Fair Game
by Sophia Adamowicz

The bell in the housekeeper’s bedroom rings for the first time in 119 years. Its jingling – quiet as black ice at first, but getting louder – strikes Eleanor Turbot with a half-forgotten dread. […]

Coiled
by Madeleine Armstrong

 When the men went to war, Etta stayed in the village with her son, Rain, and the other women and children. He was her one and only, and not for want of trying. […]

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Mother Perfect
by Linda M. Bayley

It starts with a whitehead at the tip of my nose, and I’m only ten, and 

it has to come off, darling,

Mom says, so she sends me to get a needle from her sewing kit […]

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In the Fullness of Time
by Ian Johnson

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?Over after-work wines, Cass had caved to her primal self, that hair-pulling surrender – a rocky softness she’d thrown herself onto […]

In Defense of Astoria Lynd
by Angela Joynes

Establishment newspapers called the police officer’s death in the riot “heinous.” As if licking their lips, they opined that Miss Astoria Lynd’s murder trial would be “swift and decisive.”  […]

The Year of Dead Dads
by Mike Piero

The year began like any other: foolhardy New Year’s resolutions, morning trips to Starbucks with no tips, a weird new haircut, a weird new President, and the dis-ease tethered to feeling stuck […]

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Mirror on the Wall
by M.E Proctor

I used to be able to relax after a job. When the vehicle was stowed away in an anonymous garage, when the gun was at the bottom of a river I didn’t need to know the name of. […]

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Child Care
by Lisa Thornton

 The baby had been down for twenty minutes when she heard it. Like a bike tire skidding to a halt in gravel. High-pitched friction. Then the screaming started. […]

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chime 3, volume 5
by Dan Weaver

Some years ago, while living in Golden, Colorado, I wrote a computer program with the intention of creating intelligent artificial life. […]