the complete first page, as teaser:

It wasn't the first time. In the dark downstairs, where I slept on the living room couch when visiting, I had heard that thud before. I had heard the thunder of his curse—Fuck!—and her exasperated lament, Mack!, Oh, Mack! Once again the transfer from wheelchair to bed had been made—Goddammit!—too difficult from drinking. I'd hear movement in the upstairs bedroom for quite a while, some lighter thuds followed by muffled, unintelligible dialogue, and, finally, there'd be silence.

Though the elevator had been built for Mack two decades earlier, she'd gotten into the habit of using it for herself. In the morning, I'd hear it

…

by Gerard Grealish

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

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It's Monday, and Bob Francis is mowing his lawn before the sun sets. He just mowed it two days ago. Late Saturday morning, while washing a week's worth of dishes, I was looking out the window above my kitchen sink, and there he was. I remember thinking, Didn't he just mow his lawn two days ago? as I worked hard at scraping off some encrusted egg from the plate in my water-wrinkled hands.

Someday, I've been told, I'll have to get a dishwasher, but I kind of like doing the dishes by hand. Helps me meditate. Like Saturday. I was meditating on Bob's grass, how each blade must lean ever so lightly, so trimly against another. Perfect.

…

by Gerard Grealish

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

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Money was low. My friend Mike was driving his motor scooter halfway to New York City before he would take the cutoff toward his home, somewhat south in New Jersey. He had room for a passenger, and, hell, the next day was St. Paddy's Day. Time to take a break from classes. Time to celebrate. I had a thumb. I could stick it out. Which is what I did once he dropped me off where the road forked.

I was getting cold by the time the car stopped. Its rear red lights radiated through clouds of exhaust. My breath made clouds, too, as I ran to the rear door and, opening it, said Thanks. From the backseat, I saw only the hair on the backs of their heads-the male driver's

…

by Gerard Grealish

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

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The other day I was at my favorite lunch counter, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper, when an older man sat down on the stool to my left. He was wearing a stripe of green paint down the middle of his face, from the hairline down to the tip of his nose. He must have noticed the quizzical lok on my face because he grinned and volunteered: "It's t' keep the pie-annas off." (He pronounced it just like that: "pie-annas.")

"Oh?" I responded, because I believe it is usually prudent to be noncommittal with individuals of this sort.

"Yep," he continued. "Gonna be a hail of pie-annas any day now. Be

…

by Dave Reinders

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

the complete first page, as teaser:

…

by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

the complete first page, as teaser:

He is watching him watch his wife with eyes he cannot see behind which lie dangerous thoughts he watches him watch with eyes fixed on bare foot, lean and delicately formed, long toes pressed into carpet, smooth round heel below slender ankle disclosing the structure of articulated bones, joint bending to let outer edge of foot caress broadloom, showing a sole tinged reddish-orange at heel and ball, pale white of arch crinkling as her foot curls in and shifts to press bent toes into plush nap he sits a bit away on watching while eyes he doesn't know are watching him watch him thinking dangerous thoughts he imagines being acted on, acting on impulse arising from bare foot on plush nap he sits on in stockinged feet that are wide and flat, stubby toes in wool socks, smooth flesh of heel below plump ankle obscuring the structure of articulated

…

by Paul Dutton

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

the complete first page, as teaser:

She winds her daughter’s hair in ringlets, tying her hair on top with a ribbon frayed by lifelong use, a ringlet wound around her finger, mind on ribbons in hair she has in ringlets, hands at her sides between legs tensed on tip-toe, knees bent, head held by hands holding frayed ribbon tied in hair on top of head around which ringlets tumble to silk-fabricked shoulder tensed and turning, eyes on her image in the mirror on the wardrobe against the wall behind her, where her hair’s hung down in ringlets, a ribbon frayed with lifelong use tied atop her head bent down to hair hung between tensed legs bent on fabricked shoulder lips have tugged the cloth back from to kiss the flesh the hair hangs down from finger winding it in ringlet coiling serpentine on finger tugging cloth back from shoulder to kiss the mirror-image of her head bent

…

by Paul Dutton

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

the complete first page, as teaser:

Parables of Convenience
for Beth Bromberg

1.

