Tag: Fiction

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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
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?…
“Lovers’ Lane,” original short fiction for Haunted Passages by Michael Cole

Lovers’ Lane was a lake, an old crater, faintly heart-shaped, about a mile outside of town. On any Friday night, it was a guarantee that the ridge 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 in between for privacy.…
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
Five Fictions by Matthew Beach

There She Is A woman in a pantsuit arrives first. She opens the lockbox and takes the key. She steps into the living room. The air washes over her, a wave of vinegar, astringent and thick. She draws back, brings her fingers to her nose, then crunches in heels over tattered carpet, calcified from encrusted…
Fiction from Our Colony Beyond the City of Ruins: “The Sea Captain’s Ghost” by Janalyn Guo

Entering the city of Boris from the sea, the Sea Captain’s Ghost notices a mollusk on the back of his neck and peels it off. The city is full of flower gardens. People from all over the world come to Boris for its flower gardens, he is told by a billboard. Flower trellis–covered towers jut…