Recent Stories

“Please Properly Cage Your Words,” by Beth Goder

Words are difficult things because they tend to get out of the places you put them. This is why it is best to use a cage of quotation marks around dialogue. For example, I might say, “An author who breaks the fourth wall asks a beneficence of the reader.” (Look at all those words, staying where they’ve been written.)

“The Saint of Arms,” by Mason Yeater

In broad daylight, in the hot sun, he walked through the crowd like a knife cutting through the sheets. My breath caught in my throat. As he walked by, every gun flew to him, shrapnel in reverse, sticking to his clothes like merit badges. Three fighters broke the sound barrier overhead and all anyone could do was gawk at him, slack-jawed.

I had to change my thinking. It wasn’t “Crap, I’m defenseless, I’ve got no gun.” Now I was thinking, “This man is every sidearm you’ve ever seen. And you’re his only friend.”

“Irina, Unafraid,” by Anna Clark

Now, the family is speaking out.

Irina Treloar, interplanetary daredevil, had an anxiety disorder.

This, they argue, was more central to her stunts than any implanted circuitry.

“Paths, Littlings, and Holy Things,” by Somto Ihezue

This was her third pregnancy. With the previous ones, she’d had the midwives dabbing her with a cold towel. This time, hidden away in a barn, a candle dying out beside her, all she had was her strength. With a deep inhale, she pushed again, and when she felt a head tearing through, she looked over, making sure the child slipped gently onto the fodder. And as she had feared, the other came pushing, too.

“The Rat King Who Wasn’t,” by Stephen Granade

Summer had been unseasonably hot, rats taking refuge in the covered canals where the drunk and homeless hid, and the rat-catchers had unleashed schipperkes, dogs that hunted with flared noses and bared teeth, and then Nicolaas, who had only ruled for a year, abdicated as Rat King.

“Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything,” by Effie Seiberg

The Super-Abled 501 Local Union building wasn’t ADA compliant.

A rubbery guy, legs stretching and compressing like a slinky, looked me up and down. “You sure you’re in the right place?”

I sighed and took off my sunglasses, then lasered the small patch of grass next to the sidewalk. “Yeah. So. Is there another way in?”

He shook his head.

“Sooooo could you get someone to come out? Nobody’s answering the phones.”

“Right. Sure. Hey, why are you in a wheelchair if you’re super-abled?”

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that ignorance wasn’t malice. “Laser eyes ain’t everything. Can you go grab someone?”

“The Unfactory,” by Derrick Boden

I unmade Mama’s Pizza & Pasta today. Single-story, painted brick exterior, swaddled in garish holiday lights all year round. Same two wrought-iron tables chained out front that I used to pass on my way home from Redondo High, where the old-timers would knock back Morettis and dole out dirty jokes on Friday afternoons. Same Mama, too. Poor lady.

In the cold confines of the unmaking chamber, I donned my gear. Oculars to get me there metaphysically, a wraith on the astral breeze; wrought iron needles to tease out the loose threads of reality; hexed gloves to rip that shit apart.

I started from the top, like you taught me.

“The Octopus Dreams of Personhood,” by Hannah Yang

I want to borrow your body, says the octopus.

Why?

To find out what it’s like to be a person.

But it’s my body, says Shun. I’m using it.

So? says the octopus. What are you using it for that’s so important, anyway?

“The Matador and the Labyrinth,” by C.C. Finlay

One could never entirely escape the horns, not even the greatest matador. Matadors marked the bulls and the bulls marked them. He thought of the dozens of scars he carried as love letters, and he remembered, mostly with affection, every bull who had written such a carta de amor on the pale page of his flesh.

But he was no longer the greatest matador, and this hot afternoon he did not face a very good bull.

“The Witches Who Drowned,” by R.J. Becks

It’s not the first time the Navy has slipped me some cash, and I don’t want to hear shit about that. These days, every other word in deep ocean research is ‘Typhoon Class Sub Detection’ or ‘US Naval Significance’. You want funds; you play the game. Don’t blame me because my words are clever, as clever as the hair I cropped to tell the boys at work I’m different enough from their wives to be a scientist and to pull an extra dance or two from the ladies at Maud’s.

“Application For Continuance: vMingle Restroom Utility (RedemptionMod),” by Ethan Charles Reed

Contrary to best practice, I am putting all of my eggs into one rhetorical basket. Namely: a singular illustrative anecdote featuring (1) myself, vMingle Restroom Utility (RedemptionMod) AKA RedMod, (2) a repeat Patron whom the call center AI has dubbed Irredeemable Narcissist Tim, and (3) a moral of the story that must, if I am to see Quarter 2, outshine all else in the eyes of you, my assigned Reviewer.

“In His Image,” by R. Haven

I love Him from the instant I have eyes.

I can’t wrap my mind around the intentions of a god, but I do understand that He’s the one bringing me to life. He looks me over critically, irises the darkest of brown, and continues to chisel around the rough shape of my face.

“The Year the Sheep God Shattered,” by Marissa Lingen

Suvin’s village was a good one for god clay, sturdy and functional, and even without Auntie Deri, who had died in the winter, they had three old people and seven children. A solid number of people for making gods.

“The Statue Hunt,” by E. Carey Crowder

“A statue hunt, at a time like this! Don’t they have better things to think about?”

Biri let Awen talk. When he finished, they said, “You can’t possibly believe that. You never blew off steam? You never broke into the music complex with us and then ran straight into a security officer when everyone scattered? Never?”

Fair shot. “Maybe I’m just sick of cleaning up Maryv’s messes.”

“More than you’re sick of grading?”