12:12 by Justin Jude Carroll Flint is rarer than floss. I’ve learned to live without flame but sometimes I’ll scramble to the valley floor and find a fall of light limbs. My fires are anemic and balletic, swooping in arcs toward the cave roof and nearly snuffing...
Hank the Tank by Tom Houseman Tyler sits across from me, holding a mozzarella stick up between two fingers. He’s not eating it, just picking the bread crumbs off and examining the exposed cheese. “Are you going to actually eat that?” I ask. We’re at the Mayflower...
Thirteen Covers by Erin Langner I still have all the mixed CDs Jill made for me when we were seventeen. I was sitting alone, in the home office I’d never actually worked in before, when I found them. The pandemic was just beginning, and every day, I would sit behind...
Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother, Earth by Dana Jaye Cadman A is for alone. Leave me alone, the girl demands. Don’t let me be alone, she demands louder. The mother thinks how much easier the first is. But these are not either/or propositions, not stand-alone options....
The Cult of Yakushima Isla by Matthew Baker In the shimmering subtropical waters far south of the mainland archipelago lies the island of Yakushima, a mountainous granite landmass forested with ancient cedars that have stood for thousands of years, ringed by a...
Past the Farallones by Michael Thériault How, Sean? thought Danilo; how would Sean care? The others, too, appeared surprised. Sean had always seemed the hardest of them, even though each of them who gathered on weekday mornings for coffee–except Danilo–had decades of...
