Excerpts from In This Room by Roberta Allen
Lea is his age now, the age he was when he took his own life on this day fifty years ago. As she sits at the white table, drinking coffee, she sees his death in the half-filled cup. His death lives in this room. His death lives in this silence... Read More
Nature vs. Fertility, God vs. Science by Philippe Sollers, translated from French by Armine Kotin Mortimer
I have no choice but to think that I have been desired by the Dealer in Death, just as the very ugliest of the least of the believers can always tell herself, with satisfaction, that God so wished it. Death, as a result, becomes my natural and social contract, instead of being a tragedy... Read More
WINTERHATE by Greg Mulcahy
Ice cutting as an industry was dead. The ancient sledges had vanished decades ago, and if any draft horses survived, no one saw or heard them. There were other activities, but the general view, after years of accelerating decline, was stated in the last clergyman’s suicide note: Nothing works now... Read More
Paris by Laurie Stone
We did not communicate again. Now he is the age I was when we met, and I am the age Gardner was when he died. Sometimes it comes into my thoughts that I will die this year, too. There is something we feel we are supposed to give back, like feeding a body to the... Read More
The Cliff’s Edge by Evan Lavender-Smith
That she will fall from the cliff’s edge. That her son’s sweaty hand will slip from her grasp and her son will fall from the cliff’s edge. That her outstretched fingers will fail to catch onto her daughter’s onesie as her daughter waddles out past the cliff’s edge. That her flabby biceps won’t support her... Read More
An Archaeology of Holes by Stacy Hardy
A hole has so many enemies. I watch the weather closely, every pattern, every warning. Rain forms and drops. The soil is sodden and slippery. At night the wind blows. I fear avalanches... Read More
Don’t Let This Happen to You by Harry Leeds
The funeral is over and they’ve almost finished stuffing their craws with water, smoked fish, that good, black bread so cheap but these days rare. Jowls filled with water, bubbling to show off the prowess developed over decades, into middle age, of making unpleasant shapes and noises with their faces... Read More
Mundane Cruelty by Paul Kavanagh
The secret is rhizomatic. The secret is a patch of mushrooms awakening in a quagmire. The secret is a corolla which is opening up to the sun and whose dust is filling the air causing: 1. A runny nose. 2. Swelling under the eyes and tears. 3. A puce taint to the face... Read More
Crosstown by Donald Breckenridge
He regarded the image of mother, father and son sitting around an oval table. She stated that the boy’s biological mother lived in southern Ohio. Three unguarded smiles projected the appearance of a happily sunburned family vacationing somewhere near the equator. Mark handed the phone back with a flattering observation about Catherine’s youthful beauty... Read More
Summer Dusk, Winter Moon by Berit Ellingsen
Yet Death yields nothing without resistance. Just as life was beginning to flow, Death caught hold of Summer Dusk with long and hungry fingers. His golden eyes went black with fear, dark brooks blossomed in his narrow face, and his long, lithe body, as much female as male, shriveled and wilted and withered again in... Read More