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Abby In The Mirror by Yvonne Aore
Abby stood before her bathroom mirror, staring at her reflection. The corners were still foggy.She tilted her head right, then left, then back to the middle. She smiled. Her reflection smiled. Then the reflection’s head tilted down, eyes fixed on Abby. The grin widened and crooked, stretching too far. The bridge of its nose scrunched…
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Cult of the War-Torn by Nate Ritchie
Deep in a forest of scarlet leaves,boys sunken-eyed and white-robed crowneda headstone with rusted razor wire andsplashed upon its crumbling bodyswirling vials of tainted blood.I asked them what the deceased didto deserve such grotesque desecration.“Nothing,”a pale boy answered.They simply needed his soul to suffereternal pain and humiliation.A reason behind the sufferingthey as individuals and their…
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Epitaph by Terri Metcalfe
His frontal cortex was the chain reaction at Chernobyland his amygdala was the exclusion zoneand his thought processes were steam explosionsand his whole mind was stage four cancer.His veins carried the instructions to keep working,his fingerprints were the emergency buttonand his hair was the flood of blue lightsand his liver filtered the excrement leaving dying…
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The Body Was Moved by Rhonda Rosenheck
(a triolet) The blood splatter suggests the body was moved,After being stabbed sixty-two, or -three, times.The deep shag rug was trampled and grooved.The blood splatter suggests the body was moved.The victim was heard by the maid to say, “It behooved…”his wife, instead of him, to admit to his financial crimes.The blood splatter suggests the body…
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Quality Assurance by Moses Sukumaran
Every Wednesday at precisely 8:17 AM, the conveyor belt bled oil for one minute and seventeen seconds. For Soma, that meant a morning spent on his knees with a bucket and a quick ratcheting of loose bolts to get it running. He would grunt and curse his machine, trace the pipes for a while, tighten…
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Ants by Robyn McIntyre
I had always felt there was something wrong with my little brother and seeing him on the kitchen floor torturing ants just confirmed it. He’s six and a half and he’s on his knees, crushing the back end of ants and smiling as he watches them try to continue moving around. I open the refrigerator…
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A Hell of a Tale by Drew Broussard
Addie hurried through the still-foggy morning streets towards the harbor, following the thick brine on the air. She’d overslept, which was rare enough in a house full of noises like hers—but today, of all days! She gritted her teeth and hustled on. Only when she turned the corner onto Dodson Street, with its falling slope…
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Rave in a Coma Ward by Harley Carnell
I heard about the raves on my first day in the coma ward. Stephanie, the ward manager, gave me the tour. She was a tough-as-nails veteran whose tenure at the ward varied depending on who you asked. I didn’t know this at the time, but Stephanie was not a joking person. I thought that she…
