He’s wearing out. The man looked old and tired. I have to go to work. I should call in. Damn, I should call in.

No, no, go to work. Candice took the sobbing baby into the bedroom and sat down on the bed with him. The baby began to nurse. I’ll take care of him. I’ll call you if he gets worse. Or better. She made a smile. Go to work.

And then the woman was alone with the baby. The baby’s eyes were closing, and it looked like sleep. Candice waited, holding her breath. Shhh. Eyes closed, stayed closed. Candice put the baby on the bed and gently piled covers over the tiny white body. Shhh. She backed away. Shh. She closed the door. So quiet.

Her ministrations of the previous nights appeared to have worked. Here and there were tiny holes in the walls and floors, but no new gigantic rips through the house’s foundation could be seen. She poured rubbing alcohol along the windows and doors, everywhere there was exposed wood. Get ‘em while they’re sleeping, she thought. All along the floor molding.

Two bottles of alcohol later, the baby was still asleep. Candice looked in and watched the tiny chest rise and fall, rise and fall. She called Jonathan at work. The baby’s asleep.

Oh, thank God. You, you should sleep, too.

It’s so quiet, she said. I don’t know if I can sleep. I just want to sit and enjoy this quiet. She pressed the phone against her ear and closed her eyes. Can you hear that? she asked. Nothing at all.

Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her poetry has recently appeared in Hawai’i Pacific Review, The Oxford American, and Slipstream. Her book publications include Music Composition for Dummies, Guitar-All-in-One for Dummies, and Music Theory for Dummies, which has recently been translated into French, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, and Portuguese.

When the son came out of the bathroom, Johnson was on his fifth glass of whiskey. He justified it, kept his cool in front of the son by opting to use a tumbler instead of his normal routine of drinking from the bottle. The son watched him fall before, had taken off his shoes, covered him up on the sofa when Johnson was too crumpled or slurred to crawl. Johnson feared the son for his propensity to care, something Johnson had left scattered across barroom floors, on cocktail napkins, torn up or thrown away by part-time waitresses with names like “Lucy” or “Sugar.”

“We have to go, son.”

“Finish your drink, Dad.”

“I mean it—visitors are coming. Too many.”

“It’s about the thing in the case, isn’t it?”

“We’re not going to talk about that, son.” Johnson tipped the whiskey down his throat, hissed, eyed the remaining drops.

“They won’t hurt you, Dad. They can’t. I won’t let them.”

Johnson had seen that look in his son’s eyes before, compassion and wisdom like the time the son pushed keys into the ignition, and Johnson read the road through slumped shoulders and dizzy undulations of swirling yellow lines on deserted roads. The son wouldn’t even let Johnson steer, just asked question after question. They found the son’s mother’s house all lit up, her standing there in her bathrobe, scowling, too disgusted to carry Johnson into the house. The son brought a bucket.

“I flushed it down the toilet, Dad.”

Spilled whiskey was a sin to Johnson, but the glass dropped, slipped, hit the carpet, just like that. The son sat on the bed, stared straight ahead at the blank television set.

Johnson’s mouth opened, nothing came out. He smelled tires peeling into the motel parking lot, heard doors open and shut, steps clacking to the main building where the girl Johnson had talked to, “Cherry” or “Cindy” or something was probably still working, still painting her nails red.

“You didn’t mean it . . .” he paused, letting the words drip down his tongue. “What you flushed down the toilet was from that ship in the desert, son. It’s the reason we’re on our way to meet those men up in California. It’s from outer space.” He closed his eyes, “up there, son.”

Johnson’s arm moved to the window, but the son only saw the heavy grey curtain fall. And his father, when the hail of bullets shattered the window and chopped into him, in that sudden obliterating moment, managed to squeeze out the words, “It’s okay, son.” And those words, with the son scrambling under the desk, covering his head with little arms, those words struck the son in a way far more real than the bullet sailing through the air from the gun of the gentleman in the black suit standing in the frame of the broken window.

Jamie Grefe lives and works in Beijing, China. Visit him here: http://shreddedmaps.tumblr.com

Brandt didn’t stand for the Pledge.

