FICTION
Being the Murdered Extra by Cathy Ulrich
The thing about being the murdered extra is you set the plot in motion. You were a girl good at walking past cameras, background girl, corner-of-the-frame girl. Never-held-a-script girl, went-where-the-director-said girl. You’ll be found in an alley, it’s always…
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2.25.64 by Mark Farrington
Into the arena comes the somber and menacing figure of Charles “Sonny” Liston, aptly named the most frightening man in the world. People said the war changed your father but your mother disagreed. “It just gave him license,”…
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Ricochet by Paul Crenshaw
The boy woke to the sound of his father grabbing the gun. He heard his father sit up in bed, heard his feet touch the floor. Heard him switch the safety on and clear the round in the chamber.…
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The Solution Woman by Kenan Orhan
Gökçe watches her younger brother stride up the street to her flower shop in his only suit coat, carrying a borrowed briefcase. The coat does not have holes yet, but the hem of the sleeve has come undone, and…
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The Provider by Anne C. English
Green was the name of the man from the bank that took my house. He angled his body toward the door the whole time he sat in my home, both legs turned and twisted to the side, feet pointed…
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Details from… by Maria Kenny
Kay folded her arms and looked across the table at her husband. The young woman peeled potatoes at the sink. Kay had told Sarah there was to be no home help, she could mind her own husband. “I like…
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Mystery Lights by Lena Valencia
It takes forty-five minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark. Wendy repeated her husband Chris’s instruction in her head. It was something he’d say stargazing in the Sonoran Desert with their daughter, Emma, back when they would…
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three occupants of an empty home by Klaus Castellano
Siris, 73 Emma’s Friend Space Song Note from the author: This piece comprises three contextually distinct but thematically related episodes. I wrote it not as an arbitrary anthology of three stories, but as one complete work involving three…
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Twelve-Step Program for Quitting My Life by Kristen M. Ploetz
1 Work the cold meat from the last bone. Still numb from the fight, I eat Gil’s leftovers. He ordered his usual two dozen of Blazin’ Hot. Bastard. He knows habanero burns my gums. Lick the buffalo sauce off…
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There Is in This Dirty Night a Running Chase Off and Away by Jim Bosiljevac
There is in this dirty night a slam and a shout and there is Matthew yelling Pa Pa they got Owen Pa wake up Pa they got Owen! And before any of this there is Shin out of his…
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