Last Memo Wins

by Derek Alger

Originally published on November 5, 2011

So, there it was, if a memo came your way implying you were guilty or at fault about something, it was factual until an appropriate memo challenged such an assertion. After all, it was on paper now, and anything on paper magically became real, no matter how preposterous.

Anna Monardo

interviewed by Derek Alger

Originally published on November 3, 2011

Anna Monardo is the author of two novels, The Courtyard of Dreams (Doubleday, 1993), which was nominated for a PEN/Hemingway Award and recommended for a National Book Circle Award, and Falling in Love with Natassia (Doubleday, 2006).

Sweetheart

by Justine Haus

Originally published on November 1, 2011

I lay in the center of the nest with the women curled on their sides around me like mother cats and every night they woke me up and carried me to the tub, which was always full with tepid water.

Fire Before Ash

by Jonathan Foreman

Originally published on November 1, 2011

We stop. It’s at least ninety degrees outside and we are at an impasse. There is a boy in the road. He is wearing a puffy black coat. Gaines is silent, always silent. James speaks up, Jandi, Ogoff terra amie. He yells and raises his gun.

Mrs. Klute

by Shann Palmer

Originally published on November 1, 2011

The pilot’s cigarette slender German wife begins each day alone with several cups of thick chicory coffee and a pulp paperback.   In the new space-race subdivision, streets edge vacant lots and dead-end driveway aprons, the fresh made curbs go nowhere, yet,   her brick house is full of where she’s been: big beer steins, [...]

the broken flower

by Andrea Hackett

Originally published on November 1, 2011

our dish is chipped, a yellow flower, half gone, half there. i pick at the chip, as you inhale the dinner I cooked. i push my food over the growing chip unable to eat. Share the Love:Bookmark on DeliciousDigg this postRecommend on Facebookshare via RedditShare with StumblersTweet about itTell a friend

All the Useless Things

by Ronald Sparling

Originally published on November 1, 2011

Robin thinks of going to work. Phones his office and tells them he’s sick. They try to sound understanding. Say they hope he’s feeling better by tomorrow. But both he and they are bored with this game.

Repairs

by g r

Originally published on November 1, 2011

Grit dust lifts in a dry wind blown over the ruin’s stones, Corkscrews in clouds of white pepper, rattles into the closed van And my eyes as I work at the repairs. Everything in the yard is broken; engines cracked like finger bones, Locks twisted like the snapped necks of birds, Even words on the [...]