fiction
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Popcorn – William Petersen
One night after work I asked her if she wanted to go for a drink. I hadn’t slept with her yet but it was looking pretty likely. But nothing had to happen, I liked her well enough just to hang out. While we were in the bar she recognized a waiter she used to work…
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Here in the Afterlife – Matt Luedke
It’s honestly a wonder that anything at all happens here in the afterlife. I say that not only as a Pleasantly Surprised Atheist, but also because of the truly staggering bureaucracy of all of human history’s souls learning to coexist, with more arriving every day than the day before. Here’s my experience with how everything…
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Per Second Per Second – Saramanda Swigart
One day there was a girl who climbed an overpass and looked down on the interstate. She stood at the edge, holding the railing. A squadron of police cars gathered below her, and a man called up to her with a megaphone, remarking that she ought to think about those who love her, and offering…
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Explain the circumstances in as much detail as necessary. – Eric Darby
I had been considering shaving my moustache when a squadron of nuns knocked my door. None wore habits, but they had that sturdy nun look. The young one said they’d come to surrender my daughter to me. I haven’t had actual sex in seven years, but here was this four-year-old daughter: Germina with scuffed shoes.…
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Cutting Back – Keith Trottier
Robert’s mother hobbled into the kitchen. When had that started? The lively woman he had known as a child was visibly ravaged by time. Her bottle blonde hair that had once been so full sat deflated in shoulder length curls, her muddy roots bleeding into the fading bronze bleach. Her green eyes had become tiny…
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Oceanside – Jeff Kaliss
Mom will call for me before she goes. Josh kept repeating what he could fit in his mind while his mother lay in an assisted living center 450 miles to the south, where hospice care was now assisting her dying. It was the hospice nurse who called Josh’s home office in San Francisco on a…
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Asking For Directions – Francesca Bavaro
“What are you doing?” Martin asked. He was a portly man with a bad combover, half-hidden behind an oversized city map. His wife Dee waved him away, as if she was swatting away a bee or fly or some other pest she didn’t care for. She was short in stature, neither fat nor thin, but…
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“How pitiful then, that it had no idea about the devastation happening to its own species.” (Sean Taro Nishi)
Rachel Forrest is a a painter based in San Jose. Her work can be found on her website. Save the Sloths by Sean Taro Nishi The thing about non-profits is: the people who work there are always beautiful. It’s as if they’re giving back for their God-given gifts, paying it forward if you will. Paying…
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“to the front of that line, pushing and shoving and punching and biting…” (Clyde Always)
Rachel Forrest is a a painter based in San Jose. Her work can be found on her website. Stella and the Fratboy by Clyde Always Once upon a time, in a rip-roaring party town set by the sea, there lived a stunningly beautiful siren named Stella. Stella had shimmering sapphire eyes and shapely long legs…
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“She tipped her head, and the world twisted on its axis.” (Zach Hauptman)
Four Trees for a Name by Zach Hauptman Firsts are powerful. They’re seeds devouring the last of their nutrients to grow towards sunlight. They follow patterns laid out by the lines of the universe–a riot of roots that grow into flowers, the first thorn on a blackberry bush precisely placed, even when the thorn pierces…
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