Stories

I needed a break from the conveyor belt of school, boyfriend, career. That clapping song we sang as little girls: next comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby. . . . So I left the lower forty-eight for a job waiting tables at a remote truck stop in Alaska. I placed my relationship on hold. A big Hold up! on everything. I didn’t know who I’d be when I got back.

Analise didn’t mind the taste of dirt so much, but the tread of Becky’s shoe was pulling her hair, and it felt like the pressure might cave in the back of her head. A crowd of kids surrounded them, chanting and jeering at her, but she was adept at tuning them out. As far as she was concerned, it was just her and Becky, alone in this thing.

The driver’s seat bucked backward, out from under me, and my face spread briefly, like a blot, over the inside of the windshield, and my eyes migrated earward, and I was birthed raggedly through the glass, like clay through teeth, and I fluttered languidly over the asphalt, and struck a neighbor’s yard, in a rain of screws.

The bump had stopped hurting by the time Natalia got to the waiting room. Wasn’t that the classic scenario? Tooth stopped hurting by the time one got to the dentist? Long, scraggly hair looked great the day of the haircut? She hoped it was still there, fought the urge to go check the bump in the bathroom. For days it had been bothering her, though she had to admit she’d only noticed it during masturbation—not due to pain.

A courier, a little man, a tiny man in a vest and harness bag, knocks, recoils at the opened door, and hands the note to you. Your mentor from the pier has died.

The rain keeps beating on the window, and the baby is crying, and she holds him, feeds him, rocks him, looks at her phone, hums a lullaby, feeds him, rocks him again, and her cheeks are wet, and now she realizes it's dark and she hasn't turned on the lights, and she doesn't know how many hours have gone by. She can't go on like this. She goes outside.

The execution of Thomas Mitchell was scheduled to begin at 11:00 AM on December 7th and was formally called to commence at 11:01. Twenty-seven journalists, twelve photographers, and two relatives were in attendance, as well as several guards, the presiding district attorney, the Riverside Penitentiary physician, and a local sommelier.

Editor's Note: This is a unique piece, a powerful story based on the author's real-life experiences growing up in a religious cult.

Always loved middles, ever since Mama brought me that chocolate egg enwrapping a capsule, enwrapping a toy soldier whose plastic tasted like thunder, thunder that shook my teeth, jolted lightning through my gums, electric tendrils reaching my amygdala and flaring my nostrils.

Rachel Savage | Issue 2.5 Lacey planted her baby in the family grove, nestled between Granddaddy’s chestnut heavy branches and Granny’s...

His wife was having tea with the king, and he was completely unaware.

Everyone else saw the spider on Thursday. Well, it wasn’t a spider. Not really.

On the morning of the code red drill, a man hunts me in my dreams once again.

Hell consists of a series of menial tasks. Sometimes we draw circles in the sand with long sticks; sometimes we draw lines.

I watch the red and sweaty late-night preachers wipe their brows, hoist their heavy Bibles up, wrestle invisible demons down...

One: "Earthquake" She spoke this word shortly after ten in the morning on February 26th, according to her physical therapist.

The doorbell rings, and, yeah, it’s Halloween, but my porch light is off. In this neighborhood, that means you’re out of candy or just tired

The Falls appeared in the sky over Houston without warning. It was the middle of summer during the year summer never ended.

The swelling in your legs started a few months ago, about the time you stopped remembering to take your medications.

Jordy lived alone in a small house on the edge of a saltwater marsh that extended to the coast.