Short Story

Writing

Skinned Apples

By Cheyenne Mann

                                                                                  SC


Familiar Hands

By Oli Ray

Time’s hands are surprisingly familiar for all the change they bring. Their grasp is a feeling we all know and yet always seem to forget until they put us a down.


Something to Care For

By Anonymous

Every Saturday, after work, I visit my grandmother at her nursing home. It’s about a half an hour drive to get there, but it’s worth the drive. Grandma G isn’t the normal nursing home type you’d think of: sweet, unsuspecting, a kind of elderly innocence.


Blood, White, and Blue: February 2003

By Catherine Strayhall

It’s been more than 30 years since Nam. It’s been about 20 years since the Wall went up, but this is my first time visiting it. Right now, my nephew, Robin, is headed to Kuwait, and probably soon, Iraq, for another war.


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By Alex Dodson

I walked into my room, setting my old backpack down next to my bed. One more, one more year and then I’ll be old enough to move out of this place people call a home.


The Wish Garden: an excerpt

By Andie Davidson

A mindless leaf fluttered out of nowhere and perched on my sandaled foot. In the distance, a disorganized medley of birdsong made up an unrehearsed orchestra. Idyllic as it was, I was in the middle of a fairly typical snapshot of spring.


Past Memories: an excerpt

By Grant Hampton Glover

“Hostile vehicle moving to desired location, ”Ryan heard his spotter and put his handheld bible back into his shirt pocket. Ryan’s face was smeared with camouflage paint, and his rifle was covered in a rifle wrap, with his Ghillie suit covering the rest of his body.


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By Tayler Anne Klein

I broke the silence with a short cough. If anyone else had been in

the sunlit room with me, they would have started and stared as if

I’d broken a silence not meant to be disturbed.


Screaming Secrets : A view from

By Jillian Beyer

She fell on top of me, burrowed her face in my fluff, hands smacking the down inside of me, legs kicking, wriggling, growing restless at the foot. Every night I gave her comfort, she told me her secrets, whispered in the meekest of voices of the taunts and the teases and the tortures of the day.


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By Perry Gross

I get hit in the face... a lot. Dodge balls, basketballs, volleyballs, tennis balls, doors, walls, bird crap, baseball bats, rogue hands, flying sand, and just about anything else you can think of. Everything just seems to have an affinity for my face.


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By Max Fallone

Bullets flew through zombies like needles through cloth, and doing as much damage. The four soldiers were the last of their platoon; the rest had long since fallen to the swarms of the undead.


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By Ally Heisdorffer

“It’s your turn,” Addison grumbled, her voice muffled by the pillow she was planted into. Her eyes were crusted with sleep and she shifted her head over a little to avoid the drool puddle she had accumulated during the night.


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By Ayah Adbul Rauf

Can you believe that? Absolutely impossible. The world ended three months ago. But if you think that’s why I’m in denial, you’re wrong.

I simply can’t believe that a guy like that can even exist...


Still Life

By Haley Renee Born

I’m sitting in the middle of nowhere, on a hill looking toward the horizon. No tripod, just crossed legs and my elbows resting on my knees, holding an old camera filled with darkroom film.


Mayland

By Isabelle Shachtman

You ask me If I know the way back home from here. I sing the words, “yes, dear” back to you like I’m someone else. You say “alright” because you’ve got nothing else to say right now; I respect that. I keep my eyes on the road. I’m not quite sure where you’re looking at this point


Peanut Butter Sandwiches

By Elizabeth Yost

Even when she was young, Sonya had never been afraid of the supernatural.


HOUSE FIRE, ONLY ONE VICTIM, WHAT WAS SHE SAVING?

By Annie Barry

Embers in my hair, black dust getting to my lungs. Red, yellow, purple, blue fire in front of me, behind me, beside me. Above and below me. Within me.


Starless Planet

By Paiton Stith

When we finally start talking to each other after the fall, huddling on the side of the island where the black-eyed humans can’t hear us, we all tell the same story. A day that started with the sun rising and waking up and going off to whatever it is we do during the day.


It Was Ricky

By Anna Schmeer

momma momma momma

it was ricky it was ricky

momma don’t believe that it was ricky who done it

she thinks i killed him

momma momma momma

don’t call the fuzz

it was ricky it was ricky


The Heaven We’ve Been Slouching Toward Is Not the Heaven

By Haley Renee Born

I feel that if I move from this spot I will die. But I take a step forward and don’t.

Forgive me father for I have sinned.


Behind the Glass

By Olivia Danner

It’s 10 pm on a cold-for-California winter night, and there’s nothing I want to do more than to leave the ice cream shop. I drag the mop along the floor behind me, letting its weight act as an excuse for my lack of movement.


Who Turned Off the Lights?

By Rachel Arnold

Zachary sighed and put a hand to his forehead. He took off his glasses and rested his head on his arm, wishing he could find even one decent actor.


How They Used to Say Goodbye

By Erin Ashley

“The End.”


I wish

By Rabi Hemayoun

On a cold February evening I learned one of life’s biggest lessons: appreciate what you have at present because once it’s taken away from you, all you’ll have left are memories. For me that ‘it’ was my fifteen month old niece, Bano.


The Comet

By Holden Meier

Billions of miles away, the Oort Cloud orbited the Sun in silence. The cloud, consisting of thousands upon thousands of chunks of ice and rock, formed the edge of the Solar System, millions of miles past Neptune.


Jewel

By Angela Clem

Even now that she’s gone they won’t stop moving and knocking, I wanted to say How could you say that you love her when you won’t leave her alone, and Darl knows it and instead he sets fire to the goddamn barn. The goddamn barn.


The Evanescent

By Paige Bergan

Every so often there are nights when the veil between worlds is so gauzy and thin, that travel from one to the next can happen as easily as crossing a bridge. Some of these nights follow the rigid calendar journey of the earth, moon, and sun.


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By Hannah McCann

Reading should never just be

considered an option.

A life without reading, not

understanding words, only

spots on a page, with the power

to change worlds, but they’re

dead without a voice, no meaning

till they’re read.


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By Skyler Pippin

I hate putting my family through pain

If I could wrong my rights I would be sane

Until that point I hang my head in shame

I wish not but blame myself


What time Is It?

By Patrick Barry

“Within the surface of the fleeting river the wrinkled image of the city lay.” I stopped and observed this for some time deep in thought about how much I wanted a gas-powered sweater. Sadly, being a stand up comedian, I had little or no money.