Fiction
by Grace Glass.
“Mornings, Adam struggles up from his dreams to a blinding, ochre-tinged pain that sizzles up his damaged spine, seizes his neck, etches spiteful hieroglyphics into the base of his skull. He can’t help groaning but he does it quietly, because Rosie works third shift and needs her sleep. Before he hurt his back, he didn’t understand that pain is another person who travels with you…”
by Ian MacLean.
“In sleeping, Joseph’s eyes moved under their lids, as if he still searched the ward and the land out the window for phenomena. Planets churned in arcs and stars collapsed somewhere in that blackness, and he searched for this too, his eye movements aligning with the movement of heavenly bodies.”
by Fabienne Josaphat.
“Marielle’s sisters and cousins were all born with judgment in their mouths, always throwing stones at women who stepped out of line or into the fire.”
by Ryan Pollard.
“I was coasting along like every other rudderless late adolescent…My particular drift happened to be tied to a disability I had yet to face, and it would be a while still before I finally found my footing.”
by Suzanne McConnell.
“I regard myself in the mirror he holds up. It is spring, but damp here in Venice. The necklace lies on my blue sweater like fire.”
by Allegra Hyde.
“At Free Oaks, I perched in the laps of transient poets and tugged at the robes of bilingual maharishi, collecting nuggets of enlightenment like stones.”
by Richard Wu.
“Everywhere you looked, you would see an unending flood of traffic, with sirens flashing and horns blaring and drivers yelling, and through the taxi’s open windows you would smell the stench of gasoline exhaust and cigarette fumes hanging in the air.”
by Moshe Zvi Marvit.
“Lillian tried to forget through silence, and though she could hide the facts from herself, she didn’t know how to keep the fears away.”
by Daniel Seifert.
“Luis unscrews a small bottle of puro and daubs Tio’s smiling mouth. In the still air, the pure alcohol makes Luis’s eyes water.
Further down, he hears the deep-throated cough of a detonation. He heads toward it.”