Prose: “Don’t Be Afraid to Forget,” by Griffin Gudaitis

While I was at Dave’s wake, all I could think about was the last time he got laid. Since graduation, he’d been on three or four dates, but none of them really went anywhere. This thought just cropped up in my mind, not that it brought me any particular joy, but seeing that it wasn’t […]

Prose: “Walter,” by Gary Kimball

The first time I saw Walter he was coming out of building across the street from my office. He looked nervous, the way he swung his head around one way and then the other as he locked the door and hurried up the sidewalk, pushing long, black strands of hair off his face and glancing […]

Prose: “The Oneironautics Conference,” by Nemo Arator

The Oneironautics Conference was scheduled to begin at eight o’clock Saturday morning in a city two hundred miles north of the town where I lived. So Friday night after work I set out, driving until I became too tired, then turned onto a dirt road and parked in the approach to a farmer’s field. I […]

Prose: “Yellow Shift,” by Mary Lewis

I couldn’t believe they’d put all of us into this cramped basement room with stone walls and tiny windows too high to see out of, but maybe that was part of the therapy. A dozen people looked up from their chairs at Dr. Ward who stood on this little platform, jerking his arms like some sci-fi […]

Prose: “The Diagnosis,” by Sam Ramos

I never like to give this kind of news, but we ran some tests, and you have cancer. You also have long COVID. And diabetes. And rabies. And tapeworm. And athlete’s foot. And moody spine. You have boredom. You have bleeding. You have really thick hairs on your forearms. You have dropsy. You have hysterical […]

Prose: “Megafauna” by Dan Pinkerton

This was back in the days when all fauna were megafauna. An armadillo and sloth stood around talking to each other. Both were the size of modern-day elephants. “This tough shell gives me some protection against predators, but not nearly enough,” said the armadillo. “I don’t have a tough shell,” sighed the sloth, “but that […]

Prose: “Salmon Head Soup” by Jen Ippensen

He didn’t see me when he arrived at the restaurant, but I recognized him from the picture my mother had shown me. It was her idea, to get back out there, to set me up with her coworker’s nephew. “Girl,” she’d said, “you just need to find the right man.” At our table, while the […]

Prose: “Goat Herd” by Dan Pinkerton

Often I would visit the path that ran through the greenbelt. It was full of harmless people like me, simple outdoor enthusiasts. Allegedly, a stalker once emerged from the trees and menaced young women with a knife, but that was several years ago, ancient history, water under the bridge. The city crew was always nearby, […]

Prose: “Fernly” by Deborah S. Prespare

She pushes her toys to the side and sits cross-legged on the floor. Other dolls and stuffed animals look down at her from the tops of her bed and dresser. Bored with them too, she rests her forehead against the yellow wall. She breathes and forgets where she is. She breathes and forgets her father […]

Prose: “Dissolve” by Alexis Bentz

The 6:45 to Cleveland is, of course, delayed. Rolling her eyes, the woman retrieves her laptop from its sleeve to review the meeting notes for a seventh time. She pauses, pops a God-knows-how-old peppermint fished from the depths of her purse into her mouth, and that’s when she sees the girl: maybe eight years old […]