Tag: Fiction

  • Good Enough to Rock and Roll by Danny Anderson

    Good Enough to Rock and Roll by Danny Anderson

    Burls threw water over his face and ruffled the tight curls of his thick hair like pigeons did in the fountain in Washington Square Park. In his first week at NYU, he learned how just being in the city slickens you with a creeping layer of grime. It wasn’t always visible, but the dirt was…

  • Single Car Collision by Brian Coughlan

    Single Car Collision by Brian Coughlan

    With the euphoria of some chemical released to prepare me for impact, of held-down car horns announcing, with the high-pitched whine of brakes shrieking in distress – the car veering towards a stretch of grassy median before performing an elaborate skidding manoeuvre, as if all grip conceded by the four tyres at once, kicking up…

  • A Word for the Old Woman by Richard Gibney

    A Word for the Old Woman by Richard Gibney

    There’s an issue with one of my friends, Hector. He has a tendency to introduce me to gangsters and dealers. It’s only after the fact that he’ll say: “Here’s the scoop. That guy runs the heroin out of Darndale to the whole of North Dublin.”

  • Momentum by Christopher Thomas

    Momentum by Christopher Thomas

    Jamey scurried up the side of the hill, he kept low as he crossed over the old logging road, and then he ran down into the ravine on the other side at a pace mostly out of his control. He could feel the muscles in his thighs grab and his knees crunch with each jarring…

  • How We Solve It by J.D. Isip

    How We Solve It by J.D. Isip

    Sarah, when she was small enough to hold – when she would ask to be held – had an angelic temperament. Except on some mornings. Mornings when everyone was running late, the dog had pissed the kitchen floor, breakfast was cold and disappointing, and my niece could feel the seam of her sock anywhere but…

  • To Be Violet by Lailee Zakir

    To Be Violet by Lailee Zakir

    My mules needed rest, as did I. In the distance, what seemed like a village. I dismounted and walked about. I was thrilled to find we spoke the same tongue. An elderly man with yellow fingernails led me to his home. His wife and granddaughter sat atop a floor of littered purple flowers. I noticed…

  • A Loud Noise Will Come by Patricia Brubaker

    A Loud Noise Will Come by Patricia Brubaker

    They sit on the step, side by side, hips touching. She covers her ears and squeezes her eyes closed until tiny tears form in the corners. She waits, and only silence and crickets and an occasional siren on the main street blocks away from their house can be heard. She waits, opens her eyes and…

  • Holiday of a Lifetime by Chris Cottom

    Holiday of a Lifetime by Chris Cottom

    In June, my mate Mike will be seventeen, so we’ll buy a van, fit it with mattresses, and go continental. It’ll be the five of us from last summer at Sandbanks, except it’ll be St Tropez and no mums mithering us about missing the sunshine when we sleep until tea-time. Mike had better pass his…

  • Five Brothers by Courtney Welu

    Five Brothers by Courtney Welu

    My first brother died of a disease with no name, or at least a disease with no name seventy years ago. They have presumably named it by now. Only eight at the time of his passing, he was the first of us to break my mother’s heart as she tended to him through the night,…

  • Quebec Snow by Mark Keane

    Quebec Snow by Mark Keane

    Tony France came looking for me in the garden maze where I was pruning the hedges. “You can leave that for now,” he said. “Mr Davidson has a special job for you.”