Fiction: “Opticon” by J.A. Bernstein

His company had been stationed on the Lebanon Line for four months, and in that time, they’d only seen “action” twice. The first was an unreported skirmish, late one, night when a forward party, crawling through thickets of scrub oak and sage, was greeted with a volley of shots—low, whipping tracers, which hadn’t touched a […]

Fiction: “Breathing Beneath the Water” by Adam Caldwell

1. The degree hung on the wall over a piano that Ted’s son Billy no longer played. Sage had bought Billy an electric guitar. An amp. Signed him up for summer indie rock camp. They were learning the Undertones’ Teenage Kicks. So now Billy went around the apartment singing “are teenage dreams so hard to […]

Fiction: “The Earth Falls to the Apple” by Saramanda Swigart

At word of Lord Thomas’s arrival, Ursula’s mother fanned herself with a napkin. Half-moons of sweat had gathered under her arms. Several weeks before, Lord Thomas had written that he’d be hunting in the area. Were Ursula’s fourteenth birthday feast to occur while he was there, he said, he’d make every effort to attend. He […]

Fiction: “Hanley’s Suggestion” by Todd Easton Mills

Recidivists! And I’m one of them— Killer-diller in my two-tone stompers. Hi-de-ho! We’re cooking with gas. It was a smoggy morning in August, already 120 degrees. In the quad below office workers were taking their 8:45 break. Hanley adjusted the binocular feature on his eyeglasses, which magnified the leaves of a live oak and revealed […]

Fiction: “The Nokken” by Sean McCarthy

“Papa!” Nina saw the old man first, just a second before Ollie, standing at the edge of the woods on the far side of the pond. He waved to them, and then beckoned, but they did not move. And then he was there, and then he was gone. The […]

Fiction: “Good Taste” by Dana Schwartz

In the bedroom of a small apartment outside Kielce in Poland, a man named Gustaw Smolak had a heart attack just as his wife left to get groceries in their olive green Camaro. The Smolak family lived on the second floor of a building that had been redecorated so many times by its tenants over […]

Fiction: “Into the Horizon” by Kacy Cunningham

Gam never cuddled or cooed. She didn’t linger or inquire or speak of love. She had suffered the loss of her husband over two decades ago and, though they hadn’t laughed often, when they did, it was deep and hearty. Gam smothered bread with butter and piled ham high between the white, buttery slices, serving […]

From the Archives: “Mirror” by Robin Kish

You can do it in a bathroom, curtains drawn, lights out. Any room where there’s a mirror. Some recommend the use of candles, but the best results can only be achieved in total darkness. Make sure the glass is clean. You don’t want to mistake dust or scratches for anything more than what they are. […]

Fiction: “Cyberian Gulag Archipelago” by George Djuric

It is no more according to Plato than according to me, since he and I understand and see it the same way. The bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterward they make of them honey, which is all theirs; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Even so with the pieces borrowed from […]

From the Archives: “Mixed Blessings” by Stephen David Glover

My friend Kate makes fun of me because when we go to the grocery store together, which is often (since she has a car and I don’t), I’m always smelling things. I smell the marshmallows through the bag. I smell the circus peanuts and the maple nut goodies and the Necco wafers in the candy […]