Gratification
William Hamel
Karl’s fingers turned into penises on his 40th birthday, and a few months later he finally won his county’s annual bowling tournament.
An Optometrist’s Uncertain Self-Diagnosis (or, The Convenient Deception of Eyes, when the Topic of Racism is Avoided in a Passive Voice)
Craig Sanders
Maybe I’ve been colorblind since February.
After the Flood
Jotham Burrello
At night, Tallez’s grandmother told stories about the time before the water ran out, stories of grass and lakes; Tallez sipped her ration, waiting for the part about the flowers with funny names like tulip and cosmo and dahlia, names that were never spoken anymore.
Like When I Felt A Warm Familiar Breeze in Abuela’s Wedding Dress
Kelly Barraza
Wandering around the theoretical physics section of my university’s library, lost, I came across a book titled Do Atoms Have Memory?
The Affair
Les Bohem
In those days, I was seeing a lot of movies twice.
Til Death Don’t Us Part
Rachel Tanner
Exhausted, she looked at the IV in her wrist one last time before sitting back down in her chair across from the man who would never love her the way he did before her illness.
Sunglasses with Mirrors on the Inside
D. A. Hosek
You know that feeling of the knife plunging into the skin, the muscles spasming as the blade cuts the flesh through to the bone, the victim’s eyes staring into yours, uncomprehending, as his last breath escapes his lips like a moan of ecstasy and his hands grasp the lapels of your jacket, clinging clinging clinging to you as if by clutching on to you he could hold on to life itself, an illusion of course for he was dead before the knife pierced his side, if not by your hand, then by the hand of another, and if not by a knife then by a car accident or by cancer or by old age and your only role was the choice of time and place and his eyes lose focus and fingers lose grip and his bowels lose continence and you let his flaccid body fall.
She Centers the Urn
Kate LaDew
She centers the urn on the mantle, watching its reflection in the mirror, thinking, some people take up more space dead than alive.
