By James Moran

“Let’s go to the well,” Henrietta suggested from my doorstep because the countryside was the same all around and offered children like us nothing else to do.

She skipped ahead of me and circled back and got under foot as she looked for tiny flowers in the same brush that I was dragging an iris blade over in passing.

We pulled up our skirts in anticipation of the muddy ground around the well. The well itself was just a hole in the earth filled with green water. Henrietta rushed ahead and crouched and asked a frog she pretended she knew to come out of the water.

I paused. I knew the cool air touching her face.

“What if this is the deepest pool in the world?” I blurted.

“What?” Henrietta asked.

I became proud of my new use of the word ‘pool.’ “What if it is?” I asked.

She squinted at the well, as if it was the well that perplexed her and not my strange statement.

I insisted, “What if that’s the deepest pool in the world right there?”

She shrugged, and finally went quiet, and became still long enough for me to approach and hand myself over to the touch of the cool air on my face.

                                                     *   *   *

James Moran is a professional astrologer who regularly publishes articles, fiction, and poetry. His work has been published in two dozen publications, including Ping-Pong, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and Door is a Jar. His published works can be found at https://jamesmoran.org/the-creation-playpen

By Steve Carragher

Thick. Like molasses. Molasses that we used to pour over the cattle’s silage. Their winter fodder. 

Procrastinate? Me? I snap back. But it’s someone muttering about their prostate. 

I feel my energy dissipate. I reach into the depths of my memory and claw at that deadline. But I can’t push it further back. I have stolen or borrowed as much time as I could. I have lived carefree and oh! Coffee. 

The machine screeches as the string of coffee splutters to a stop. I yank it out and scald myself. My finer motor neuron skills are now but a distant memory. I relish the sting and the momentary clarity it brings. I slurp. Around me, the lights are blinding forcing me to squint (don’t sleep!) as I lift my head back, my eyes to the ceiling, emptying the contents of this large cup and its negligible contents into my throat. It burns. All the way down. 

Emptying the contents of my…have I said this already? It feels vaguely familiar. Déjà vu. 

Dropping the paper cup into the bin with a satisfying plop, I begin to think of other things that go plop. I listen attentively to the gurgling in my stomach and I promise myself that I will forego coffee if only I can get through today and tonight. I will at least reduce my consumption. 

“Hang in there.” I pat my belly. If I hadn’t already shredded my bowels…

But then I wonder, how long have I been out here in these corridors? I peek into the bin and count the empty cups. 

“They can’t all be mine?” I hear myself say but it comes out in what I imagine to be the opposite of slurred speech. “Mine? Mine?” I hear the high-pitched shriek ricochet around my empty head. 

I quickly glance around, there are bodies, moving. But I can only make out one sallow sunken skull. My own. 

“Alright.” I rally myself. “One more charge. The night is young. This is it. And then I will sleep like a baby. Babies sleep, don’t they? Fatherhood can’t be so hard.”

*   *    *

Born and raised in Ireland. Resident in Austria. Frequently in Bavaria. Carragher enjoys writing stories and poetry.

 

By LA Carson

Greta lingers at the open window and closes cataract cloudy eyes, attempting to quiet the circus of confusion performing in her mind. Frail, yellowed curtains dance in an unexpected breeze. Fresh air neutralizes the caustic old peoples’ smell and caresses her face like an attentive lover. Despite all she’s forgotten, she conjures him without effort. She revels in the memory of Central Park grass on young skin, his whiskered stubble on her neck. He was the love of her life and she’d never uttered his name to anyone, not even her husband, God rest him. Wistful melancholy taps her shoulder, interrupts the rare delight.

The aide arrives and wheels her down linoleum hallways of dismal coming attractions. Without benefit of conversation, he deposits her, like perfunctory cargo, into the outdoor garden.

Returning later to fetch his patient, he finds discarded slippers, an abandoned wheelchair. Against a wall of evergreen ivy, Greta’s pink nightgown flutters in the wind and wisps of white hair take flight across her defiant face. One gnarled hand clutches the hoe handle that keeps her erect, the other hand rests affectionately at the side of her neck. Her bare feet savor the garden grass.

“Sebastian,” she proclaims, his liberated name a relished triumph.

                                                             *   *   *

   LA Carson writes fiction and creative non-fiction. Her work has appeared in 101 Words, CafeLit, Alien Buddha, and Bristol Noir among others.  Scribes Prize semifinalist 2023. She lives in southern California.

