“Georgia, Georgia Georgia. I’m from Tennessee, you know that? Tennessee, I loved it there. I came down here after they hung him up. I knew he didn’t do it. I knew it. But I wanted to see him up there. For some reason. I needed to see him up Read more…
And It Will Be Different Someone said something about this being the end, and that was when they all went quiet. Four indiscernible forms on the pitch-black beach. Each brought a towel because none of them liked the feeling of sand when it got too involved in their clothes. Each Read more…
White. White wall. White tile. White light. Everything was white. Simple and sterile. Andy sat silently in the corner. Knees pulled up to their chest in a protective manner as they rocked slightly back in forth. They kept their head down, counting each movement on their slender fingers. Boredom had Read more…
The door swings open as a tall, dirty-blonde woman enters the classroom of teenagers. Her heels click on the concrete floor, but in a gentle way, like the beat to a mellow song. The chatter in the room settles, for the most part. One student sips coffee. Another giggles with Read more…
The Beast’s footfalls were irregular things. A clip clop of the horse. Then, the familiar sound of dog nails on tile. Its breath was constant, though. Wet and warm on Taras’s heels. Taras was bolting from door to door, pounding on them. “Help me! By the gods, help me!” Every Read more…
The red and blue LED’s mixed into a new purple glow. The room smelled of cheap weed and stale beer. Music and voices mingled until none of it was coherent and instead just an almost painfully loud assault on Theo’s ears. They sighed as they made their way to the Read more…
Warm Guinness ran down Rick’s chin in rivers. The sticky Georgia heat ensnared the two young men in an endless sweat, but they didn’t indulge in the privilege of complaining. Logan, who had swiped the 6 pack from his step-dad-of-the-week’s fridge, eagerly snickered at his companion’s barbaric attempt at chugging Read more…
Top level. Nothing but concrete and open-air, the world feels fragmented, from here. Blinding white lights cast a pallid shade of hunger over my skin and the ground as the air breathes across the back of my neck and sends a shudder through to my bones. Looking out into the Read more…
The local laundromat: a perpetual cleansing spot for the city’s dirt and shame. At night, the neon sign above the storefront glows half-enthusiastically, so much so that most of the letters are completely burnt to their end. The remaining ones spell out “Land rat” — a welcoming endorsement for a Read more…
I used to be a backpack mom. A cool mom. A twenty-something, millennial, modern, ironic mom. A like-filling, question-form-talking-but clear-minded confident mom. I used to be a cool wife. The cool sister. An “I’m in the military but I’m still cool” kind of servicemember. An everything is whatever. An everything Read more…
You are nearly blind. Unobservant. I stand by you when you cross the street, I hold your hand, I am on guard for you, and with you. I love you While I thought we were both women, Asks he: So, are you the woman or the man? So then I Read more…
The two of them were in the gravel driveway, just outside of the radius of the dim porchlight, looking at the horizon where the sun was just beginning to silhouette the clouds. It was the sort of fleeting summer evening they used to catch fireflies in. It was the kind Read more…
We all wear masks. We don a particular persona for each individual or group, and use that to guide our expressions and actions. But no matter how deceiving a mask is, or how close it is to our real face, it is Read more…
I was eating a spilled dollop of strawberry jam from the floor when I heard the cries. Screams for help fell through the air. The room was dark, but I could hear them from the corner of the kitchen. Some of the other flies stayed where they were, buzzing around, Read more…
This machine is not for you. This machine is not to be used by you. To reiterate: this machine is for someone else. Who? Well, it’s one person, you can tell. And she’s small—I mean, really really small. She’s so small, you have to use a magnifying glass to see Read more…
She comes in, loudly, with jingling keys on her hip and a big retriever on her leash. She comes in, and comes in, and comes in once again. She never stops coming in. She’s looking for something. She wants me to think she’s looking for something. She comes in, and in, looking Read more…
Adrienne is small. Her delicate features are the image of youth itself. Her face is soft, like a bright, glowing putty, which has yet to take form and harden. She is numb. Adrienne is new; she has no interests, no favorite words. She has no deep thoughts upon which to Read more…
The man in the booth thumbed the small box in his pocket. He’d left it out on his desk the night before, and his girlfriend of a year and a half had certainly seen it, as she’d been looking there for a book he borrowed from her earlier in the Read more…
There were no clouds in the sky; the air felt empty but heavy. Brimming with condensed nothingness. Bloated expectation…