Stories from
December, 2010

Mike says sure, enjoying how casual he sounds. Jim thanks him too much. Then both go silent, watching the pen scratch across the check.

R. Gatwood is concise.

Shirtless, he struck a match on his zipper and lit the Village Voice crumpled under kindling.  Hand me the wood, he said.

Michael Dean Anthony lives in Austin, TX and edits Thumbnail Magazine.

“Why do you always do that with my boyfriends?” Her twin hesitated. Then came the familiar excuse: “It’s their fault for not knowing.”

Noel Sloboda lives in Pennsylvania with three dogs, two cats, and one wife.

Lipstick in tiny hand, she ornaments the mirror. She’s too young to translate, but I’m experienced. It says, “I love you and this is yours.”

Kenneth Parker is a student and musician living in the Pacific Northwest. He has work forthcoming from Scifaikuest.

The six-foot nopal, pale in the Arizona moonlight, almost made him forget the gag.

JP Allen lives in Danville, Kentucky, and studies Political Science in Middlebury, Vermont.

A hollow ache, all her life. Then one day, she saw the news and wept. Sirens, a mangled wreck, and a stranger whose face mirrored hers.

Tina Doan moonlights as a medical student.

Her father always had trouble discerning the two, so she gave him a hint. Fiction, she said, was love; nonfiction, hate.

Robert Swartwood (@RobertSwartwood) is the editor of Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer.

He’d never had sushi before, wasn’t planning on ever having it again. She also chewed with her mouth open. And Mother would never approve.

L.A. Stein is almost as short as her fiction yet is no stranger to tall tales.

Angry silence. I hit the radio. “Crops fail as bees continue to decline.” A thunk on the windshield. “There goes another one.” We laugh.

Elayna Finley is a new mom and lives closer to the Rocky Mountains than the ocean that she loves.

Joe’s service was just for family, Dean was told on the church steps.

Sylvia Hiven doesn’t like padding.