by Charles Rose
After I parked at Big Jack's place, Marleah said she didn't want to go back to the party right away. We could hear fire crackers popping and crackling down the road. Marleah moved closer to me, and I heard her catch her breath. I put my arm around her, stroked the back of her neck. She leaned over and kissed me on the mouth, and then she put her head on my shoulder. Having her close to me, I wanted that to last.
by John Marshall Daniel
I let out a yowl that’s part Chewbacca, part Tasmanian Devil and strike a Who-Dares-Awaken-Mighty-Kong pose with my back to the door. As soon as I hear the footsteps come close, I whirl around and charge the bars, slamming into them and reaching and pawing through them at the mark, who jumps about a foot straight up and retreats against the wall, laughing. She’s a woman alone, which almost certainly means she has friends waiting outside for her to report back before they spend their five tickets. Cheapskates.
by J. Lynn Laughlin
The only light in the room came from the green glow of the digital alarm clock. Soon, he would have to go back to his position at the museum, to stay close to home. The road would become a part of some other life, and then he understood why Walter kept the sword between the mattress and box spring. He imagined it was under his bed, the metal blade lying flat, suffocating under his weight.
by Richard Plant
He does a kind of dance-in-place, hunched over, shaking both his hairy wrists down at the level of his knees. He raises his brown-stained throat up to the moon. "There's wood enough within, " he rasps. "There's wood enough within." He rolls his head from side to side. The moon rattles across the sky, sinking into a purple cloud, and the gristle in his neck cracks softly. Then Caliban goes limp, falling forward until he feels his chin touch down upon his necklace of bone, and his fingers dangle at his ankles. He hangs there motionless, as Ariel must have hung while trapped in that enchanted pine.
by Greg Downs
He kicked his leg high, Dizzy Dean-style, the way Big Pop taught him and then he let himself fall into the pitch, his toe diving toward the plate. The coaches at Davenport wanted to shorten his motion, take a little off the fastball, gain some on the control. Be a pitcher, not a thrower. But he loved to throw. He threw fastball, fastball, fastball. Who needed a curve in the dark? Who needed anything except the thump of the ball striking the sponges? Sometimes he missed low, just so he could hear the crack when it landed outside the strike zone, ball on wood.
by David S. Levinson
While the crickets chirrup beyond the walls of the Blums’ bedroom, Ruth awakens, thrust out of sleep by a terrible dream—of airplanes splitting apart in midair, shrapnel and bloody limbs landing in her front yard. She gropes for her pills...
by Karen Sagstetter
Dr. Parek? Oh, hello Dr. Parek. You know we need to run to the store for milk and after that we need gas, but I wondered if it would be all right for me to call you back around noon because we're a little worried about our mother. This is Beverly, her daughter. Or you could call us. Thanks.
by Louis Gallo
Well, again I’ve reneged on my sincere vows of personal reform, both last night and this morning, and right before the eyes of my two precious daughters, eight and eleven, who looked upon my seizures with unblinking, dumbfounded eyes.
