There are three of them—pancakes—on a round plate in front of me. Fluffy, with bubble craters, dark-orange toasted patches spread out like a thin spiderweb. A mountain of whipped cream holds blueberry beads, glinting slightly under the dim light of the Persian-style café chandelier. I flinch when he snaps, “Alissa?” “Huh?” I look up, a fork tight between my fingers. Across the table—Victor, my boyfriend of three years. His flat cheeks, rubicund. His mouth—a single, long line. He breaks it, …
Tag: Fiction
“Blonde Noir” * Short Story * DC Diamondopolous
Kit Covington sat on the sofa in her Pacific Palisades mansion with a cigarette lodged in the side of her mouth. A cloud of smoke floated around her head. She adjusted the oxygen tube in her nose, then brushed ash from her dog Muffin’s champagne-colored curls. The miniature poodle dozing in Kit’s lap startled when the camera crew from The Great Morning Talk Show banged equipment into Kit’s antique furniture. “Watch it! You scratch anything, you’ll pay for the restoration.” …
“Soaping Up” * Fiction * Mike Lewis-Beck
“Why aren’t you in class or on the courts?” asked a guest, rustling the calm of the sun-soaked corridor of Total Tennis (TT), a summer camp for teen women. “The campanile bell rang at 6:00 a.m.” “Yes, ma’am,” replied Marina, a 19-year-old counselor-in-training. “Monday through Saturday, before breakfast, we’re all supposed to take a workshop. Yesterday mine was Better Backhand. Today it’s Kinesiology.” The student could explain Kinesiology to this new lady but decided not to since she had a …
“Unda the Stars” * Short Story * David P. Stewart
*The following story of southern country love gone fishing comes from Cornbread and Lace: The Privileges of a Mississippi Farmboy, which was written by an author with both feet firmly planted in Mississippi. In David’s thought-provoking manuscript, the anguish of racism, classism, bigotry, patriarchy, war, segregation, and revisionist history are mixed with vivid stories about winged snakes, hot donuts, an old farting mule name Kate, and dinner on the ground. Thought-provoking wisdom from a loving grandmother and an African American maid …
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“Virus in the Air, Spasms in my Back” & Other Poems by Michael Lee Johnson
Virus in the Air, Spasms in my Back There’s a virus in the air, but I can’t see it. People are dying around me, but I can’t save them. There are spikes pierced in my back, spasms, but I can’t touch them. Heartbeats, hell pulsating, my back muscles, I covet in my prayers. I turn right to the left, in my bed, then hang still. Nails impaled, I bleed hourly, Jesus on that cross. Now 73 years of age, my half-sister …
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“The Sirens’ Call” * Short Story * Michael Emeka
Thunder muttered in the sky and the rain threatening all evening came in a soft drizzle. The enormous rats scuttling around in the pile of rubbish across the road darted into their holes. A stench of putrefaction rose from the refuse dump as the rain beat on it. Pushing open the front door of the building, I raced inside, pursued by the rain and the smell. My footfalls echoed on the bare concrete steps as I went upstairs. Somewhere in …
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“The Teacher Who Grew Jasmine and Rooted Out My Stutter” * Autobiographical Fiction * Richard Williamson
I was thirteen years old and we had moved, again. I hated it but back in the mid 20th Century that’s what ministers did. A lot. And my Dad was a minister. The problem wasn’t the bother of moving, it was that as a boy who stuttered, I had to face a whole new set of classmates, some of whom would certainly make my life very difficult. Up until that time in my life, I had always been called Richard. …
“I Like Beer” * Flash Fiction * Yash Seyedbagheri
Nick thinks of beer. No, he dreams of beer. Hungover, ghost of six beers past churning in his corpulent stomach, that word sings, beer. Beer. En route to classes, a graduate student he thinks about beer. He conjures the amber ale of 90 Shillings, the bitter sour of a La Folies from New Belgium. He tries not to conjure beer, but after another lecture from his father, full of dissection, bad son, weak, too artistic, the beer calls. Drink me, …
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“The Whole Entire World Ever” * Fiction * Caitlin Hernandez
*We are delighted to present our first-ever fan fiction! Written in response to “Restoring the Effigy,” by M. Leona Godin. “The Whole Entire World Ever” is a prequel written from the point of view of Effie’s little girl Artemis on their mother-daughter trip to San Francisco. Leona admits to tucking in an embellishment or two amongst Caitlin’s beautiful words* Last year, I had the best hairstyles of anyone in first grade. Mom can do hair a bazillion different ways, …
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“Restoring the Effigy” * Fiction * M. Leona Godin
“See you tonight Sweetheart,” Effie said to her daughter. “Anything special you want for dinner?” “Don’t worry about me. I’ll just graze. See you later mom,” returned Artemis, with the air of someone looking forward to solitude. She’d been entrenched in the couch since quitting Yale’s MFA in acting almost a month ago. Effie was worried–she was a mother and a Greek one at that–but every discussion she tried to have with her daughter ended in an argument followed by …
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