Tommy. The bartender. The sweet card he got for me. We listen to the moonlight together, sip each from a flask, hands clasped in wonder this night. This moment. This kiss. Cut-hay scent, worked meadow and warm skin. Tonight is my last. Last times come before you wish they would, and time curves only forward. I can visit; I cannot stay. I tally the count; seconds, minutes, years. His fingers pull from me as I enter coordinates, leaving warm pads on my cheek. Will my warmth remain when I depart? What does it look like for you when I go, is it a fading out? Am I thin now, insubstantial and simultaneous as you are to me, a map of us smeared in probability? Can you still hear me? A horn sounds out on the street. I breathe in today, feel the chill from the wind of God’s dice as they tumbled us so far apart, a century in an instant. Your lips still taste on mine. You can’t hear me now. Goodbye Tom. I’ll …

Her name is Anemoia. Often, she waits for me at my desk, my couch, my bed. She whispers comfort; the histories of places that fascinate me. She talks of games I never played; trinkets that have been warmed by someone else’s hands; hazy memories I never experienced that resonate all the same. Her name is Anemoia. Sometimes, she follows me wherever I go. Her eyes sparkle at the paintings in the art gallery, jabbering about the artists and their strife. What they suffered to create, circles back to the present day. Old is new and new is old, in her eyes. Her name is Anemoia. Never does she shut up. As I sleep, she’d sit on the headboard, singing her siren song. In my daze, I’m comforted but not enough to truly rest. I could yell at her, but she’d never forgive me. So, I let her sing on, until my alarm rings. Her name is Anemoia. My friend. My enemy. My sister. My stranger. My everything. Sarah Kessell is a writer and poet from …

Glossy brochure, smooth to the touch. It isn’t a run-of-the-mill facility, Sarah thinks. It promises peace of mind, dedicated professionals to care for Mother. 5-star accommodation. Season-appropriate air-conditioned comfort. Enrichment programs: crafts to keep minds nimble, gentle calisthenics to keep bodies as supple as arthritis will allow, music and entertainment, massages. Heck, it sounds like a vacation to Sarah. Mother’s last, no doubt. The food? Organic, ethically-sourced fresh ingredients. Mother will get to eat healthy, cholesterol controlled, diabetes disciplined. All credit cards welcome. Flexible payment plans available to select few. They even offer 24/7 personalized online counseling to family—that’ll be Sarah, only child and next-of-kin—to help cope with the change. She almost misses the fine print: an option for pre-planning of deceased estate management via an accredited solicitor, be it rent or sale. And when the inevitable end comes, in-house Life-Cycle Celebrants conduct end-of-life ceremonies and take care of everything: casket, funeral service (all religions, all denominations welcome), burial or cremation. Sarah sits back. A choice that’s really no choice at all. But she’s put …

He woke, animal-like, with the sun and crawled from under the quilt. His mother had made it. He remembered that much. How long ago? Fifty, sixty years? Long enough that the patches were hanging from threads. He rolled over so he could grab the sofa, his home to things he used to collect from Free Stuff boxes. Dishes and pots and CDs, a transistor radio, a desk lamp, a collection of Barbie dolls and GI Joes. Whatever he managed to move inside before the town sent a crew to clean up his yard. “Fire hazard” the notice said. $5000 the bill said. It was on the table, unpaid, beneath the mail he collected every day so his neighbors wouldn’t call the police to do a wellness check. He was well enough. All he wanted was to be left alone. He could no longer unbend his spine to stand. “That’s okay,” he said to the bobblehead he slept with. Sylvester, but he called him Stewie. His mother bought it for him when he was eight. Back …

The night is cool. The blaze illuminates your face orange. Her vehicle is an inferno. You warm yourself before it. A minute ago, you set it on fire. Surprised it went up that quick, you think. Gluttonous flames devour her car. A breeze caresses your back. Hot air singes your face. You step away, flip off the once blue hybrid. Taking a drag from a cigarette, you cough. It was years since you smoked. Why now? you wonder. You shrug. The flames sound like a waterfall. A finger flick; the butt shoots into the blaze. It is instantly consumed. You stroll into the night. Your unhurried footfalls are loud. The heat on your face dissipates. There are no police, no fire trucks, no ambulances, and no sirens. No one confronts you. Am I petty? you wonder. That morning: You wake early on your day off, a day for chores. Sighing, you crawl from bed. Lots to do, you think. # With an armful of bags you exit the market. You plod to your car. Why …

