Our Lady of Victories Cathedral, Dakar, Senegal by Jeremiah Gilbert, Issue 12.
Check out these short story excerpts from Issue 12:
FICTION
That night, I was on curfew patrol alone. It was in the dead early hours around 4:00 a.m., a hot and hazy night. I was thinking about two things: my son, drunk on freedom, overcome with dreams in another land; and Jesus on the cross saying, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” I was thinking of these two things side by side — maybe because I carried both a letter from my son and a wallet-sized Gospel of Matthew in my pocket together. … READ MORE >
— Brianne Holmes, Cross the Night
At 7 a.m. on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday in June, Anderson peeled himself from the crisp, white world of his hotel bed and began dressing for Sylvie’s funeral. The temperature was well into the 70s, already, yet he pulled the moss-colored sweater she’d always liked over his bedhead. The fluorescent light above the mirror mocked him. He was too tall and good-looking in a pleasant, off-kilter way that served his career in comedy. On one of their first dates, Sylvie had told him he had the face of an old sea captain. He could see, now, her dark eyes peeking coyly over the glass she’d held to her lips.
And that’s a compliment, she’d said. I only date men who look like sea captains or Al Pacino. … READ MORE >
— Kendall Miller, Funny Bone
SUNDAY, 6:38 PM
“There,” Andy said.
They stood on the catwalk above Tank 167 in ChemSynCo’s Churchill Island Industrial Facility. Below the thick plastic seal under their feet, a tiny clay island rose out of thousands of tons of water. A tube near the top shot a steady stream of what looked like sparks into the water. The water was turning red near the edges of the tank.
“Okay. It’s a tank,” Celia said. Celia was Andy’s fiancée. “I’m very impressed.”
“It’s not just any tank. It’s a Grand Synthesis Experiment. My Grand Synthesis Experiment.” … READ MORE >
— Barton Paul Levenson, Simulation Study
In a daze, I fingered the door handle without getting out of the taxi.
“What did you say this city was called?”
The driver looked at me through his rearview. “M’ill.”
As I got out, he drove off almost before I could shut the door. I brushed dog hair off my dress and smoothed down my hair. I didn’t seem to have my handbag with me. If it was still in the taxi, there was no getting it back now. I began to walk down the wide city street.
I hadn’t gone far before my stomach began to growl. I spotted a convenience store on the next block. Perhaps … oh, that’s right, no handbag. I walked in anyway, past a large “No Stealing” sign. I searched the depths of my pockets. Only a paper clip. Hmm, not very handy. With a sigh, I moved toward the exit. I felt a tap on my shoulder. … READ MORE >
— Chelsea Barnwell, M’ill and H’ill
[…] She saw her usual downy woodpeckers and chickadees and wood peewees and cardinals. She heard a blue jay calling and then spotted it through the trees. It was quiet for a while. A purple finch alighted silently on the hawthorn, cocked his head, and flew off. A red-winged blackbird chirped and chased away another bird that the girl couldn’t see but guessed was a small hawk. Then somewhere out of sight across the stream a crow cawed at something. The girl made notes. A turkey vulture circled high overhead, and the girl tried to track it with her binoculars but couldn’t and almost fell off her log.
Regaining her balance, and laughing, she closed her eyes and listened. It was quiet except for the burble of the stream. She felt a mosquito on her nose and swatted at it, and when she opened her eyes, she saw a man standing opposite her, on the other side of the stream. She stood up. The notebook and pencil fell to the ground. … READ MORE >
— Jordan Rogers, The Interstitial
The crowd parted to let him pass as he shuffled towards the city’s gate and out into the wilderness.
The midday sun bore down upon him, causing the blood on his face and limbs to cake. Above him birds began to circle in anticipation, though they would have a fruitless wait. He stared up at the sky and grinned, which caused the dried clots of blood between his lips to stretch and snap. It was good to be alive, today of all days, and to know that tomorrow he would see the dawn. … READ MORE >
— Martin McNeil, The Chosen One
They nodded and walked away.
There was little more they could ask you. You’d told them everything you could about Dean, for what little time you had known him. They’d asked their many questions, two or three times, in different ways. That’s what cops do. And you’d answered their many questions, two or three times, in the same way, standing there in your entryway.
Yea, it all really sucks. Bad things happen to good people. You get that.
