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
