Fool’s Spring
by David Henson

“This is nice,” my wife says as we seat ourselves at a window table with a view of Lake Michigan. It was her idea to drive up for the weekend. She thinks the change of scenery will be good for me […]

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Bride/Zilla
by Ashlee Lhamon

“There’s something in the water.” At the last-minute Amy turns water into wadda, because everyone is having a terrible enough day already […]

Watching the Rotarangi Girls
by Emily Macdonald

Reg watches the Rotorangi from under the veranda. The poplars dance sideways, a listing line of willowy chorus girls, silver-black against a raw, aching sky. […]

The Others
by Nora Nadjarian

 The sea never ended when we were in it and we always wanted more, please, more, please, as we plunged, and our mothers called us from the shore and we pretended not to hear them. […]

Dinners With Ghosts
by Tracie Renee

Sunday Dinner: Fritters and Grits
Meals are crowded now that the ghosts dine with us. I set extra places for them just like Ma taught us: plate, cup, fork, spoon, knife. […]

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I Was Born a Half-Formed Thing
by Christina Tudor

When I was born, I was half-formed and couldn’t breathe so doctors hooked me up to a machine to act as my lungs. My whole self fit in my mother’s palm. […]

Broken Eggs
by Louise Walton

Patsy went missing the same day my grandpa died. There’s only four chickens and the rooster now, all cruckling and flap-rustling as they scramble out of the henhouse door. […]

Listening to Savage Garden in Secret
by Charly Chow

You and me, both vicar’s kids, ached for unnameable things. We sat on your bed, a little bit past fifteen, […]

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Head in the Clouds
by Chris Cottom

After tea, Dad pushes his plate aside. ‘I’ve been promoted. It means bringing work home.’ Mum stops in the doorway, dishes in her hands. ‘Hang on. You’re a meteorologist.’ […]

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Last Supper
by Zoë Davis

There’s a hot wing stand on the edge of Heaven. It’s right where the queue is longest, when you yearn for that final taste of home. The logo is a cloud with a chicken exploding out of it. […]

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This is Not a Horror Film But if it Were…
by Jaime Gill

…you’d munch popcorn and settle in your seat while the opening titles play over the boy’s bus journey home through sullen Northern England, […]

You Have Arrived at Your Destination
by Vicky Heath

The carpark seemed surprisingly deserted for a heritage property with an award-winning tea room. Indeed, the only other vehicle that Sunday afternoon was a white minibus […]

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The Ripening Process
by J.D. Hellen

It starts with your girlfriend buying a new kind of cheese she had to request at the deli counter. […]

La Perla de Gran Precio
by Cuyler Meade

At the massive, open-air pulga, a man could get his car windows tinted, save his eternal soul, and lose it again – all in one place […]

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Empty Nest
by Bill Merklee

Charlene and I had known each other for so long that by the time we were in high school, our attempts at being a couple seemed incestuous. […]

‘Baby, Be Mine’
by Nora Nadjarian

He keeps texting Baby, be mine and then just Baby, or Be mine, and I keep popping packets of love hearts in my mouth, fizzy orange, pale yellow, pretty pink, […]