“Dead Mother’s Corn Oil” by Diane Payne

Long Distance Lover was happy I finally agreed to spend time at his dead mother’s cottage in the middle of nowhere.  I already lived in the middle of nowhere.  After making the 850-mile drive to spend a week or two with him at his house in a real town, with real things to do, I …

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“Meat” by Donna L. Greenwood

At the dinner table, his mother’s flesh spreads like warm, pale jelly over her chair. His father sits at the head of the table; he is simmering and sour. Tom covers his ears to drown out the fat, wet noises erupting from the mouths of his parents as they eat. He looks at the grey …

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“In The Shape Of A Small Bird” by Julia Strayer

I dream my brother sold me a shack by a river that ran too quick to the sea, but he’s been dead all my life. They say I carry what’s left of him. A ball of DNA in my abdomen where he fused into me long before we were born.  My brother is angry he …

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“Teeth” by Andrea Marcusa

I notice before he does. My husband of fifteen years has turned bearish. His nails are suddenly hard, black and sharp. His arm hair is darker. Coarse tufts have sprouted on his back. When I met him, I immediately noticed his strong back as he hoisted himself up on the side of our local pool. …

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“Cetacea” by Erin Calabria

When a riptide comes, mother says to swim crosswise against it. But I am already thinking of the whales. Of all the heavy millennia before they went back to the sea—a dwindle of limb, a lengthening of spine and fingerbone steering them out, deeper and deeper, into such softness and hush, it would carry their …

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“Palimpsest” by Sutton Strother

After I built my time machine, I collected lovers across millennia – women with mechanical arms and regenerating cells, thick-bearded men perfumed with cave damp. One by one I carried them home with me. We threw parties, traded knowledge, made love in unthinkable configurations. A Sumerian prostitute soon fell pregnant with the child of a …

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“Cupola” by Jiksun Cheung

The sea breeze whips at my bathrobe and whistles beneath the floorboards of the front porch. Something seems off again, but I can’t put my finger on it. Millie says the isolation will do that to you. Behind me, the glass dome of Hak Island Lighthouse glints in the autumn haze. The dome is called …

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“Tomorrow at Café La Nuit” by Sara Hills

1 You’ll meet your Uncle Dubois for dinner. He’ll order for you in excess, he always does, peering through perched spectacles at le menu while stroking the salted tail of his lamp black beard. He’ll want to discuss finances. Your future. The muscles in your legs will tense until you remember he’s no Auntie Jeanne; …

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“Ghost world” by Lorette C. Luzajic

for Svetlana The artist’s house is an electric still life: a jumble of jetsam, flickering with clues to other worlds and time. She rearranges her collection like assemblage, bringing objects together for a brief encounter while she furiously paints the spirit of their ensemble. You have lost track of what she is telling you because …

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“From The Laurel Flower” by Jonathan Cardew

After several visits to the tennis courts, I fall in love with the new girl from Greece. I don’t think it’s love at first; I don’t immediately want to kiss her or anything. It’s just the slow way she goes about things. It’s her dark hair and eyes, and her accent—a fusion of Greek and …

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“The Hand That Wields The Priest” By Emily Devane

That evening, the fish left a strange taste in my mouth. We’d gone together, Dad in his waxed jacket and waders, me in my parka and wellies. Flies hovered above the river, orange-tinged in the afternoon sun. He fastened together his rod and opened his box: flies lined up like soldiers on parade. ‘We’ll try …

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“Altered Persona” by Thaddeus Rutkowski

Each night, I put on my costume—a long cloth neck, two stubby horns, a patchwork quilt, and stilts—and went out to forage for leaves. I needed a long neck to reach the topmost morsels. But my neck wasn’t going to get any longer from stretching it. No, I understood Darwinian theory. Creatures with long necks …

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