victim's name was Lynn and she had a lover, Charlie, a bouncer at an all night, b.y.o.b. lesbian club on Fitzhugh. McCoy figured Charlie was working when her roommate had been murdered by the man the manager had mentioned, so he delivered the tragic news...

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: Chris Sharp - - He had an unusual first name, “Stave,” which was at first explained was given as a gift by his parents to make him feel more unique. Later he learned “Stave” was a compromise between his father who preferred “Dave” and his mother who wanted to name him “Steve.” Stave stood outside his apartment door that day, locked out again. Sometimes he thought that if his name were either “Dave” or “Steve” he would have been saved from so many absurd situations in addition to being locked out. He also recognized that a man named “Stave” was somewhat like a clown named “Bozo,” which guaranteed many kinds of funny encounters. But since Stave was an only child, he kept his name going strong to honor his parents. While he stood at his locked door, waiting for something better to happen, his neighbor Scott whose life...

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Author: Chris Sharp

Contributor: Stephen V. Ramey - - February 17, 2007 began the Year of the Pig according to the Lunar New Year calendar. It was on that date that I started my quest to become Earth's fattest man. A side of bacon for breakfast, three Big Macs and triple fries for early lunch, then a plate of ribs at Zibo's an hour after that. Dinner was the immobile meal. I would routinely stuff myself so full of potatoes and pasta, with occasional salad (heavily dressed, of course) that I could not move from the sofa for hours. I began relieving myself into buckets. My wife complained, but kept cooking. I loved her more than life itself, but not more than a good steak rubbed with pepper and cooked over a low, blue flame. February 7, 2008 brought in the Year of the Rat. I was at 390 pounds, and growing fast. I had been given permission to telecommute,...

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Author: Stephen V. Ramey

Contributor: Kyle Hemmings - - I take a bus into the heart of the city of neon shams and unforgettable faces. It's a rickety old bus that wheezes and whirs and I imagine the headlights as two big eyes that can never see but provide some kind of light. The way I think about the medium who lives five stories up on Grant Avenue. Imagine if those headlights are eyes that are wired to a brain that can remember everything. Not like mine. Some years ago, I was diagnosed as brain damaged. It was very late at night and I was driving to see a woman who broke into night sweats or incomprehensible soliloquies at the thought of being alone. I was the psychiatrist on call and I made the mistake of sleeping with her, of becoming too close, of being wrapped in her own nightmares. She was once a prisoner of a war her ex-lover invented. That's how...

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Author: Kyle Hemmings

Contributor: Benjamin F Jones - - I have never really been into pedigree felines but when I saw the Persian Violet advertised in the Evening Standard, I knew it had to be mine. I took my cousin to the purchase; she is an expert on household pets and there are all sorts of horror stories about dangerous animals being botched together, re-sprayed and sold on. We arrived at 57 Nutbush Road shortly after 7pm. I was carrying a cat-box and a wodge of money. The cat played in the uncut grass of the terraced house, opalescent and glittering in the sun; racing and pouncing through the heads of dandelions. As the owner gave me a brief service history my cousin checked the oil; apparently there is an old trick where treacle is put in to disguise rattles – the cat was clean and we took it for a walk around the block. Some of the tail-bearings...

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Author: Benjamin F Jones

Contributor: M. Scibelli - - Before sunset everything appears readily apparent. He pedaled his bike into the high school football stadium at half past five. A game had been played earlier that day, and the tattered bleachers on both sides had a number of balloons tied to them. Getting off of his bike, he braced it against the home bleachers and strode down the fine gravel track toward the far end. Due to the hour, long shadows were flung to the ground by an over-zealous sun dying of age. He turned and regarded the trodden field, tired from the day’s use but still fresh at the start of the season. The field seemed to smile bleakly at him; it was a tired runner at the start of a race that it knew was much too long for it. Above the landscaped grass swarmed several dozen dragonflies, bounding off of unseen air currents and darting through...

