Short Stories

Strutters’ Ball by Barry Basden Cleaning out my father’s things I found an old black and white photo, one I’d never seen before. Hidden away all these years. The photo was taken in some kind of hall, a gentlemen’s club perhaps. Joyless carpet, somber wainscoting, a small mirror propped on its rail. Patterned wallpaper and […]

Patrick Hanford is a short story author and has been published in Heater Magazine and Elite Critiques Magazine. He is a member of Caprock Writer’s Association and has published on their website.

You would hate it if you knew how many times I apply lipstick now that you’re gone. I’m putting it on, like, every five minutes to get through the next fifteen, though I know they use fish scales to make it

She said, “This is crazy.” She looked at me. “Isn’t this crazy?”

I shrugged. I thought that, sure, maybe it was a little crazy. But I thought it was exciting, too. Crazy or not, I thought it might be crazier if we parted ways and never saw each other again.

David Lohrey grew up in Memphis. His poetry can be found in Otoliths, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Easy Street and Quarterday. In addition, recent poems

Gone but Not Forgotten by Carol M. Gore. Carol lives in Victoria, BC, Canada, and when not writing, work in labour relations for the provincial government.

While the apartment phone rings over and over, the couple cooks awkwardly trying not to involve eye contact with each other. Her shinny blue eyes are fixed on the onion she is chopping,

I was assembled anonymously according to traditions. I fail to realize my identity. My memory is cyclically deleted. I’m a symbiotic specialized adaption for systematic kinetic force. I have been eaten and I’ve consumed anything radiating energy forces

“Here, give her to me. I’ll take her.”

A nurse snatches my baby at the threshold as though I’m a delivering a bundle of laundry. Her statement, brusque, devoid of emotion, and her manner, business-like. This woman is obviously in charge.

I cradled her beautiful face in my hands. Her big blue eyes looked up at me and her smile shined radiantlywith the glowing light bouncing off her white teeth.

Mrs. Petersen knew what they were doing up the road. Mr. Baum had a good idea, too. He was the town baker and although he worked a lot he still heard the rumors.

It was dusk and Cuervo paced around the apartment, the sound of his nails clicking across the floor marking time with the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.

The Dress by Bruce Levine Claudine Bucknell set up her easel in what would have been the shadow of the north-west leg of the Washington Square Arch if there could have been a shadow at noon on the north side of the Arch. It was a beautiful Sunday in June with the temperature just right […]

She always loves the smell of her mother’s freshly baked apple pie. She never dares eat it, though. She always appreciates the smell of food more than the taste.

Last thing I remember was her arm being out the window. We was racing down the 101, outside Ventura, sun disappearing over her shoulder. She handed me the bottle,

Josiah R. Sutcliff made his fortune stealing the mineral wealth of California and Nevada in the 1880’s and 1890’s. When Josiah died in 1937, he was one of the richest and loneliest men west of Denver

It was on a Wednesday that I first saw it. I was in the garden hanging out the washing when something caught my eye at the house opposite. I looked away, so scared by the image

They started out in the dark. A 4:30 a.m. alarm had gotten them out the door, showered and respectable, in old but clean REI outfits. Leah hated this. Waking up before dawn

Back in 1957, kissing Carol Ann behind the barn in the middle of a windswept field of Goldenrod with a sudden deer watching was something special, let me tell you

The Boat by Robert Knox Though sometimes, whenever we were in town, we took you out from the ‘place’ and drove you to one of the little beaches on the North Shore, the sand skimpy and yellow, the water placid, and tried to help you remember things. “There was a boat…” “A boat?” “I remember…” […]

I went to work by myself that day because my mom was busy crying. The work is a killer. The soft flesh is easily bruised, so they must be picked, and packed

I wear want-me red with matching stilettos and the bracelet he brought from Venezuela, the earrings received for a birthday meant to echo my crystalline eyes

The Photo by M.H.D.S. Dharshanapriya ‘Where is the photo ? Who took it ? Tell me.’ My sister’s frenzied voice overhauled the usual screeching and rumbling sound of the traffic outside our house. She was sweating profusely and walking to and fro like a caged animal. Father, mother and I were supposed to be the […]

Raymond stood at the casket for a long time. It was early in the afternoon and the family would not be back to the funeral home to receive visitors until six o’clock

My 70th birthday gift from my daughter was a four-day guided tour of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

He slid my just-fallen flip-flop back on my foot. I thought, “He treats me like a princess.”

“What if she finds the body? Oh, man, we should never have buried it there!”

Bern Vega walked through the front door of his tiny bungalow on Brook Street with the words of the writing class instructor resonating in his head: “If you’re having trouble getting started

The restaurant is crowded and the hum is building as the place quickly fills and the overfilled plates and glasses arrive at the small, closely jammed tables.

My dad tapped the top of his beer can and turned Tom Petty up louder.

“Make sure you get the right kind.”