by Angela Townsend Nobody was interested in his heads all day. By the time I got there, he had pushed them all together, in case the congregation might be more appealing than its members. They looked like refugees, though they were all smiling. They looked like owls, but nobody had wings.  “I think I am… [Read More]

by Angela Townsend It’s no use. I know it before I tuck my hatchback between the sport utility megafauna. Their bumper stickers say 26.1 and Not All Who Wander Are Lost. Mine says Jersey Girls Don’t Pump Their Own Gas.  I am only here to pillage the forest. I am already planning to shellac the… [Read More]

by Elizabeth Lee 1. to relate; to tell; to circulate publicly, as a story. The Coworker calls me three months after I left the Company. I am walking home from the gourmet grocery store a mile from my house; it is a warm autumn afternoon and our conversation is long. By the time I reach… [Read More]

by Cristina Hartmann Some nights, like this one, I lie awake waiting for you. Languages consume me during these sleepless hours: the português of my heritage, the ASL of my Deafness, the English of this country. I think about how they vied for a place in my mind and soul—a fight that almost cost me… [Read More]

by Chaya Bhuvaneswar Murali’s therapist was the one who suggested that he read erotica. “Erotica,” she’d had to repeat it. In session, he’d laughed at the word, a surprised, nervous laugh, so she dropped the idea, all fluttering lashes, looking down into her notebook, as if she were flirting with some private self, some image… [Read More]

by Elisa Luna Ady New Horizons doesn’t run any services on Tuesdays, so Marco and Julia are free to joyrides around the parking lot. The church is historically Black, a minute’s drive from the house—past the docked RVs in wind-beaten blue dresses and the salmon two-story whose Christmas lights never come down—until you reach the… [Read More]

by Rick Andrews You graduate from college and begin earning an amount of money so large it makes you nauseated. More money in a month than you’re used to seeing in half a year. Cheese plate in one hand, imported light beer in the other, you listen along as a fellow new grad says you’ll… [Read More]

by Emily Hoang Dead bodies smelled different up close. Moments before, we had walked through the kitchen, loud with conversation and warm from movement. It wasn’t until we left the room did we realize that the marinades and smoke only barely covered the smell of death approaching. The butcher continued guiding us to the way,… [Read More]

by Carter Groves A mountain, snow-capped and brooding, a valley of slouching pine, a lonely cyclops of a sunset, waning motes of fire in a snowbound village. Children of elder time, in whose devotion / The chainless winds still come and ever came. Christmas muzak on the loudspeaker—And what have you done?—interrupted by a page… [Read More]

by Angela Townsend My friend Mr. Keith lives in central Missouri, and I have never seen his face. “Keith” is his first name, not his last, but his email address is MisterKeith, so that is how I address him in my head. I address Mr. Keith as “Dearest Keith” in email, which is where our… [Read More]

by Seth Wade At the bottom of the ocean floor a blobfish lays eggs in the widening crack of a small stone box protruding from the sand. There is no more life above the hydrostatic pressure of the deep sea. Inside the box, the neurorobotic algorithms Nulo and Unu rush to save humanity, trying to… [Read More]

by Suphil Lee Park (수필리박 / 秀筆李朴) 심마니 (simmani): a wild-ginseng forager; a mostly obsolete odd Korean job with connotations akin to those of a gold digger ↟ February is the Lunar New Year season, the month of rice cakes stuffed with red bean paste and scallion-intercepted beef skewers. Sticks of incense lit for the… [Read More]