A Passport to the Old Country
by Cezarija Abartis

For Serena, it was like a radio station drifting in and out over another channel – voices disappeared under the dissonance, and the piano keys turned into hammering.

 

Natural History
by David Ackley

Three deer have come out in the open to feed in alfalfa along the pasture woods, across acres of new-mown ground from the boy at the barn window. The cuttings are stubbled and strewn with yellowish chaff. 

 

Olympia
by Richard Burgin

Lately, whenever I get up at night (for the usual reasons), I’ve gotten into the habit of writing down a line or two that spontaneously occurs to me as soon as I wake up.

 

The Swami
by George L. Chieffet

Fred Glower has the bad habit of rubbernecking beautiful women, but tonight he limits himself to one quick glance when his buddy Phil introduces Frankie Serrano-Sanchez.

 

Cowboys and Indians
by Donald Dewey

Playing with his plastic cowboys and Indians had relaxed Pfeiffer for more than 50 years.

 

Three Days Two Nights
by Barbara Westwood Diehl

In the deep end of the Satellite Motel pool after dark, after the children are asleep in sand-gritty sleeping bags on the efficiency floor, Frank and Trish hang on opposite walls and kick at the black water full of LED starlight.

 

Nocturne
by Okla Elliott

It would have been pleasant to spread out on the couch and read about changes in people, so she lingered, looking at herself in the mirror, hoping her husband would stop her.

 

Outside Wheeling
by Brandon Getz

Now, this third wife, breathing next to him in her naked sleep, what was her name anyway?  It rhymes with autumn, the way the leaves rustle before winter pushes its pale belly against the back of the Ohio Valley and the cold comes and the snow.

 

Tulips
by Josh Gray

My great aunt Elise, age eleven, walks through the streets of her ruined city carrying a basket of food. Dusk falls over Lyon, and Elise moves swiftly hoping to finish her errand before nightfall.

 

The Show
by Nicholas LaRocca

Mickey was fond of telling people, “I’m sixty-nine, so…” What followed was a justification: a man’s age can inspire a liberating perspective, that virtually all behavior is practical because the punishment, by pure mathematics, cannot be worse than the crime.  

 

The Husband and the Gypsy
by Lynn Levin

As it falls to many adult children these days, it was my duty—and particularly mine being an only child—to move my parents out of the home they’d lived in for the past forty years and into a retirement community.

 

Floating Out Into The Blue Night
by Maja Lukic

Lena closed her eyes, expecting darkness, but Dr. Novak's face was etched to the back of her eyelids, his mouth moving, the sound of his voice grainy like that of a doctor in a 1950s health documentary. Her eyes flew open again, and she stared straight into the sunlight.

 

Horses
by Anita Naughton

One Sunday, at dusk, just as we were having tea, four horseswandered through an open gate, and onto the railway tracks behind our house.

 

What We Talk About When We Talk About Parental Love
by Cannon Roberts

Steve paused the movie when Megan announced she still slept in the same bed as her father. He knew they wouldn’t be finishing the movie that night.