Lynda Cowles 13:44 The last train leaves the station. Rails hiss. Cables buzz. Pigeons flap then float back down. On the platform, a suitcase waits. Ludo drags it into the station office; lugs it onto the desk with a thump. It’s old and leathery, like him. Agnes the ticket seller shuffles over, pokes it with […]
Kim Murdock Her husband worked late and her daughter was made of clothes and music so Miranda decided to arrange the calendar to accommodate herself. That grid of numbers in a sea of unremarkable white space. On Monday, she locked the bathroom door and ran a bath. Taps full open until musky bubbles crept up […]
Amy Stone I smile. I can hear those paws in the snow, padding over to where I stand. Sure enough, he’s at my feet. He sits. The pads of his feet are thick but still, it makes me shudder to think of him out in this. Mammy says I’m not to give him the bones, […]
Edie Meade I spend a lot of time on the floor behind the deli counter at Buford’s Grocery, watching the top of the case where the heads of customers emerge between big jars to talk to Momma. Most of the jars hold bologna ropes, pickled pigs feet, snouts, ears, liver, giblet slop that old men […]
Constance Malloy He’s dead. Frozen in time. Etched forever in charcoal, posing with his arm on a chair back. But every time I sit down to watch TV, I feel his gaze. Somehow, I sense he’s letting me know She sits on the sofa, all smug, acting like this is her house. this is his […]
Meagan Johanson Your mother was in love with you. Enchanted—everyone was, she says, pulling the hair color box from the bag. Those cherub cheeks, Shirley Temple grins—as she sits you down, drapes your shoulders with a tattered old bath towel. You were born with a head full of black hair. Straight and as thick as […]
Jamy Bond I’d lost my lover to heroin: lips like small blue balloons, skin like frosted glass. I needed a new life. A purpose. So I quit my job and volunteered to teach English at a boys’ school in Mozambique. I boarded at the school in a small room at the end of narrow hallway […]
Jolene McIlwain My wife leans into her pappy―Macon, she said yesterday―in this photo we found folded in a hankie in a box next to a creased paper and envelopes of dried seeds. We’d agreed she’s five then, though she didn’t need me to concur, since she still had baby teeth and it was before […]
Philip Charter Are you sure you want to reopen this application? [Yes] X [No] C:\Users\Steve\Business\Tax Returns\2017-18 £19,446.40 in expenses even though you never spent more than twelve pounds at the barbers. You drove everywhere in fourth gear to save fuel. […]