• God & The Invention

    God & The Invention

    by Ally Schwam I created the rain. It’s one of the first things I created. Two years ago I started as an assistant at the Creation Center and then a year later got promoted to junior programmer. The first task I got was to program what a higher-up called “rain.” Rain was just water that…

  • The Dead by Maura O’Connor

    The Dead by Maura O’Connor

    one by one, they were all becoming shades… —James  Joyce I fled your deaths. They happened anyway. Me, the missing witness. Michael, I will miss you most. The roses you gave me the night you told me you hated me. The song you wrote comparing my eyes to ocean my dreams to rainbow. It wasn’t…

  • Eighth Grade

    Eighth Grade

    by Catherine Zickgraf We were empty-eyed cinder blocks,ringed keys unlocking the doorknobs. Among junior high’s sleepy congregation,an audience of our class’s generation,only some of us showed up praised and amen-ed. School taught me typing for college essaysand gave me chances to run away. We’d flood from the school at 3:05—but only some return now for…

  • Honeymoon on the Volga

    Honeymoon on the Volga

    by William Doreski This is our third honeymoon and the first on which you’ve spoken to me, to anyone. The Volga flows under our little room. The innkeeper wields no recognizable language. Your native Russian means nothing to him. When English falls from my mouth it writhes on the carpet, where he extinguishes it with…