by J. T. Townley | Oct 10, 2021 | Fiction
How it happen like this. Listen: Melissa Jim say Rayburn can carry flag. The good flag? say Rayburn. Melissa Jim laugh. Same for Bubba and Jon-Jon. Even Grandpa snicker. Rayburn grit teeth and squeeze handle of pistol-gun in waistband. What you gonna do with that...
by Alexis Stratton | Sep 30, 2021 | Fiction
It’s like the face of her had changed—like she’s someone else, someone you used to know but can’t quite put your finger on. She greets you warmly, that same smile, her hair whitened by the years, makeup covering the lines that crisscross her skin. She’s visiting her...
by Mark Basquill | Aug 2, 2021 | Fiction
Smiling like his patron saint Sisyphus, Squirrel guided the purple Mustang from the amber glow of sunset at Santa Monica Pier to a ridge in the San Gabriel mountains. Into the darkness. Always uphill. Squirrel had been there and done that. Shrapnel biting his...
by Dan A. Cardoza | Mar 31, 2021 | Fiction
Once again, I’m here at a hardware store, oddly inspecting at-attention shovels standing their platoon. Each shovel is in their designated cubbies and holes, one next to the other, like vertical coffins. Some appear homespun in length and with hickory handles, built...
by Cynthia Boorujy | Nov 4, 2020 | Fiction
Armenian professors massacred by the Turks. From: Amēnun taretsʻuytsʻě : zbōsali u pitani. (1921) We made our way across the culvert. The few of us left who remembered digging it exchanged glances. The waters now flowed and tadpoles teemed in the ripples. We were...
by Parker Blaney | Oct 15, 2020 | Fiction
Our son was killed in action six months ago in Afghanistan on his third tour of duty. Mildred and I eat and sleep and dream in our small house by the old Sanford gristmill, keeping memories away like ice from a sensitive tooth. I stand by my writing desk near the bay...
by Katherine Hill | Jun 11, 2020 | Fiction
Editor’s Note: “Coach” is an excerpt from Katherine Hill’s novel, A Short Move. His third season as coach of the Pee Wee Monacan Jets, Tim Williams started carrying a calendar. “Well, Tim,” Cindy said when she saw it. “Guess you’re a grown up now.”...
by Janna Moretti | Apr 26, 2020 | Fiction
She had left her M-16A2 service rifle unmanned. She had left it in the fighting hole at the edge of the perimeter of our company’s position during a training field operation on Camp Lejeune, NC. She had left her M-16A2 service rifle in a fighting hole and climbed out...
by Craig Loomis | Apr 10, 2020 | Fiction
She drops the newspaper on the table, announcing, “They’re still killing people in Syria, you know. They say it’s over, but it’s not. Anyone can see that. It’s not.” Although he has not read today’s newspaper, or even yesterday’s, he nods, “Yes, I know.” “Every day,...
by Steve Lapinsky | Oct 31, 2019 | Fiction
I’ve forgotten his name, but in the photo his boot is resting on the skirt of a tank as he holds up a stubby pencil in one hand and a Galil rifle in the other. “I told you I send you picture,” reads the back. My sister’s high school pen pal was an Israeli soldier in...
