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BINGO by Kristin Walrod
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Just one day, she didn't have any stories left. Nothing. No stories about growing up on the farm in Michigan, about having an evil twin sister, about falling in love and getting married, about the joy of giving birth. No explanation of her life, of her children's childhood, of her marriage. She hadn't realized how much she relied on her stories until they ran out.
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The Empty Light by Irene French Harvey
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I was not filthy and stinking, muttering edgy soliloquies. I was not sleeping on one of the benches in the little park facing Santa Monica Boulevard. The skin on my face was not peeling off in wounded layers. I used SPF30 and stayed out of the sun. And although I could not sell the car because it was not yet in my name, I could sell this Rolex any time. Today, if I wanted to.
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Peace Offering by G. L. Griffith
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Life became a Chaplin movie. Events moved rapidly across the screen: shadows expanding and receding, the swirl of low-moving clouds, the exaggerated walk, a tipping of the hat and the modest proposal, the two-story house that you really didn't want, the family outings framed on the mantel, each face wearing your perpetual smile.
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Latchkey Kid by Vanja Thompson
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I'm stung by a sharp clutch to my wrist. I flinch and snap to, looking around quickly, and the man holding my wrist puts his other hand on my shoulder and his mouth close to my face and says Don't be afraid. George is your friend, sweetheart.
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Sticking Together by Kay Harris
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"No Aggie. Prepare yourself. My time has come. You're always hearing about it. People lasting for the visit of a long-lost child, or for another Christmas, or for one more birthday. Then pffffft, they're gone. This is it, Aggie. My one more birthday."
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Stain by Kelly Jaquiss
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For three days, I stayed at a grungy motel off Highway 1. It's the regular motel Tony and I used to go to when we wanted to be alone and have sex. It's cheap, but disgusting. The lights are dim. The walls are water stained and you can smell traces of bad cologne from the men who rent the rooms by the hour. I can never get a good night's sleep there because the sheets are so thin and itchy.
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tragic metafiction volume one by curt duffy
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it's ringing. he's gonna let it ring you see, at least three or four times. let everyone know he's got one. now the other people in denny's are turning around, necks craning, trying to see who's so important that he can't go twenty minutes without a damn phone. but it's not about importance really. it's about technology, and embracing it, and what it can do to make the asshole's life better. i'm gonna start calling him a.h. for short—if you don't mind. figure i can take that liberty now because we go back a whole six paragraphs.
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Notes on contributors
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