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Serrated

Joseph cursed his face in the cab’s rearview mirror. A mix of old and new betrayed the convergence of time. Grayed goatee and riverbeds of crow’s feet; salt and peppered hair. When he smiled big, dimples sank into his laugh lines. A hint of boyhood lit Joseph’s eyes. He had little else to show for…

Jimmyjimmy

“Jimmyjimmyjimmyjimmyjimmy,” he said to his new friend as he lay on the bed in detox. It was early afternoon, and he was still dressed. There was mud on the front of his shirt and on his jeans, and his boots were muddy too. He’d had his wife stop along the country road on the way…

Dad, Are You Okay?

The gun goes off. The gun just goes off, is the way it seems. I’m aiming at the sky and the barrel flashes. The clip holds nine rounds. Nine flashes. And the sound! Oh, the sound of a .45 pistol firing off into the solitary deep of a 3:00 a.m. night out in the country….

Back When I Was Drinking

I gave the girl my wife’s nightgowns. Her sexiest lingerie. Back when my wife still used to wear those things for me. Back before I started drinking sixty beers a day. 24/7 drinking. I don’t know if the girl wears them. Maybe she wears them for someone else now. That would be some weird shit,…

Women and Children

Around ten years ago, in December, as the Mayan Long Count calendar appeared to begin another five-thousand-year cycle, Ian sat at a café drinking a succession of espressos. He had been anxiously waiting for something. For the end of days, for the aliens to come. The day rolled by uneventfully enough, and he decided to…

I Want to be This Girl

Families have certain things they believe in and things they don’t believe in. Certain rules they live by. My family didn’t believe in nail clippers. In fact, I didn’t know about nail clippers until I was in my late twenties, some years ago. My husband came into the bathroom while I was cutting my toenails…

Introduction

When Lou Reed departed in 2013, I stopped what I was doing and spent a few minutes listening to “Sweet Jane” and “Pale Blue Eyes.” When I heard about Prince a few years later, I turned to “1999” and “Raspberry Beret.” These private memorials were a reflex of gratitude on my part—a small protest against…

Book Recommendations from Our Former Guest Editors

Peter Ho Davies recommends The Book of Disbelieving, by David Lawrence Morse (Sarabande Books, 2023). “Winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, these are wondrous, beguiling, and deeply affecting stories.” Peter Ho Davies recommends The Best Possible Experience: Stories, by Nishanth Injam (Pantheon Books, 2023). “Hauntingly beautiful tales of arrival and departure, love and loss.”…