1. On my morning walk along the service road, I see through the chain-linked fence a man on his knees. He’s smashing his fist, the flesh of which is a bloody mush, into the pebbly shoulder of the highway. The sound of it is like the slapping of a paper bag full of wet sticks into concrete. He’s not an old man, but not young either. There’s a bouquet of flowers on the ground beside him. He’s weeping and cursing. I call through the fence, “Hey man, please don’t do that. Please . . .” He stops, … [Read more...] about Even on Good Nights
ISSUE 61
Caitlin Horrocks, “Paradise Lodge” “The plane from Cuzco arrives only a little late, the minibus gets only a little stuck on the muddy road, the long motorized canoe scrapes threateningly at the river bottom but does not run aground. This group of tourists is not as fat as the last one, Victor notices cheerily. They are easily charmed, too—by the sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves that Victor serves from a cooler for lunch; by the cartoon jaguar that the park security checkpoint stamps in … [Read more...] about ISSUE 61
ISSUE 60
Chris Leslie-Hynan, “Black Sugar” “It wasn’t until almost the end that she knew she would be a song. All through the summer she was nearly certain their life together would prove too dull to write about. His music was such a constant procession of ménages à trois in club bathrooms, of course he would turn out to be a homebody. And yet it could have really been like that, hour after hour of fashion wear and fellatio—she thought him the only man in America about whom the revelation of a … [Read more...] about ISSUE 60
ISSUE 65 – The Emerging Writers Issue
Emma Copley Eisenberg, “Ray’s Birthday Bar” “At Ray’s Birthday Bar, we specialize in birthdays. A free shot if you can show me a driver’s license that proves it’s your day, two free ones if the address on said license is South Philadelphia, and if you’re a lifer with ten years of loyal patronage, the number’s three, and Ray will turn on the disco ball. I read somewhere that you have to get twenty-three people in the same room before there is a fifty percent chance that two of them will have … [Read more...] about ISSUE 65 – The Emerging Writers Issue
ISSUE 64 – The Novella Issue
Max Ross, “Nobody Remains in the Garden” “No, it wasn’t raining yet. But the clouds were coming in, and Mark Ross, convinced that rainfall contributed to his baldness (he’d read about this in one of the three newspapers he subscribed to), popped open his umbrella. As they walked around the lake, his and his wife’s shoulders touched beneath its dark green canopy, which fluttered slightly, like a wing, in the pre-drizzle breeze. There wasn’t much hair left to protect—a sparse brown-gray … [Read more...] about ISSUE 64 – The Novella Issue
ISSUE 63 – Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Issue
Bret Anthony Johnston, “Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows About Horses” “His daughter’s first horse came from a traveling carnival where children rode him in miserable clockwise circles. He was swaybacked with a patchy coat and split hooves, but Tammy fell for him on the spot, and Atlee made a cash deal with the carnie. A lifetime ago, just outside Robstown, Texas. Atlee managed the stables west of town; Laurel, his wife, taught lessons there. He hadn’t brought the trailer—buying a pony hadn’t … [Read more...] about ISSUE 63 – Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Issue