Ficton
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Ants
by James Sears My brother Tom hunted the woods behind our house, moving through all the sharp plants North Florida offered, saw palmetto and yellow pines who leaned like sick old men. Nothing could live well here. Not trees. Not boys. Everything was vile and hard, or else it withered away. The midday sun blazed.… Continue reading
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My Life as a Chaise Lounge
by Beth Sherman Lately, Eric and Katie have been fighting. Eric wants to sell me on Facebook Marketplace. Katie says, no way. I’ve been in her family for like, almost a century. You can’t put a price on comfortability. Actually, Eric claims you can. They’d get $4,300. He’s checked the comps. He took pictures of… Continue reading
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Saint Evelyn
by Geoffrey Orens No one actually remembers much about Evelyn, although we remember her constantly: her portrait has been outside the Catholic church on Meserole for the last 25 years, forever enshrining her as a saintly 15-year old. Ever since that tragic hit-and-run that took away her life, she watches over us with a half-smile… Continue reading
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Snipers
by Mileva Anastasiadou Horror is on the menu and we take it because we’re tired of rom-coms and light dramas and coming of age narratives, but also because horror is our only option now that we’ve grown old. They don’t serve romance to people our age. The young waiter recognizes us because we’re regulars and… Continue reading
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On the Matter of Blue
by Renuka Raghavan Sapna wore the dress because Maa altered the seams and blue had always been to her a sensible color. It was the color of notebooks and municipal buses, of things meant to last through the day without drawing attention. In the hotel ballroom, the blue multiplied, a banner near the podium, the… Continue reading
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New Moon Story
by Matthew Mulligan We met in a gravel parking lot and she took me to a hole in the fence that we slipped through and sat by the river. The sun and the moon were both in the sky and we smoked cigarettes and told each other about versions of ourselves that we thought might… Continue reading
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Dating Parsley
by Isabel Navarrete Dill weed, dill weed, dill weed echoes in my head as I scan the wall of seasonings that are packaged the same. Transparent plastic jars with green lids cover the shelf; the only thing differentiating them all is the name printed in fine font. As I keep searching, my eyes begin to… Continue reading
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Effective Marketing Strategies
by Hugh Behm-Steinberg Walking home I saw something dressed in green and impossible, fluttering above a bus stop bench with an online therapy ad on it, lacey dragonfly wings humming. “Hi Jake,” she waved, like she was real, and knew who I was, but in my mind I was going nope, nope, nope. Nobody else… Continue reading
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Not Charles Bonhoeffer
by Wim Hylen After a drunk driving arrest, Kyle Perkins moved from Bradley Beach, New Jersey to Eldham, Colorado, a town he picked by throwing a dart at a map of the United States. Intent on making a fresh start, he adopted the name Charles Bonhoeffer because it sounded regal, like an Austro-Hungarian prince. He… Continue reading
January House Literary Journal 