Rain, and a fight with an old friend. Sober, which makes it worse. Nothing taken back. You keep drilling, can’t stop. Into the molten core. Rain sizzling in the hot spittle. Rain on your bald head. You’d look ridiculous duking it out in the street, laughing police grabbing you both by the ears like schoolboys. … Continue reading
Category Archives: Volume 43
Ice (Zlatar, Yugoslavia, 1985) — Jim Daniels
We sit outside at the splintery picnic table where Uncle Stefan gets hammered daily since he lost his teaching job, his students carrying him home drunk one last time. Aunt Nada pours commie coke from a dusty bottle they’ve been saving. I don’t know what nada means in Croatian. Nothing in Spanish. She pockets our … Continue reading
The Art of Apology — Ron McFarland
Approximately three years after celebrating his second marriage, his first having gone, as he liked to say, “the way of all flesh,” even though he had not (not yet) read that novel by Samuel Butler published in 1903, Professor T. Roland Wibbles realized he was apologizing to Katherine Lance (she balked at taking his name … Continue reading
The Driving Instructor Dreams of Flying — Nick Bertelson
While getting to know his students, the driving instructor rarely hesitated to delve into his dreams. Dreams were something everyone, no matter what age, could relate to. And it concerned him that he had not, in his forty years of life, dreamt he could fly. It seemed to him the most common dreams were of … Continue reading
The Truth of High School — Ariana Lily Uding
If you stab someone, you should always twist the knife (spear or musket). That way, you can be sure it’s a kill. This is especially important if it’s in the back. Continue reading
Dynamite Hill — DJ Swykert
US41 runs north through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula over Dynamite Hill. It’s the only route for the delivery of goods, or people, to the population centers of Houghton, Hancock and Calumet. The village of L’anse sits at the bottom of the hill on Keweenaw Bay, for centuries the Chippewa fished for whitefish in the bay. They … Continue reading
Prosaic — Emily Weber
My best friend from high school, Nora, is getting married to a man who owns a fireworks stand in Jefferson County, Missouri, which leads me to assume he has a meth lab in his basement, but she informs me that he does not. Just a seven-year-old daughter named Mary Jane, she tells me on the … Continue reading
My Pet Skeleton — Lindsay Souvannarath
My pet skeleton comes with us to Saks and doesn’t care that he can’t buy anything. He wraps himself up in a big fur coat and hat, and when a salesperson starts watching him, he throws it all off and dances. He hides in the clothing racks and when someone tries to look at the … Continue reading
Termites — Diane Constantine
I stood in the basement, looking up at the floor joist with a flashlight. A small brown tunnel bulged discreetly downward, against the grain of the wood like half of a dun-colored soda-straw. It blended so that if I hadn’t looked for it, I wouldn’t have seen it. My husband is home late from work. … Continue reading
The Professors — Tim Gorham
It had been a slow night. My daughter, Kate, reminded me it was finals week, and that all the kids were probably at home studying. Cramming is how she put it, in a way that sounded like she thought I’d never heard the word. She goes to the university, too. Part-time. On weeknights she helps … Continue reading
