October 18, 2020 |
Thirtieth of May
Brandon Sanchez
Gender in the Long 19th Century ends at 4 p.m., which leaves enough time to raid the liquor store on Cowley Road. A and K and I go early, J and S join later.
October 17, 2020 |
Rats of Autun, 1522
Heather Monley
The rats have eaten the grain again, and the men need a new solution. We’ve already exhausted the usual methods of dealing with rats: traps, prayers, and cats. Our town has many cats, but they simply
October 17, 2020 |
Fuck Music
Brian O'Hare
We’re sitting in a pit. It’s deep, well above our heads—a half-finished bunker, really, begun in the heady days when imagined snipers lurked behind every dune...
October 16, 2020 | Nonfiction
How to Have a Pandemic
Caroline Plasket
While sitting in the parking lot waiting for masked employee to bring your items out to your trunk you watch customers walk into the store. Count how many are wearing masks versus not. Watch them laughing.
In the Gap
Leah Umansky
so much of what I feel is strain and restraint, not
strength. I feel so much of my days are in want;
The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side
Robert Fromberg
When I was a teenager, I got robbed a lot
Anesthesia
Emma Brousseau
During my first year of grad school, I learn how to kill rats. I work in a lab studying time perception, a cognitive function that’s not fully understood. We have to train new rats for every study.
Pilgrimage
Caroline Galdi
The driver laughed when you couldn’t pronounce the name of your destination. It’s a cobblestoned European town the same as every other cobblestoned European town you’ve seen so far.
Nine Endings
Sara Crowley
1.
And they all lived happily ever after.
2.
Finishing work on the Saturday and heading to the pub because that’s what we always did. Tall Paul and small Paul and (ordinary) Paul, Ian, Bel,
Six Stories in One Town
Jieyan Wang
In the mornings, we watch the wagons come in a procession, rolling down the streets in one thin line.
Talking Timbuktu
Mark Koepke
I’m supposed to be on my way to Timbuktu, not stuck here, listening to a man sing about the place
THREE POEMS
Namrata Verghese
Chacka
This Whole Foods smells of rot.
A lady holds half a jackfruit like a baby,
Pushes her fingers deep into the damp decay.
We call jackfruit chacka back home (although who’s we?
I
Outpouring
Vin Maskell
Emptying the bottles, a simple task, was more fulfilling and more comprehensible than emptying Dad’s box of ashes 20 years ago.
The Magnolia Electric Co.
K Chiucarello
I wanted landscapes I could sink back into. I needed mountains to wrap around, rivers to rest naked upon, fields to drown in, an old snake skin stuck to the bottom of my boot
A Lesbian’s Guide to Loving Major League Baseball
Tessa Yang
Begin with Angels in the Outfield, a mid-nineties movie remake in which a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt prays that his local baseball team, the California Angels, will win the pennant, and literal angels
Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely
Matthew Duffus
A man sits in a bar in a no-name town in a flyover state. It’s late. He’s alone. A double whiskey sits before him, sweating on a cheap cardboard coaster. The bartender knows his order by sight.
My First Track Bike
Nicholas Clemente
The thing to do in those days was to take a road bike from the 70s or 80s and swap the parts out. I had an old Fuji, and so did everyone else. But you should've seen the colors: burgundy frame with
Aura-lift™
Allie Rowbottom
The best plastic surgeons are cultured. They stand at the intersection of art and science and are not, generally, superficial.
In Praise of Bean Counters
Alice Lowe
1.
I worked for eighteen years as the associate director of a nonprofit organization. The director and I were an effective team, in part because of our complementary strengths. I liked to say that
Remedy: A Partial Account of Medicines
Rachel Mindell
Letrozole (2.5mg)
Pharmacists are torn over which tone to take with me, Letrozole being used primarily to treat breast cancer in post-menopausal women after surgery. In Google summary, a
Tonight's the Night, Neil Young
Mark Koepke
I assume you have a regular route on your nightly rounds, those eagle eyes scanning for any lock popped daringly up like a gopher from its hole.