A man wants to rob a convenience store. He charges in, armed with a knife. He orders the clerk to leave and wait outside. The clerk runs out of the store, calls the police, and never comes back. The police surround the store. They see through the window that the man is eating a chicken.

2.

A man wants to rob his local convenience store. He walks in and chats with the clerk. They both know each other. At a certain point, the man pulls on a black balaclava and holds a gun

…

by Gary Barwin

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

the complete first page, as teaser:

The Limitless Skies Above Chairs

The chair nuzzles against trees. It remains still, invisible to its predators. Looking is a contract between hunter and hunted. Also, hiding. Look at a chair. It looks back, waiting for what’s next.

A forest of chairs, a silent choir, the inverse of trees yet becoming trees. The imagination of chairs: moist pools of thought or sense. Inside the chair, a red city, a briefcase, an underground of blood.

There was a house where chairs were on the wall. The carpets were chairs. We ate chair. When did these chairs come into our home, the forest the size of humans, not chairs.

…

by Gary Barwin

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the complete first page, as teaser:

Fred came down to breakfast one morning and discovered a hole in his favorite box of cereal. Granola, dried cranberries, and mouse turds were spread across the red, white and blue shelf liner Beth had carefully installed when they took possession of the house two years ago.

It was an enraging sight and one that Fred dimly remembered from his adolescence when his father Fred Sr had experienced a similar assault. In fact, Fred’s misfortune occurred in the same kitchen. The Fred we are talking about moved into Fred Sr’s house a few years after a herd of donkeys had driven Fred Sr from the house. Now as our Fred surveyed the mess left by the rogue rodents, Fred remembered his vow never to make his father’s mistake: incomplete mouse eradication.

…

by Martha Deed

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

the complete first page, as teaser:

A dream is the life of the mind laid bare.

He stares at his feet in silent meditation. They stick out at the bottom of the bed. He lifts his head. His eyes roam over a landscape of sheets and bedcovers, the hills and valleys of two bodies. He goes to work, first on Gwen who, still nearly sleeping, whispers and moans. Less than an hour later he is standing in his boardroom, at the height of his powers, formidable.

He has lunch alone every day at his desk. His personal assistant brings it to him with a smile. She is young and beautiful. Better than that, she is intelligent and competent. Better than that, she never touches him. Today he is eating fish. Tomorrow will be chicken.

…

by Michael Aro

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

the complete first page, as teaser:

Chapter I

Faded, but the price sticker still clung to the antique brooch.

Its presence replicated something floating as a splinter within the murk of a river, or her mind.

Somewhere, burgundy brooded.

Chapter II

She knows what can drain gold from metal: Touch.

At the local library, an artist is exhibiting ancient handkerchiefs embossed with black-and-white photographs. Shelves of skulls fade behind matters of aesthetics.

…

by Eileen R. Tabios

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

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“A scale, C flat minor key,” a lanky dude called out as I boarded the elevator, my fingers trembling up the fret board of my electric P bass. My hand stopped mid-scale and my blue eyes surveyed him beneath surprised eyebrows. We were in the practice studio building at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts for a week-long music camp.

“How did you know that, that quickly?” I inquired.

“I grew up in Kansas and my bedroom was under a tin roof. When I was six I noticed the raindrops made different pitches and they reverberated in my head. It almost drove me crazy until I started naming and ordering them. As you can imagine, I didn’t sleep much as a kid,” he paused and extended his left hand to me,

…

by Rachael Goetzke

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.

the complete first page, as teaser:

Paul was the itchiest wool sweater available in his wardrobe, brown, bushy fibers bunching around the neck portal & rubbing chaffing tickling, in an all-day-long distraction from a garment that wouldn’t conform to a level of comfort, just the continued awareness that this sheered sheep was woven into a document wrapping round arms & neck holding heat in prickly strings, on the collar:

overgrown brambles & pricker bushes along a suburban creek, a swatch of space to hold the water back from flooding basements or roadways, but at the heavier rain falls this protective patch could do little to deter the dribbling creek from turning to spilling river, sewer spit up through the sump pumps, brown muck driving through the street, citizens watching from livingroom windows as

…

by Chris Tiefel

the rest lives in a tiny 8-page booklet. $2, + S&H.