Drying Out

by Simon Maslin

I watched the woman in the queue ahead of me put the bottle onto the checkout conveyor belt. It was gorgeous, obscene: a bulging belly of cheap vodka with a long glass teat stretching up into an erection crowned by a blood-red cap. A big nipple from which to suckle beautiful oblivion. It moved slowly towards the till as the conveyor trundled onward, my purchases crowding behind it. I had bought orange juice, bread, a couple of cheap microwaveable meals and some Norwegian cheese that had a comically unpronounceable name. I had been clean for two months now; off the booze and into the great blank illumination of non-stop sobriety. Read more.

String Theory

by Andrea Paul

He returned home only for a short while after many travels on the green string. He planned to relocate to another state, but during this brief window of time there was a party to attend. He was delighted to be back in San Francisco among friends, feeling fantastic and it showed. Read more.

The Bride Speaks

by Adam Jeffries Schwartz

Here are your next 10 Yucatan man:

Bottle
Further
Storage
Tradition
aftershock
aquarium
backward
holy
Daffodil
sculpture Read more.

Resurrection's Rhymes

by Dorothee Lang

or: Women's Life Stories in Three Lines
intersection, collection, affection

I was making cookies and the recipe called for 2 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 cup finely chopped almonds and 1 cup of butter, among other things. I am 1/4 cup short of flour. I don't know what to do. Use bread flour? Add more nuts? Use less butter? Read more.

Protestant Pumpkins

by Hilary McRee Flanery

The Sacramental Soldier had died. My eight-year-old nephew. He was the second of my sister Peggy's precious four children. Peggy is the fourth child in our family and I am her older sister and the oldest of our parents' ten children. I have eight little sisters and one little brother. I used to tease my brother, "Blessed are you among women." He became a Marine. Read more.

The Landvaettir

by Jolene Dawe

His family had strict rules about interfering with the lives of mortals. They could watch. They could influence. They could use their powers to make life easier or more difficult. They could bless the house or curse it, causing peace or strife. They could not, however, directly confront or harm any human being. It was a rule set down long before he'd existed, and it had governed the way he interacted with his humans for centuries. Even as his house changed hands, changed families, he honored the way of his family. He bestowed joy and peace on those who deserved it, and caused anything from minor annoyances to outright disaster when it was required. He was, he thought, a rather easy-going wight; he didn't even require, as some of the older members of his family did, that the humans believed in him or offered him gifts. He simply required that they treat the house, the land, and one another in a respectful manner. He rewarded those who did and punished those who did not. Read more.