She thinks, I could drink the colours of this city until my throat swells like a kaleidoscope. Purple jacarandas. Pink mimosas. Balconies dripping yellow lemons. And azure—a word that sits long and full on the tongue—azure everywhere. She helps her daughter down the slide. The baby trots and she lets her roam, like the French parents do. They aren’t always cloyed to their children like chicken feet. There is a woman with long eyelashes, also following her trotting child. She decides: this woman and her would be friends. This would be the park they would come to every day. Their children would play under the fig trees. She wonders what it’s like to grow up here, somewhere with peaches plump as fleshy fists. Not mealy peaches or hard peaches packed on supermarket shelves but soft peaches, jubilant amid the cherries, the fresh-cut watermelon shimmering on the street vendor’s stall. She also wonders what this woman—her new friend—would think of her home. Of the housing estates that spread and spread until the little white houses fall …

It was definitely a rat. They couldn’t actually see it, only heard it scrabbling and scratching in the bathroom ceiling. The mother heard it first. She said nothing, hoping it would go away. She lay awake for an hour, praying for it to stop. She could see the rat clearly in her mind’s eye. It looked like the one she saw most workday mornings at the downtown garage, skittering past her feet into the storm drain. The children heard it next. They wandered into the bathroom, one at a time, wondering if it was about to jump out at them. They could see the rat clearly in their mind’s eye. It looked like the dead one that had lain under the stairs in the courtyard for weeks before someone, a maintenance person probably, had picked it up with a shovel and put it in the dumpster. The boyfriend heard it last, when the mother roused him from his sleep. The scrabbling and scratching had stopped for a moment then, so he told the children to …

It was so hot even the birds quit singing. I sat in front of the window fan drinking iced ginger ale and watching the bubbles rise while my dear Doyle thrashed around his old trunk in the spare room. Ugly, God, he was ugly. He ranted about Alan being the liar supreme and cursed Alan so bad I knew he feared him. “I hate that bastard, Annie,” Doyle said. “I hate everything about him from his pointy toed boots to his goddamned hat.” I set my glass on the maple table, heedless of the water ring it would leave and went to Doyle and closed his trunk. “The shotgun’s not in there,” I said. “You’ve got yourself all worked up.” I lay a quiet hand on his, but with his other he yanked open the trunk. “Why isn’t it?” he yelled. Alan and his big hat barged in and yelled just as loud as Doyle. “Thief!” He brandished a bayonet. I slipped through the doorway to the porch and peeked through the window above the …

The rusted-out pickup rumbles down Main Street. A girl, all of five and all smiles, rides shotgun. The air is warm, the summer sun bright. The girl leans out the window the way her golden retriever, Lottie, often does. The wind twists and tangles the girl’s long, sandy hair and— The passenger door flies open. The girl drops to the asphalt and tumbles to a stop. Faulty door latch. No seatbelt. No broken bones! No stitches! The girl is lucky to be alive. Had she landed on her head and not the backside of her corduroys, she surely would have died. Or so the story goes. The bank teller, the barber, and the barmaid of Main Street will recount it for years to come, along with every eyewitness at Auchenbach’s Laundromat and Vi’s five and dime. Always they will tell the tale in the astonished, reverent tone reserved for the proclamations of miracles—the boy who walked away from the plane crash! the face of Jesus that appeared in a bowl of chowder! “Happened right in …

Instead of circling the rows of parked cars by the entrance, Wren settled for a spot near the back of the lot. When she began running errands, the early spring sun was just above the horizon; presently, it cast short shadows. She slipped off her jacket and tossed it onto the passenger seat before stepping out of her vehicle and walking toward the big-box retailer. From inside the store, an elderly gentleman watched the automatic doors pull apart and recognized the change in Wren’s expression as she entered. In his line of work, he had grown accustomed to this phenomenon. He greeted her, but his words failed to register. She stood perplexed, partially blocking the store’s entrance. Other customers politely slipped around her, like water in a stream, redirected by a protruding rock. “Something I can help with, ma’am?” the old man tried. She looked at him, nonplussed by his question. “No, thanks. I, uh—sorry,” she sputtered. “Forget why you’re here?” His close-lipped smile revealed a hint of satisfaction. Wren’s mouth opened, then closed again. …

Smell He draws me closer; I take a breath. I love his earthy smell and want to store more of it deep inside my lungs, for nostalgia and motivation. I linger. I smell foliage. It is soothing and relaxing. No wonder he is falling asleep. Hearing He yawns, and a quiet huff escapes into the air. I want to kiss him, so I bring my lips to his, but he is so peaceful, I freeze and listen to his calm, steady exhales. Like wind whispering through tall grass. Sight He is handsome; it is getting harder to suppress the urge to kiss. His face is expressive, powerful and strong, and I am curious if he is already seeing the dreams. Or if he ever does. He lies still, then hugs me. It is warm here, and soft. Taste I cannot resist anymore – I peck his nose, not sure if he notices. It is salty; now, my mouth is too. I lick my lips and swallow; I can taste the waters of a brine lake. …

