By J.R. Packard The tragedy of Margaret Lincoln is a difficult one to understand. Not least of all, by its unique and curious nature–but that it occurred to none other than the most innocent and random of young ladies, in the most innocent and random of places. And yet, despite the strangeness of it, it…

By Howie Good Around midnight I had finally given up trying to turn the stale words and phrases on the screen of my laptop into a scrap of poetry, and instead had retreated to our old green couch and started fingerpicking my way through a song that despite my questionable musicianship you would have recognized…

By Howie Good “Better call someone,” I say to my wife, who is standing beside me at the window, peering up at the sky with a worried expression. By the time the emergency vehicles start arriving, the clouds look even more like what the painter Magritte long claimed clouds look like – thoughts. Is the…

By Jennifer Walker “I’ll have a Coke please,” Claire shouted over the plane’s engine. Judgment, the kind usually reserved for war crime tribunals, radiated from the woman in the window seat, but by the time Claire helped pass across her club soda she was working hard to look compassionate. Claire focused on the hand-off to…

By Howie Good It was the end of the American Century, and as if at a secret signal, the streets suddenly filled up with dancing grannies. I looked into their doll-like painted faces for an explanation. What I saw instead were suicide nets, abortions by wire coat hanger, piles of broken bricks. Life in our…

By Todd Mercer Walking town on business I saw a gigantic grammar failure, shining in neon. I went inside the crapola bar beneath the sign, to make suggestions. Disorienting place, deprivation tank dark. It smelled of cleaning chemicals and warm beef. A soupçon of a bygone Fern Bar incarnation lingered in an otherwise Bad Lager…

By LaVern Spencer McCarthy Great Grandpa lay in his coffin, a grotesque smile on his face that the funeral workers could not remove. Little granddaughter, Suzie swore she would not bolt and run screaming when she viewed the corpse, but when he winked at her, she did.

By LaVern Spencer McCarthy At the table, a séance— Eyes are closed, hands clasp other hands. Jewels on wealthy fingers generate prisms by candlelight. The medium moans, calling Fred, lost at sea a year ago. behind her rolled-back eyes she thinks of money to be made, ignores tears of Fred’s aging wife who cannot find…

By LaVern Spencer McCarthy “Who wants to go next?” Barney asked.. “Somebody must,” replied Sylvester. “Be a volunteer,” Barney suggested. “No,” answered Sylvester. Barney frowned. “All of us must go sometime. It’s best to get it over with.” Of the ten men present, none was willing to go next. Conversation stopped when a country-yokel- type…