map Macro-Fiction Archives

The Movie

Issue No. 268 ~ September, 2019

The movie came out on a Wednesday. By Thursday, the majority of kids at school were talking about it, and by Friday, everyone was.   “Best movie of the year,” said Tubby Newton.   “Best movie of the decade,” said Sam Winn.   “Best movie …

A Long Marriage

Issue No. 268 ~ September, 2019

We live together in a museum, she and I, where the artifacts are us. We are like old bits of rock, pressed flowers, tattered letters and cracked pottery. We go to bed as relics among relics, noting each other’s antiquity. Have we any collectors’ value? …

CAFE KRANZLER

Issue No. 268 ~ September, 2019

Stars and Stripes Features Editor Darrell Sternwald hopped down from the back steps of the tram and promptly slipped on the wet cobblestones and fell flat on his face. As he peered around him the blurry faces of boarding passengers staring down at him appeared …

A Tale of Two Birds

Issue No. 267 ~ August, 2019

There was a Tulip tree, older than anyone’s eyes could remember, that stole the valley. The old Tulip tree stood next to a river, who’s fervour had somewhat diminished in the current, torrid, summer months. Sounds of water lazily treading over the stones and the …

Master of the Art

Issue No. 267 ~ August, 2019

I work for an author. I can’t tell you her name, so I’ll call her Madame. I’m quite certain you know her work. She practically resides on the Times’ best-seller list. No doubt you read her last book, which caused a stir. Almost certainly you’re …

Laos, Interrupted

Issue No. 267 ~ August, 2019

The author wanted to write a coherent account of her two years living in Laos but a Russian hacker sent her a virus that made all of her word documents leap together like lovers. What follows are two different accounts of her two years in Laos- one from year one, one from year two- as she kept crossing the divide between confusion and confusion.

Across the Country, in Albuquerque

Issue No. 266 ~ July, 2019

Last I knew she was heading to Albuquerque to live with her father. The father who moved there months earlier with his new wife, the one who let us stay up late watching movies on the weekends when I often slept over. The same father …

The Lone Hero and the Self-Made Man

Issue No. 266 ~ July, 2019

The Lone Hero had a gun tucked in the waistband of his jeans. He had two more in the pockets of his leather jacket, and a small nickel-plated number in a nylon holster in his dusty boot. Weighing on his shoulder was a bazooka, the …

Stars above Detroit

Issue No. 266 ~ July, 2019

It was a cold and snowy December when I was handed the address of a “crack house” in one of the deserted and boarded up Detroit neighborhoods once inhabited by happy families whose sustenance was provided by good paying manufacturing jobs. The closing of the …

Balloons

Issue No. 266 ~ July, 2019

By seven-thirty, a posse of kids had cut loose the helium balloons. They floated up to the high ceilings and hung belly to belly, their tethers dangling just out of reach.