It began as a hobby over lockdown. The sourdough starter was a gift from his watchful neighbour, Marge. Before that, David had no interest in baking. He’d always been perfectly content with his shop bought pan. But soon he found himself setting four-a.m. alarms, getting up to feed the culture with the attentiveness of a new father. He liked that the starter needed him. A living being under the same roof. He could talk to it, like you might a dog or a houseplant. The starter was pallid and frothy, like cottage cheese that had got a little too excited. Its smell: acerbic, eye-watering if he leaned in too close. Soon David found he was making more bread than he could eat. He gave fresh loaves to neighbours and visited soup kitchens and shelters with his surplus goods. The more he fed the starter, the greedier it got. He couldn’t say exactly when it happened, but soon he was up four or five times a night, sleepwalking to the kitchen to feed his growing charge. …

Dad called people of a certain strain bullshitter. I listened carefully, but something was off. Bullshitters were always men over six feet tall with hair and confidence. Dad was five six, wore cowboy boots and a big buckle. As a boy, looking around, figuring stuff out, I saw keeping up with the neighbors required smoke and mirrors. I felt uneasy about this dupery, like a grey cloud following me around. Dad only ever had one friend, and he was shorter than Dad. That bothered me, not the height, but the fact that everybody has friends. Mom had friends, I had friends, the neighbor guys had friends. Those guys sat around in lawn chairs in the garage sharing a twelve pack and laughing at their own jokes. Dad never came around. How could they possibly be bullshitters? They weren’t hiding anything from anybody. White lies became the norm in our household; we became a collection of parrots. Mom kept quiet. Her opinions were cut short, contradicted, eventually Mom stopped speaking up, too tired to push it. …

“I’m only ever satisfied when someone else is in pain. Does that make me a terrible person?” “Honestly, Craig?” “Yes, be enti—no! Not honestly! Who’d ever ask you that honestly!” “It kinda sounds like you know the answer to your own question.” “Like I’d take advice from a junior partner who’s my age.” “Glad to see you’re feeling like yourself again. Okay, what. Stop grumbling at me. Stop it.” “I wasn’t grumbling.” “Uh-huh. And we both know that the only reason I’m a junior is because you got the first promotion and then the boss bit the bullet.” “I’d have gotten promoted regardless.” “Same. That’s my point. No. We are not doing the grumbling thing again.” “John? Can I ask you something?” “Sure.” “Why do you stay here? You could do the law thing anywhere.” “I dunno. Sunk cost fallacy? Or maybe the fact that every time I try to leave you bump my pay by enough that the wife convinces me to stay. At this rate, I’m probably making more than you are. It’s …

When Mr. Roberts lost his hearing, he didn’t mind Mr. Grigg’s leaf-blower. It was pleasant watching leaves tumble in a steady gust of wind. Then Roberts miraculously recovered his hearing and lost his vision. Griggs and his leaf-blower became Mr. Roberts’ most hated enemies. Roberts kept a rifle in his garage, but he couldn’t find it. He might have asked a neighbor for help, but that would have been incriminating, no? Some say he died from scowling. Some say his liver gave out. But get this, the moment after Mr. Roberts died, his vision came back. Daniel Coshnear is author of Jobs & Other Preoccupations (Helicon Nine 2001) winner of the Willa Cather Fiction Award and Occupy & Other Love Stories (Kelly’s Cove Press 2012) and winner of the Novella Prize for Homesick, Redux (Flock 2015), recipient of a Missouri Review Editor’s Prize and a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship. His newest story collection, Separation Anxiety was released in 10/21 by Unsolicited Press.