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Author: M. Scibelli

Contributor: Kevin Pierce - - “Next.” A man walks up to my desk with a small girl in tow. I glance up just enough to see that his shirt and pants are dirty, a contrast to the girl’s Sunday-best blue dress. “Name?” I ask. “Margaret Brooks.” he says. I press the button on my intercom and restate the name. “One moment, sir.” The man places his hand on my desk and leans over. I can feel that his face is close to mine. “How long will we have?” he asks. I focus on his dirty shirt. “One minute.” “But I have so much to say.” His voice shakes. I sigh. “So do they.” I say, gesturing behind him to the endless line of fidgeting onlookers. He straightens up. “You’re right, of course. One more question. Does she know?” I look up at his face for the first time. His mouth is drawn tight, and looks like he could use a shave. His eyes are at once open...

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Author: Kevin Pierce

Contributor: Jude Conlee - - Most of the things he doesn’t understand are the kind of things that you can comprehend right off. Like his surroundings. There’s no way to argue against heat, for example, but he doesn’t comprehend that so much. I mean, he burned his own hand off once because he couldn’t tell the difference between heat and coldness. I don’t enjoy being him, really. Because I am him, you know. Well, you wouldn’t have known it if I didn’t tell you, but who cares, anyway. I don’t. He doesn’t. You do, but I don’t care about you. Like my hand. I didn’t care about that, either. Do I not care, or do I just not comprehend? You know, like the thing with the hand. Or cars. I just don’t comprehend the movements of cars sometimes. Most times I cross the street, I nearly get run over. They yell at me and say, “Are you trying to kill...

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Author: Jude Conlee

Contributor: Jesse Campen - -   The warm breeze of the late-evening desert flows through my car while I drive eighty miles per hour towards my destination: Las Vegas, Nevada.      Most go to Las Vegas with others.  I prefer to walk away with my sins alone.  No one is in my car to block the sound of my blaring-loud music.  My vision is a blur from having driven so far.      "It’s okay," I say to myself.  "The road is straight anyways."      Something past a mountain catches my eye.  Is it the lights of my destination?  No.  I know it isn’t.  I’m miles away from there.  I have a half hour to go.      I see what looks like fire shoot out of a low-flying aircraft.  The explosive sound reaches the road a second...

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Author: Jesse Campen

Contributor: Mark Slade - - Colored pebbles dream because they were apart of the genetic makeup. Softcover Mother at the touch of keywords, sitting in a synthetic chair, had to steal the body of water indefinitely.        In quick steps inside the end of the night, People babbling to themselves, playing a game heart attack.                           A droning sound of daydreaming teardrops fell from memory. - - - my name is Mark Slade. I live in williamsburg, VA with my wife and daughter. I have been published in Buriald...

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Author: Mark Slade

Contributor: Andrew Ross - - Topic Sentence “It’s my fault,” the man said to himself. “I did this.” Initiating Circumstance A boat. Water. Wind. Rain. Dialogue The man sits on the pillowed bed deep inside the sailboat’s cabin. Sees water slipping through the closed door. He thinks. Moves from the obvious to the speculative. Figures his wife and their two friends are dead. The water must have flooded the rest of the cabin by now. The boat’s probably already submerged. That bang must have been the hull hitting rocks, another boat. Maybe it was the boom collapsing. His friends were smashed when the boom fell. If he had been on deck he could have maneuvered the boat to safety. He could have prevented the mast from crushing their skulls. He could have saved them. He could have— Backstory The man had a recurring dream haunt him since youth....

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Author: Andrew Ross

Contributor: Geoffrey Carter - - They say your entire life flashes in front of your eyes before you die. They also say that light travels at a speed of 299,792,458 meters per second. Of course it is easier to tell how fast light is going than it is to tell what you see before death. The only reason people say this is because they believe the ones that go about bragging that they “died for six seconds.” It’s like trying to remember how many kids were on the bus on your first day of kindergarten versus how many sharks there are in the sea. I think there were eighteen kids minus the eighth graders who boarded after I did and forced me to move out of “their seat” in the back.                As for the sharks, the only amount I can give you is number...

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Author: Geoffrey Carter