 

By Kerry McKay

In ninth grade, four-eyed Gina decided to become popular. She studied and emulated Dani and friends. She straightened her hair like them, wore earrings and slinky tops she’d stolen from the mall, rehearsed conversations and facial expressions in front of the bathroom mirror, and memorized dozens of song lyrics. Sure, she gave up her number-two singles position on the high school tennis team to make time for these social studies, but by tenth grade she had a boyfriend and Dani. 

#

Twelve years later, Gina brought Maurits, whom she had met the week before, to Dani and Scott’s engagement party. After introducing Maurits and his pole-shaped body and bushy eyebrows to Dani, Gina followed Dani through the restaurant and called after her, “He’s only a date.” But blue-eyed Dani, in her white, off-shoulder sculptured mini dress and white Manolo pumps, leaned into Gina and whispered, “I bet he does magic with those plump lips.” 

Maurits, who sat at the bar sipping red wine, suddenly looked desirable. 

After Dani and Scott married, Gina equated being single with standing alone on the shore of a deserted island. A potential husband would be a rescue boat. But, should she climb aboard the first to arrive, even if it were a tugboat with a wheezing engine and peeling paint? Or should she hold off in case a yacht anchored in a year or two? 

The morning Gina married a tugboat, she asked Dani, “Do you think Maurits is good looking?” 

“Sure!” 

Gina watched Dani’s reflection in the mirror as she zipped her gown. “But do you think we would’ve liked him in high school?” 

Dani looked up and tilted her head.
They laughed and posed for selfies Gina posted on Facebook. 

#

Since she was still childless, Gina volunteered to travel again for her and Dani’s biannual BFF visit. Maurits waved goodbye from their front stoop and then continued reading his poetry book as she started her engine. 

Three hours later, Scott hollered “Hey, Good Looking!” from his BMW idling beside the train platform. “Dani’s feeding the baby, so I’m your chauffeur.” Scott had a dimple and perfect teeth. 

The car’s interior was warm and smelled new. The heated seat relaxed Gina and, after a short highway ride, aroused her. She nearly leaned over and put her mouth in Scott’s lap. It wouldn’t have been the first time. She’d been with Scott in high school. They–Dani’s popular crowd that is–had all been with one another. Sometimes at the same time. 

Over the next few days at Dani’s, Gina discovered an unexpected interest in diaper genies, homemade baby food, and breast pumps. On their last night together, after sharing a bottle of pinot grigio, Gina’s emotional elisions caught up with her. She should’ve been more honest with herself before she had married Maurits. She was better than him. Prettier. Popular in high school. A medical assistant, practically a doctor. She blurted, “I don’t love Maurits.” 

Dani held Gina’s shoulders at arm’s distance. “You just need to have a baby.”

 # 

From the train station, Gina drove straight to Franklin Middle School. Her heels clicked down the locker-lined hallway. Telling her husband that she wanted a baby felt urgent. She was already sixteen months behind Dani. Teachers’ voices spilled out into the hallways. At his desk, in the corner of an empty classroom, under fluorescent lights, Maurits looked pensive, perhaps thinking of fatherhood. 

Gina walked up to him. 

“This is a surprise.” He stood and fetched a chair for Gina. One of the tennis balls, sliced open to act as a silencer, slipped off the chair’s foot and wobbled toward Gina’s royal blue Manolos. “When did you get back?” 

Gina pushed her straightened brown hair behind one ear. “Just now.” 

A waifish Asian girl and a lanky white girl appear at the classroom door. “May we borrow tape, Mr. Smythe?” they ask in chorus. 

“Excuse us,” Gina scolded.

The girls giggled nervously and left with Maurits’s tape dispenser.

Maurits took a deep breath. “There’s a lot to catch up on.”

Gina nodded.

He rotated his chair to face Gina, sat up straighter, and put his palms on his skinny thighs. 

“I’m not sure where to begin.” He rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “I’ve told a few colleagues this story. You should know too.” 

An invisible slender needle pierced Gina’s neck. 

Maurits continued in his baritone voice, “I befriended a waitress at Mario’s. She’s been serving me at my regular table.” 

A new cheap gold-colored watch looked bulky on Maurits’s thin wrist. “Bibi lives in a small apartment with her little boy she had when she was sixteen.” He looked out the window. 

Gina picked invisible lint off her slacks trying not to get impatient with Maurtis’s tendency toward idealism. 

“She’s from Guyana. Her uncle took her here to America after her mother died.” Maurits saluted the flag with his coffee mug. “Her life could be a novel.” 

Gina visualized a map of the world and placed this Bibi–who was likely short, overweight, and missing teeth–somewhere near Africa. “You’re gullible, Maurits. We’re not donating to a Go Fund Me for her. We’re going to need it for–.” She reached out, briefly squeezed his hand. 

