All the students at Queen Mary Catholic High School knew about Principal Vargas’ death before the first bell. To Rayven James, it was welcome news. The entire student body swarmed through the hallways like a many-headed ocean, with straight brown, blond and black hair coloring the seas. An occasional pop of red floated past like […]
Content Note: Suicide Blue was her favorite color. He touched the glass case one last time before returning to the desk, but his handprint lingered on, an ethereal smudge above the backlit, cerulean shadow of her face. No matter how often he tried to write their story, he couldn’t shake free of the lies […]
1704 Tsardom of Muscovy Ibrahim watched as Tsar Pyotr of the Russians was seated into a wooden chair in front of a fireplace. It was made for a very big man, with a high back and curved arms carved like lions. And the Tsar was certainly big, taller than any of the other men […]
She held her breath as the demon struck the match, but nothing stranger than the smell of sulfur rose to meet her; it lit the candles like anyone, left to right, and placed the shammes in the center of the small brass menorah when it was done. They glowed quietly and a little ironically on […]
Never fall in love with a deer woman. Deer women are wild and without reason. Their lips are soft as evensong, their skin dark as the mysteries of a moonless forest. A deer woman will make you do terrible things for a chance to dip your fingers inside her, to have her taste linger on […]
The seat beneath her was glossy plastic and not interested in prolonging their acquaintance. Shifting from thigh to thigh, Julia Popova flipped through newspapers in search of the logo and slogans for bourbon that she had labored over for weeks. New York Times, March 3, 2005—ESCAPED CARRIAGE HORSE. Reports to the Parks Department of a […]
1 Here’s how I found out my girlfriend was a champion of nigh-space. 2 Her name was Vivian and she went by Vivy. We met on a dating site, and the algorithm thought our interests were similar and/or complementary enough to make us a mathematically near-perfect match: zombie movies, live shows with local bands, favorite […]
Everything started here: A broad plain of yellow grass, the stalks crushed and smeared with blood, and the sounds of dying men—yes, all men—sobbing and praying to the rusty pink sky. The high grass hid their forms and faces. They were bodiless voices, as if ghosts already, rising above the field like ashes to heaven. […]
Here’s a story Lan was told, when she was a child—when she lay in the snugness of her sleep-cradle, listening to the distant noises of station life—the thrum of the recycling filters, the soft gurgle of water reconstituted from its base components, the distant noises of the station’s Mind in the Inner Rings, a vast […]
I. That kid didn’t belong here. We all knew it from the moment he walked through the door at Rosalie’s, full of nerves and rage. If you belong, you never sport those two together. Everyone in Riverside knows that. It is a wise precaution to assume that anyone angry is also armed. The drinkers stopped […]