issue 34 > fiction
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Still in Lisbon?
by William DoreskiYesterday morning I stepped out my back door and into Portugal. I didn’t realize at first that I was in downtown Lisbon; I only knew that my wooded New Hampshire back yard with its bird feeders and perennial beds had been replaced by a busy street with small European autos buzzing along, pedestrians in loose cotton smocks and blouses, and a row of cafes populated with customers who looked like extras in a Spanish film. As soon as I caught a voice, though, I recognized the particular intonation of Portuguese, and I knew this had to be Lisbon. I stepped back and touched the shingled wall of my house. The illusion, if that was what it was, didn’t fade. Lisbon looked just as it did in various spy movies. Pastel adobe, hilly streets, rooftops descending like stairs to a vivid blue harbor.
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Secret San Francisco
by Ann HilleslandI put my ear next to a pipe at the San Francisco wave organ. A distant sucking rattle comes, water gurgling into buried PVC. Nearby, Ricardo listens to another pipe, his eyes closed. He looks serious, but he always does, this Spanish artist in his leather jacket and skinny glasses. He’s tall, lean, sexy. I still can’t believe he’s sleeping with me.
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All Other Buildings
by Rachel HochhauserThat night, vegans were coming to dinner.
For three weeks, they were in Rome. Rich had found the apartment on the Internet — small and compact. Four flights of stairs. Nora grew fond of the brass lion’s head on the green door that faced the street. At home, she had a pantry, neatly stocked and ordered shelves, and an electric can opener.
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This is Not a Beach
by Rachel KapitanThese are the general events, as they actually occur:
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In late March, on a single night, three things simultaneously transpire. Jake puts a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the bedside table and peers at his wife Hestia who suffers from recurrent urinary tract infections, his wife who refuses to look at the strange glow in the sky, and who went into bed early. The Honorable Clayton P. Reed, Mayor of Oconie, Florida presides over a City Council meeting where the debate about whether or not to reopen the public swimming beach on Vacant Lake becomes unexpectedly contentious. And the Amateur Astronomy Society of Oconie, Florida gathers at Vacant Lake to observe the Hale Bopp comet as it nears perihelion and is heartbreakingly bright in the night sky, even without a telescope. -
The Woodpile
by Robert P. KayeFife believed society was a Jenga tower—take out one wrong piece and the whole thing fell apart.
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Preaching to the Converted
by Philip KobylarzHe claimed to have seen an owl on the train bridge at night perhaps with a hurt wing because it didn't move when he approached, but turned its head one hundred and eighty degrees then hissed like a cat or a mute expressing pure hate, and then it perched quiet and repeatedly winked.
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The Day I was Oil Boy
by Nicholas LaRoccaThe Hotel Dresden is one of those mammoth places on South Beach, and back when I worked there, before the Recession, there was this job: Oil Boy. The guy who did it was Marco Curio, a steroidal dude who strutted poolside behind a pushcart of Hawaiian Tropic, tantalizing pretty spouses and overheated daughters prone on lounge chairs, dressed in tangas. I swear, as he strolled past, their supple legs curled heel-to-glute.
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Gold and Rust
by Douglas W. MillikenSomething probably matters. Events or conversations, details that have shaped Cuthbert into the man he’s become. His childhood, for example—his older sister like a silent guard, their mother working, their father only sometimes around—or maybe his education. Or his job, what it was and how he lost it. Perhaps the women he’s known factor in. Then again, maybe not. Maybe even if everything had gone right for Cuth (times have never been that bad), he’d still feel how he feels, still be exactly what he is: a repeat suicide, a failure at living as well as at death.
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Wake-Up Calls
by M. V. MontgomeryWhen it came time to renew my contract at work, I was routed to a back room. There, after some disorganized scrambling about amidst an ad hoc committee of the faculty, I found myself facing a “final termination” hearing. I was read a copy of a complaint from a student I had never heard of, concerning a poetry book she apparently found salacious, which had contained a short bio of me in the back.
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Can't Wait
by Tanure OjaideThe motorcycle was always the culprit. For the inordinate greed that led to speeding on a narrow rugged road. It was guilty of robbery; it was equally guilty of violence. Whatever dastardly act done, the motorcycle always came out condemned. The verdict had always been the same: Guilty!
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Agbero
by Kingsley OkechukwuAs hunger takes charge of my body and senses, I use my legs, which are the only apparatus yet to be completely shattered by hunger, to roam about the town. You see, I am a graduate, and I don’t have a job three years after my graduation; I do bricklaying jobs with Pa Jimoh but this past few months, work has been slow in coming, and, having exhausted my food stuffs, hunger creeps in and has since sworn to eliminate me. During my days in the university, our lecturer who usually colours his statements with a sly grin always sings about our country being the third fastest growing economy in the world; in spite of this, I, a graduate can only pray to outwit starvation.
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Abe Lincoln
by Tom VollmanMid-March ushered a change in the weather and the phone calls stopped. It’d been almost eight months since I had talked to my mom or my dad. For awhile, there were texts, but soon those stopped, too. It didn’t really matter that much; I’d managed to ignore most of their messages anyway. From the time of the accident until around St. Patrick’s Day, voice mails drifted in. If I listened to them at all--and usually I didn’t--it would only take about 30 seconds for the shame storm to begin.
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