Category: Short Story
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Cats Shouldn’t Be That Big by Trevor Gay
The cat arrived at approximately 5:07 that Tuesday evening. Stalks of wheat, normally static or singing softly in the breeze, parted and revealed two green, dinnerplate-sized eyes. The aging farmer leaned forward in his rocking chair. The gnarled wood pressed against his iron hands. The farmer had never seen bears…
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Boxes in Burlington by Mike Dwyer
When Sheila Worth came to work that Monday morning wearing a corrugated cardboard box and little else, it brought barely a hint of the commotion to come. We were, after all, inside a Burlington, WI, Packaging Corporation of America plant, where hulking machines crank out thousands of boxes daily. We…
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The Note Inside the Nook by Jonathan Ferrini
“On behalf of the management and staff of the Lookout Lounge high atop the Grand Dame hotel of the beautiful ‘City by the Bay,’ we welcome you to our New Year Celebration welcoming in 1942. “We’re joined by the Xavier Cugat Orchestra whose musicians of magic are finely tuning…
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The Habit of Breathing by Kaitlyn Connors
In the middle of an empty road, Maria lay panting in a pool of her own blood. She held her eyes tightly shut, as if that might quiet the pain in her left side. The pavement was rough on her palms; her jeans were torn and her knees scabbed. …
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A Time to Remember Don Noel
Alicia hadn’t thought about his watch until she called the hospice nurse to confirm that he was gone. She’d long planned to slip his wedding ring off, curious if the engraving – Ted and Alicia, October 14, 1960 – might still be legible. She’d peeked at her own, but the…
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One Headlight by Mary Lewis
Lorraine. Lorry had to crawl the way they do in the army, to get through the hole in the inner chain-link fence. Her growing belly made her thicker. A fragile cushion she needed to protect. She whispered a thanks to Marcus, who must have cut through it last night,…
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Melody of Mountains Lydia Steffan
There lies, below the peaks of the grand escape—the greenest mountains among the gloomy world that dominates the skies—a strange sort of hum, a voice. She sings a long melody of battle and blood, of love and life, loneliness. ‘’What is this voice?’’ they ask. ‘’Where has it grown…
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Grandma’s Sink by Fern Goodman
The day of sorting through the house, deciding what to keep, sell, or donate, was over, and Rachel wanders through the Victorian house, her new home, feeling a sense of accomplishment. The two-story house, with its creaking floors and tattered rugs, was Grandma’s legacy to her. Rachel, finally on her…
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The Omniscient by Neil Weiner
Miriam had always known things she shouldn’t. Not in the logical, pieced-together way that detectives or therapists did. No, she felt them as if she were omniscient: other people’s pain, their fears, their desires, as if they were her own. It was a miserable way to live. She avoided crowds,…