Category: Fiction

Miscellaneous Language novel excerpt by Pablo D’Stair

I KEPT THE ONE DRAWER of the desk, the one third down or second up, depending how your mind works, arranged rather meticulously, this in contrast to the other drawers of the rather hulking thing – drawers in two rows to either side of the chair. The two large drawers, these in the row nearest…
I CAN SEE YOU WRITE #2: Neil Clark

This is Lucy. I CAN SEE YOU WRITE is a collaborative project where I work with writers to create interactive and/or generative poetry and stories. You write stuff and I write code and we come up with a visual narrative and user experience built for the web. The sky and JavaScript is the limit. I’m…
“Mom’s House”: A Haunted Passages Flash Fiction by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

My double is bored; I tell him it’s not my fault—he still looks at me judgmentally. So we have a staring contest, because they’re fun, and the loser has to give the winner a piggyback ride. “All the way to Mom’s house,” I drawl, raising the stakes. “Smoking cigarettes,” my double shoots back, knowing how much…
“Lunch Break”: A Bad Survivalist Short Story by Stephanie Austin

The sky over my chosen park bench is summer and painful. Fold my hands. Block out the kids running with the little red ball. Close my eyes. Breathe. The bench shifts. Another woman, an older woman, situates herself next to me. She smells like cinnamon gum. She reaches into her coat pocket, and her elbow…
“Ten Reasons Why You, as a Country’s President, Should Send a Congratulation Message to a New President of Another Country,” a short story by Zhihui Zou

#10: You need someone to talk to because you have poisoned the tea of all your colleagues. #9: You need to suck up to them because your country has no nukes. #8: You need to remind the public that your country is actually a country and not a joke. #7: You and they share the…
“Sour Candy”: A Haunted Passages Flash Fiction by Lindy Biller

My mother carried bright colored candies with her everywhere. Usually Skittles or M&M’s. It didn’t strike me as odd until years after she was gone. She would stop at a red light and reach into the Ziploc bag in her pocket. She created her own complicated meaning system for each color—red meant turn back, green…
Flavor Town USA Fiction: “Dangerous Soup” by Alicia Bones

Diner comment cards from The Wild Boar: “The soup’s the only thing I ever order because it’s the only food I dream about. Why do you have anything else on the menu? The soup’s the only thing anybody wants.” —Addie R. “It’s fabulous. He’s outdone himself. This is the best soup we’ve ever had!” —The…
Flavor Town USA Fiction: “Cake Every Day” by Mike Lewis-Beck

Liam finds himself at a crossroads. His wife, Carla, has exiled him from their comfortable Iowa home, and he’s seeking solace in Oregon—Portland, to be exact, where he, a fifty-year-old Professor of Poetry, has secured a lowly visiting appointment at a local college. While that is a crossroads for him, it is not the crossroad. That crucial…
Regard novel excerpt by Pablo D’Stair

IT WAS UNTIL A POINT she was uncertain of she had kept a list of the topics on which they had walked at night (coming usually to rest under the several trees upon the bit of hill near the roadside) lost in discussion of. This list she now found she knew was not a complete…