Photography by Leeta Harding
Snow Globes
by Anthony D’Aries
Reggie is across the street with his cardboard sign. Good guy, but that I can’t do. I can’t beg. People looking at me like a stray mutt. You wanna give me something, fine, I’ll take it. I’ll steal, I don’t care. But that “good-morning-ma’am-beautiful-day-thank you-god-bless” shit ain’t for me. I don’t lie either. Reggie ain’t a veteran. Not of any war, anyway.
You Always Reminded Me of Fire
by Kristen Falso-Capaldi
Miracle once had hair like fire, bright red and sticking up in all directions. I feared her back in elementary school when she was the playground menace, pushing and shoving her way through kids like me. I mostly stayed away from her, but every once in a while her eyes would find me. Those were scary days; it felt like trying to keep moving and stand still at the same time.
Agents of Purification
by Reshmi Hebbar
If there was a side to getting older that wasn’t sad, it was that dinner parties with the family friends wound up earlier. For his parents’ forty-fifth anniversary, Arjun felt that this type of large three-hour affair would be better than a whole trip away with everyone. And it wasn’t just because it was easier to stay away from pot for an evening versus a whole weekend.
The Tears of God
by Arya F. Jenkins
It rained so hard the brook behind our house began to thunder like the sea. I swear I felt our one and a half-story Cape swaying. The sky poured and grumbled for hours. It was the first real storm of summer, and its timing felt perfect. Steve was in another room making coffee and I was still in bed, contemplating the racket. We had started off the day making love.
Trash
by Lauren Morrow
A parasite, Jane had told Kyle over the phone. Margie didn’t help out around the house, complained constantly, and played Fox News so loudly from her room that the children had developed a fear of Jeanine Pirro, sight unseen. Jane had already given Margie two deadlines – April 1 (they’d each thought the other was fooling, and Kyle had received two very confusing phone calls) and May 1 (right before Mother’s Day! Can you imagine?), so here we were, approaching June.
Fixtures
by Kaitlin Roberts
Thumbtacks, staplers, paperclips: Approximately $11 million in office supplies goes missing every year in America, and my office is no exception. I steal office supplies like it’s my job, though my official title is Junior Sales Assistant. I work for TeleNet, a company that sells conference call equipment to other companies. The office is on the sixth floor of a cement building in Jersey City with sand-colored carpeting and dentist office artwork, photographs of icebergs, oil paintings of swans, stuff like that.