I’m going to tell you right now, chasing women’s clothing around the dooryard is what it’s come down to. All on account of four turtle eggs. I work for Leon because social security ’ll only go so far, plus Leon’s seventy-five years old with more money than brains and fingers itching to get into every hole they can find, even when there ain’t a hole. That’s what his girlfriend Janey told him just before she drove her RV off to California. Leon set himself up to the cabin for a couple of beers and aggravation. Thinking about Janey leaving him in Maine gets him hot and miserable until he spies this mother turtle dig a hole and bury a sprawl of eggs. Then he’s huffing and blowing for me. “We got to fence them eggs. These guys,” he means his son and grandson that also live on the place and benefit from his money without working, “they get to drinking and running the four-wheel gators around, they’ll trample the eggs.” I put thirty-five dollars worth …

She had fitted herself into the corner booth, the one under the smeared window, the last one with the torn red 1956 leatherette seat. She was sort of blonde, not bleached but just didn’t quite make it, dirty blonde, they call it, mousey. This girl ‘just abouts’ everything, can’t stop looking in the mirror until she can’t stand to look in a mirror and thereby never catching even a momentary glimpse of what she thinks she is looking for, disenchantment slowly filling her up and going hard, inspissating under the dry, brilliant, desiccant of perpetual disappointment. In another age she might have been drawing on a cigarette, taking in deep medicinal draughts and flicking ashes, a little self-conscious, maybe, sitting alone like that, a little defensive, a le old Eddy Hopper, you know, seared with stark electric outlines, the entire world jittering on neon gas—but not out of time. She never managed to get aboard the 1960s Dreamliner like those other girls with their shimmering hair and their generous soft looks, nestled in big, strong …

Congratulations on taking the first step toward a better ecological niche, and a better you. I’m naturalist extraordinaire and personal trainer Chuck Darwin, here to welcome you to Evolutionary Fitness! Whether you’re a middle-of-the-food-chain specimen in need of a confidence boost, or an apex predator who’s gone a bit soft, any organism can take advantage of the tips and tricks in this five-DVD box set. So let’s crank it up a few notches, whip you into tip-top shape and attract the partner of your dreams – at least, for this mating season. Just clear out a nice roomy spot in your cave, grassy plain, or lowland swamp, and let’s get moving! Routine 1: The ‘Run-For-Your-Life’ Let’s face it, we’ve all got predator problems. Talons swiping after your hindquarters? Razor-sharp jaws aiming for your jugular? Long, sticky tentacles dragging you down to a deep sea abyss? This first routine is a fresh twist on the classic Flight or Fright response. I don’t care if you’re a lowly rodent or a majestic blue whale – those propellers …

Even here, I’m sat across from another screenwriter sipping his coffee and scrolling through his tablet. The sticky sweet smoke from his pipe wafts over to me. He puffs with his left hand, scrolls and sips with his right. Still, it’s preferable to the clouds of cigarette smoke which choke me on most patios. He’s taunting me with his air of accomplishment. His buttercup yellow button down. His relentless pipe smoking. I think he’s watching dailies. Definitely a director then. And I am the ghost of a screenwriter, haunting him. He hails a waitress without looking up. One slender finger in the air. Another coffee. Yes, I think I’ll have one too. Though I can feel the buzz in my veins already, I cannot bear the thought of sitting here without one. I look to catch her eye, but she has gone back behind the counter. Fine, he’s more important. That’s almost certain. I can tell from his degree of focus, something is being made. That rare result. The world’s cafe bars are our office, …

The evening air had cooled considerably as the sun set over Rome. The brisk breeze floating in through the open door of Il Flagello gave Max chills as he sat at the bar with a cold beer half drank, thinking. He was lost in thought and lost in his beer. He wondered what he was going to do next and how was the outcome going to pay off. A pang hit him in the heart, and he felt lousy again. He drank his beer half-heartedly registering the chatter between the regulars and the bar owner, Sergio. “Did you hear Sergio? Eh, hai sentito?” “Sentito? Heard what?” A man asked. “They’re closing la Lombardia,” Sergio said assessing the thick white foam rising on top of the yellow liquid pouring into the tilted glass, waving like a yellow flag in a desperate wind. “Non e’ posssibile;” another man said with a long hiss from a chipped tooth. “La Lombardia is a region, not a ssstore.” “Cosi ha detto, Mort. They just closed Lazaretto,” Sergio said. All the …

The incandescent lights beam silvery glows in every direction, while the sunlight pierces through windows and bounces from stainless steel machines to clean white walls. You smell the scent of detergent clashing with lavender dryer sheets, rose petal fabric softener and hear the trickling waterfall of coins from the change machine. It’s Saturday. Appliances purr loudly announcing that they’re brimming to capacity. You see the usuals walk in. Andrew gives you his typical head nod while leaving no strand of his clean, tapered mane out of place. You surmise he’s single, working in an office, by the way he hangs up his dress shirts in rows like color-coded file folders. You can’t help but notice Helen, reticent to make eye contact. You know she works or lives nearby as she traipses to and from a neighboring building and hurriedly so. You revere her appearance, always perfectly polished with subtle makeup and beautifully coiffed curls. Mrs. Johnson came by, her round frame moving with short quick steps. She loved when you complemented her on her new …