Category: Fiction
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Fiction for Bad Survivalist: “Devil’s Hopyard” by Jennifer Makowsky
I know something bad will happen by the end of the night. Maybe it’s the trees overhanging the winding dirt road, blocking out the daylight and making it look like midnight even though it’s only four-thirty on a June afternoon. Or maybe it’s that this area is always off in some way and gives me…
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“A Night, Like Any Other, or Ooh, That Smell,” an excerpt from Gristle, weird tales by Jordan A. Rothacker
Gristle is alchemical theatre, a collection of weird tales, twelve fingers on the steering wheel, with D.H. Lawrence and Sylvia Plath asleep across the back seat, Chekov shivering on the hard shoulder… Gristle is a post-beat riddle, a comedy, a nightmare … Gristle is Salinger descending from his eyrie with a bottle of Thunderbird. Jordan…
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“Report of the Justification Committee,” original fiction by Jona Whipple for Bad Survivalist
We could not take the polar bears. We tried, but we couldn’t do it. By then, they were mostly extinct anyway, and the specimen that survived weren’t worth the trouble. We couldn’t take the snowy egrets, but downloaded all of the poetry about them and scanned every major work of art featuring them, which we…
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“An Ending for Her,” flash fiction by Matthew Meriwether
What if I walked up to your front door again. What if, at the sight of me on the front porch, the same front porch with so many stale memories, instead of laughing at my patheticness, you smiled with surprising relief. What if you had gained a little weight, the weight symbolic of your settling…
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“What He Said,” flash fiction by Matthew Meriwether
I ask her what he said. He her boyfriend. He her boyfriend, the bartender, the man who watches. He told her I was rude. He told her I made fun of him and the other bartenders. He told her I was with “that girl you hate.” That girl our old friend. Our old friend with…
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Flash Fiction: “The Fire” by Matthew Meriwether
She sees a fire in the huge dark field to the left of the road we’re driving down. Do you see that fire? she says. I look ahead of me, I look up—all the wrong directions. I see the moon, that white fire, which is bright and full, unblinking. Why were we talking about fire?…
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“Lovers’ Lane,” original short fiction for Haunted Passages by Michael Cole
Lovers’ Lane was a lake, an ancient crater, faintly heart-shaped, about a mile outside of town. On any Friday night, it was guaranteed that the shore overlooking the water would be lined in Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles; they were candy apple red, dusty rose, Tiffany blue—all parked with just enough space between for privacy. Fireflies, hundreds…
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Job Aid Flash Fiction for Bad Survivalist: “Become a Target at a Boy Scout Camping Trip” by J. Bradley
*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. J. Bradley is a two-time winner of Wigleaf‘s Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions. He’s the author of Neil & Other Stories (WhiskeyTit Books, 2018). He lives at jbradleywrites.com Image: clipart-library.com
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The Heavy Feather Holiday Special: “Winter Solstice,” a short story by Jordan A. Rothacker
In the front yard, there is a nativity scene that awaits the birth of its Christ. Mother set up the display about two weeks ago. Father and she used to do it together. The first weekend of December they would go up in the attic on Sunday afternoon and bring down all of the supplies.…