But, deep down, you’re still furious. Furious, that the clothes dryer in your basement still sits as a useless metal and plastic box full of useless metal and plastic parts, waiting for — what, an idler pulley, whateverthehell that is? And with Christmas a week away, who is going to fix it anytime soon? Seriously? … READ MORE >
— Mark Paalman, Parts
“For a rickety old-timer,” my wife says before getting into the cart, “it can still create a rush of blood to all the right places. Add some bump and grind, and BOOM! I just might need a cigarette after!” She giggles and gives my butt a playful tap as I wriggle in beside her. Her feistiness pokes at my amygdala, putting me on high alert.
What excuses do I have left? Maybe I can pretend to be too drunk again?
I draw the safety bar down and notice the slack after engaging the lock. There’s more play in the aging coaster’s mechanisms than I’m comfortable with, causing the restraint to feel more like a stretch of rope across my lap than a tube of metal. … READ MORE >
— Frisk Normandy, See Alice
The sunlight glinted off the golden cottonwood leaves, almost dazzling Charlotte Kennedy’s eyes as she gazed down the wooden bridge. A tremor passed through her, landing in her gut and quivering like the leaves in the wind. And there it stayed as she finally blinked and turned back toward the parking lot, willing her body to do what she both longed and feared to do.
She collected the easel, canvas, and satchel containing oils, palette, pencils, and brushes from her car, old friends accusing her of neglect. Or perhaps they welcomed her touch, grateful to see the sun.
Either way, she needed to view them as friends or else she could never paint another picture. … READ MORE >
— Kelsey Bryant, All That Is Gold
NONFICTION
The first glance, the first lance to my heart, happened at the airport. Two lovers were about to be separated as she prepared to board a flight. As I chanced to walk behind her beloved, she gave him one last look of longing adoration, and I was caught in the crosshairs of their love. Her look of love pierced my heart as if I were the object of her devotion. I was hit by the ricochet of their passion. … READ MORE >
— Marcia N. Lynch, The First Lance
I don’t go to church anymore. It has nothing to do with the fact that my last three churches imploded in flurries of sexual scandal, financial mischief, and doctrinal disagreements. I could easily have moved on, as my friends did, to more stable congregations. It wasn’t a denominational issue either. I’ve been baptized into both fundamentalist Protestantism and the Roman Catholic church. I’d feel as comfortable in a West Virginia snake handling church as I did at the Vatican. So why, after forty years of faithful church attendance, would I rather poke myself with rusty scissors than walk into any church on the planet?
It’s complicated, but I’ll give it my best shot. You see, I had one of those childhoods. … READ MORE >
— Ann Marie Potter, Jesus Had a Penis
You can hear it, can’t you? Just like I have so many times in my life, you can hear the wind of the approaching storm. Its roar, though at a distance yet, still makes your heart beat fast with dread. Hoping against all hope that the storm will not come near, you swallow hard and pray.
But the wind still howls. Louder, you think. And closer now. A gust of air brushes against your face.
No, it can’t be!
You scan the horizon. The dark clouds are gathering quickly. So quickly!
Where did they come from? It was so clear and sunny! This is very unexpected. There was no warning. And now, there is no doubt. The storm will come. And it will come for you. … READ MORE >
— Lea Gillespie Gant, Facing the Storm
[…] Because I was eating so little, I began to lose weight, and because I was losing weight, the people around me began complimenting me, amazed at my drastic weight loss. At some indefinable point in the process, my refusal to eat food out of fear slowly morphed into an eating disorder perpetuated by the desire to lose just a little more weight, just a little more. In the process, brain overwhelmed with exhaustion and thoughts of weight loss, I had begun losing touch with God and with those around me, the decline so gradual I barely noticed it at first. … READ MORE >
— Rachel Lynne Sakashita, Eating Is Worship
Life has as much linear narrative as a scroll painting, forever in motion, revealing and retrieving its intricate scenes — connecting into a larger whole never to be fully seen …. There’s always memory to revisit, hope to gaze upon. Nothing has disappeared; nothing is unforeseen. God, in His omnipresence, sees every moment of our lives all at once. We mere men, bound by our limited vision, are graced with remembrance and faith to somewhat transcend time and choose what shoulder-length of the elaborate artwork we should behold …. READ MORE >
— Sassette Liu, Scroll Painting
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