FICTION BY THOMAS MUNDT: “Thundercat needed a job, so he walked into the CVS on the corner of Clark and Kinzie and demanded one.”
A STORY BY DEB R. LEWIS: “For the record, I never wanted to go on the freakin’ Disney Cruise…”
FICTION BY MATT WOOD: “Each day he logged into one of the computer terminals behind the teller windows, entered his ID number, and clocked in. The time card system wasn’t tied to his paycheck in any way–he was on salary–but he took personal pride in clocking in early every day.”
LAST EVENINGS ON EARTH BY MICHAEL ZAPATA: “It is nearly impossible to ride the Western bus or walk down State Street without spotting dozens of people who look as if they are deeply and sincerely confused about their own greatness and also about the impending doom of the universe and their miniscule place in it.”
BY CARMEN MORRIS CLARK: “My grandmother is 4 foot 9 inches. She dresses like she’s from another country, another world.”
FICTION BY MIRIAM MORENO PEREZ: “I feel as if I had gone through a very narrow, disruptive tunnel of darkness, and as if someone had suddenly snatched me from such obscurity”
A SHORT STORY BY KJ HANNAH GREENBERG: “Even at that late stage of disfigurement, he liked her body and wanted to touch it…”
FICTION BY LAVINIA LUDLOW: “These girls went around from bar to bar picking fights with guys twice their size, hurling beer bottles, and chugging alcohol by the tapped barrels…”
A SHORT STORY BY DEB R. LEWIS: “The only time his life-spark shone was when he bladed onto the ice, stick in hand.”
FICTION BY THOMAS MUNDT: “On my sixth birthday, my friends and I played Freeze Tag at dusk and I ran into a clothesline. My head snapped back and I landed flat on my back, knocking the wind out of me. Worse, the dry rope left a nasty burn across my eyelids. It hurt like hell and when my lungs returned I howled for my dad to come scrape me off the lawn. “
A SHORT STORY BY PAUL M. DAVIS: Signs of life and sociopathic behavior on the surface of Mars
A SHORT STORY BY MATT WOOD: “He bumped into my shoulder as he turned to sit back down. ‘Whatever, man, you’re not a real teacher.’”
A SHORT STORY BY BRIGID J. BARRY: “I kept walking, following the kites with my eyes instead of watching where I was going. I began to be worried that their strings would get tangled up, since they were so close together.”
A SHORT STORY BY MEGAN STIELSTRA: My first fake ID was from a five-foot, thirty-five-year-old woman named Rosario and, surprisingly enough, it worked—so long as I ducked down nine inches, wore a wig and put on my I am not eighteen face.
Paul M Davis