Maurits crossed his long legs. “She’s very pretty. Her skin is gorgeous. Some nights at Mario’s men and even couples invite her home.” 

“Maurits,” she blushed, “are you suggesting we take her home?”
He held up a notepad and shook his head. “I write her love poems. We spent Monday at the Shore.” Now words spewed out of him like sewage. “I called in sick. Gina, I can’t take it anymore, all this sneaking around.” 

The bell rang. Kids flooded into Maurits’s classroom, flinging their backpacks onto desks. Maurits stood. “I’m sorry.” 

“Oh,” Gina said as he helped her out of the chair and guided her to the door. 

Out in the crowded hallway, a group of busty adolescent girls stared at Gina then turned to one another and laughed. 

                                                             *   *   *

Kerry McKay is at work on a novel set in Staten Island. Her writing has appeared in Harvard’s Education Next, Your Teen Magazine, Adanna, TheRavensPerch, and other publications. She is a high school reading specialist and holds an MFA in fiction from Fairfield University.

By Nikoletta Gjoni

I watch a clip of rushing flood waters carrying debris from north to south. Decaying stumps of knocked over trees careening downhill; discarded belongings going under sludges of muddy river; scuffed up used cars floating weightlessly like bottle corks, rust cooking just beneath the surface. They cram under an overpass to form a clot or a makeshift dam and for a minute I think, shit, the water will rise and spill out over the bridge above, perhaps claiming it too. No sooner do I think it when there is the sound of crushing metal. The cars, now toppled over on their sides, waterlogged engines gurgling beneath the surface, are sucked under the bridge and crumple like ornate paper cranes before disappearing out of the camera’s shot. I envy the painlessness of inanimate objects, of how easily nature can manipulate them, strip them of their danger. I envy how sturdy the uprooted tree trunks are before being washed away, not a breath lost to surrender.

I wish it was the same for us, I think later that night, before I turn over in bed and catch the moon hovering in the sky like a spotlight on my hesitations. The salty waters of my body rise towards it and lower again with the sun, and before I doze, I think of how you are the car, and I am sometimes the rushing water; other times I am the debris rolling downhill—both the destroyer and the destroyed.

*   *   *

Nikoletta Gjoni is a writer living outside of Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in the 2023 Rising Stars London Independent Story Prize anthology and has been previously nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction. She is currently at work on her first novel. View Gjoni’s publications at www.ngjoni.com or follow her on Twitter @NikiGjoni.

By Michelle Koubek

The metal fluctuated between hot and cold. It was never tepid so never desirable to touch. Which made me wonder why the humans constructed me out of it and then told me to belong. Humans were either sadistic psychopaths or idiots. You could never know your neighbors nowadays. 

When your skin was metal like mine, no one cared if your insides were organic. They looked at you and saw a garbage can. In other words, they knew there were contents inside but would rather pretend those contents didn’t exist until the insides rotted and the odor infected the neighborhood. 

I wouldn’t let them turn me rotten. 

Admittedly, I did resemble a garbage can. Much like the sides of a garbage can which are assaulted by dripping gunk, the metal on my arms and legs was a murky silver and was ribbed. But on the inside, I was alive with hopes and ambitions. I hadn’t soured yet. For example, I dreamed of upgrading to a more colorful tin can. Like SamEL, my next-door neighbor and best friend. 

SamEL was made of plastic and was more colorful than me. This garnered him more respect amongst humans who rode around in vehicles of various colors and loved to boast of their new, vibrant purchases like peacocks. If I could become bright green like SamEL, then the humans would stop treating me like a garbage can. He even got to ride on their car roofs some times when they took him on vacation. They called him their ‘pet’ and included him in family photos. 

I was nobody’s pet; I was a gardener who powered down at night in the shadows between the shed and the cracked fence. But with a fresh coat of paint, I could be loved like SamEL. My owner would stop leaving me out in the rain like a rusty shovel. 

I just had to kill one more squirrel, and I would have enough red to cover every inch of my metal exterior. Then, I would be as brilliant and interesting as SamEL, and everyone would see that my insides are beautiful.

Look, there’s one skittering by now.  

                                                                   *   *   *

Michelle Koubek is a writer living in Florida with her husband and paw companion. She taught special education for several years in South Carolina before becoming a full-time writer. When she is not writing, she’s playing board games or painting. This is her debut.

 

By Meghan Proulx

My cryo-coffin dad in his icy dwelling.

Frozen brain, cold body.

Long lost Papa, blind in the snowstorm.

Icicles dripping from longing eyes and nose

So far away. You’re freezing.

