issue 32 > fiction
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Lament
by Peter BarlowDuring the day it’s a series of hyperventilations: he wants fed, he wants burped, he’s got a dirty diaper, he wants held. That’s the one his father has the most problems with, the holding, and probably that’s because his father didn’t hold him very much or maybe because that self-same father was not the most expressive with his emotions like a lot of fathers then weren’t.
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Viktor
by L.S. BassenViktor was in honors English, a junior accelerated among competitive seniors. He was pale and his fair hair was almost white. His skull was sharply visible under taut skin; in class, Dale was able to keep the seniors from calling him ‘Yorick’. He was the brightest and would easily have led the group if it were not for his temper.
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I am Home
by Zdravka EvtimovaKeith knew Hilda would understand. She always did. She was the perfect wife. He sat by the window and she knew she didn’t have to make the slightest noise. If he sat by the fireplace she knew she had to bring him coffee, he liked his coffee black and she remembered that well. She was a woman of little words, and he felt at home in her silences; she felt comfortable like an old pair of slippers and she didn’t meddle with his collections.
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The Caricaturist
by R. GatwoodEvery day before sunset, before the evening crowds started flowing in, the caricaturist shuffled up the north ramp of the boardwalk with his card table, easel, and chairs under his arms. He set up shop in the small space between the lemonade kiosk and the bean bag booth, his motions furtive, as though he might be evicted at any time. In fact no one ever noticed his arrival.
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Big as the World
by Jessica Barksdale InclanThe only clock in the room was the young man sitting dead center in the front row.
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Bite
by Anna MavromatiEthan wanted to be bitten. The first time he told me to bite him he said I wasn’t doing it hard enough. I was nervous about doing it, but when he told me to I sunk my teeth deep into his skin, which felt soft and firm at the same time. I bit down until I thought I tasted blood and then I pulled away.
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The Ex
by Kelly MorrisWade’s wife Callie didn’t want to give birth in a hospital. Callie was a nurse and said that she knew what all went on in hospitals.
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Channel Surfing
by Thomas ShaneBack when Kate and I were still together, we did not watch TV on Sunday nights as a rule, unless there was something special on that we wanted to see and that at the same time might have been considered in some way educational for the kids. But the fact is, even on public television, programs that fit that description were few and far between, then as now, and often as not they would end up being too hard for the kids to follow or, when all is said and done, just too adult.
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The Pathos of Ice
by Janice D. SoderlingMy Swedish mother and Spanish father met at the conservatory in the Galician city of Santiago de Compostela. Both were students of Segovia.
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The Kid
by Robin TungThe kid is vehement about not putting his head underwater. He is gripping his father’s shoulder but knows better than to wrap his legs around like a baby. His father restrains himself from laughing, but says to the kid’s uncle, “It’s like dying,” trying to put a reason to the phobia. “But come on.” His father speaks gently into his ear. “You have to learn. It’s not hard.”
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The Good She Did
by Amanda YskampThe good she did, volunteering in the classroom, sewing slings at the hospital, serving the hungry, she did out of fear of hell. She was viciously good, dressed irreproachably: dark colors and a haircut to deflect advances. The nuns could do it, then so could she. She’d changed her name to Edgar because that was the ugliest man’s name she could imagine.
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