Lost in the glimmering ice palace.

Stuck and preserved forever like a beetle in glass.

But once you were next to me.

*   *   *

Meghan is a freelance writer in Northern California. Her short stories have been published in Hobart, The Bold Italic, The Emerson Review, and more. She was ranked as a Top Humor Writer on Medium and won a Silver Anthem Award.

By Sandra Khalil

This morning, Broad Creek is higher than I’ve ever seen it. The water sloshes over the edge of the porch, creating an arc of wetness that seeps into the wood. The grasses that, last night, stretched to the horizon are gone; they’re waving, somewhere, far below the surface. 

My husband grew up here. When we moved down from Chicago, he said that our daughter would grow up never seeing the same view twice from her window, as if her world, like his, should be framed by that which doesn’t remain.

“You’ll get used to it,” he said when I told him that I found the view unnerving, that, when the ocean peeled back, like a dog bearing its teeth,  it only reminded me of all the things I would find washed up beneath the house: tangles of algae, clumps of plastic, and, one time, an overturned horseshoe crab wedged in the muck, its tiny legs still jerking with the electrical current of life.

What my husband doesn’t understand is that the water I grew up next to has no relation with the moon. Lake Michigan has no rhythms, no secrets. Only the rustle of its surface from time to time. Only wind on water.

A bird sounds, a tiny, familiar coo, and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s not a bird at all but Lily, awake, upstairs.

*

Before Ben, I spent three years loving, then unloving, the wrong man. I broke up with Joe after he had been fired from Starbucks for the second time. It wasn’t about the money — I had a good job, good enough for the both of us — but I wondered how we would ever be able to make real life decisions together if he couldn’t even get to work on time.

But living with Joe had made living without him impossible. Alone, I watched myself go through the motions of my evenings — fixing dinner, loading the dishwasher — as if I was sitting on the shelf, watching myself from outside my own body. I lasted only one week before I rang his bell, still covered with a label that contained both of our last names.

The next time I appeared, like a junkie on his doorstep, he opened the door only wide enough to say, “You don’t want me, you’re just lonely.”

*

Upstairs, Lily stops crying the moment she sees me. “Hey, baby girl,” I say, watching as she tracks me across the room, her face turning up like a full moon by the time I’m standing over her. I pick her up, feeling the warm weight of her in my hands and sit in the rocking chair, where the curtain is cracked just enough for the morning light to cover her face as she latches to my breast.

“Hey, baby girl,” I say again, and she smiles, milk bubbling from the corners of her tiny mouth.  

I had birthed her with both palms up against the wall, with a strength born of the conviction that she alone could save me. That after her birth, my husband’s betrayal, along with the placenta and the blunt end of the umbilical cord, would be rolled up in disposable bedding and left at the hospital.

But trauma, I had learned in the days after Lily’s birth, unlike a baby, never leaves the body. The brain simply fails to file the memories away, so that they are stuck, anchored in the present, as real to the body as the original trauma itself. I imagine the moment I saw Ben fucking that other woman — her blond hair, the hammer of my heart — and know now that I will never forget.

In my arms, Lily’s mouth moves in concentrated hunger. She catches sight of her own hand, tiny fingers spread in the morning light and waves it side to side, side to side, before slapping it down against my breast. 

*

On the porch, the tide is receding. A cornfield emerges where before there was a sea, the long spears of grass cutting the surface of the water. Ben keeps telling me I’ll get used to it, but what I hear is that if I could just let go, then it would be as though nothing had ever happened.

“Stay with me,” Joe had whispered the night I came back, the night he opened the door and lead me to the bedroom that still smelled like us. That night, as if sensing it was our last, I had watched my own body as if it was the body of someone else: the curve of my breasts, a stomach that rose and fell. My body, naked and adored, was more beautiful than I had ever seen it. I stared at the stars that fell outside his window, and felt his hand move down my back, my skin tightening in trails his fingers left behind.

“I can’t,” I had said to him all those years ago, thinking that what I needed was someone with whom I could build a life, but what I had done was find someone who loved me much less than he ever had.

Next to me, Lily plays on her belly on a blanket in the shade. Her hands reach forward, then out to the sides, her feet kicking, as if she wishes to swim right into the sea.

*  *  *

Sandra Carlson Khalil grew up in Minnesota, but has called the Middle East her home for over a decade. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Contrary Magazine, The Stonecoast Review and SmokeLong Quarterly, where she was a finalist for the SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction 2024. She studied literature at Middlebury College and received her MBA from Northwestern University. You can find her work at http://www.sandracarlsonkhalil.com.