“Stand up,” a group around him hissed.

The teacher remained silent.

“Don’t you love your country?” a nearby girl asked.

The teacher moved closer to the situation, his hand on his heart.

“With liberty and justice for ALL!” the class shouted, most eyes darting on Brandt at the end.

After class three boys wearing boots and Confederate belt buckles shoved Brandt on the ground. One kicked him with the hard toe of the boot. Another stomped on his chest with the heel.

“Fuckin’ faggot,” the boys said. “Move to Canada you little bitch.”

The boys walked away, high-fiving each other, proud they had defended their beloved country.

Brandt slowly stood up and brushed the dirt off his shirt. His chest ached, but he was used to it. He brought his hand up to his heart and held it for awhile before marching to his U.S. History class. They were discussing the Bill of Rights today.

Nathaniel Tower writes fiction, teaches English, and manages the online lit magazine Bartleby Snopes. His short fiction has appeared in over 100 print and online journals. His first novel, A Reason to Kill, was released in July 2011. He lives in the Midwest with his wife and daughter.

The first time we heard gunshots go off in our building, Lee and I leapt out of our bed and ran straight to our infant daughter. I was first to grab her. Lee peed herself. Stunned, we all moved into our bathroom where we regrouped—me on the toilet and Lee on the tub floor with our daughter. It took fifteen long minutes before we heard the first sirens.

That night, huddled as we were in the bathroom, I thought of the things we’d gather in a total state of emergency—one in which we suddenly had to flee somewhere—and the list I assembled wasn’t long. In a pinch, I reasoned that these things could be packed into a duffle: passports, the ninety-plus dollar rainy day fund, a week’s worth of diapers, a week’s worth of Gerber’s vegetable and turkey baby food, and a box tab folder filled with our family’s essential papers. Sitting there, thinking about it some more, I learned that if such a situation did present itself, most of these things were expendable. I realized that I was expendable, too, when I thought even further.

Not long after the night the shots had been fired, I started having a reoccurring dream. In the dream I was riding on The Screwdriver, a famous roller coaster from my New England childhood, a roller coaster, well known, of course, for it’s screw-like spirals. Except, in the dream, I wasn’t a kid riding my favorite roller coaster, I was me, in full father form, and the seats were not secured by the hydraulic safety restraints as they are presently—no—in the dream, the seats had regular old buckle-style seatbelts, the kind installed in common automobiles. But everything was going as usual until the rollercoaster made its infamous 360-degree whip-around and flung us into the corkscrew segment. There, upside-down and in the midst of the breakneck tumbles, I managed to peel my eyes down to my white and bloodless hands gripping the seatbelt and—just then—I watched my index finger poise over the red push-release button. I knew, that with any sudden urge, I could press the thing and go flying to an uncertain death somewhere over the trees. In bolder dreaming states, I’d press the release and then feel all of my weight become lighter, my limbs become flightless flesh pieces succumbing to gravity’s tug. Then I’d jolt awake, sweating, my arms swimming, looking for a surface to brace onto. When later I told Lee about the dream, as any troubled and decent man would confess to his wife, she was facing the bathroom mirror, straightening her hair with an iron. In the ten years I’d known her, she had always kept her black hair long and very straight.

“Life’s that hard?” she asked, passing through our bedroom. “Don’t tell me these things.”

Jeff Wasserboehr is a writer from Boston. He currently lives in Asia, where he is at work on his first novel. He edits the journal Beantown: Ten Stories.

Their baby was already four days old and Mr. and Mrs. Morgan still had not named their child.   The nurses kept asking the baby’s name for the hospital records, but the Morgans kept answering, “Not sure yet.”  The nurses mumbled among themselves that “they’ll have to call her something to be discharged tomorrow.”  One of the nurses started calling the infant, “Baby It.”

Tomorrow came.   Mr. Morgan was reading the morning newspaper in the hospital room as Mrs. Morgan packed her things to go home.  He carefully folded the paper into thirds, then half over and fingered the air out of the pages.  He held up the paper and pointed to the obituary column.

“Annie, we will call her Annie.”

Morgan sighed, “Fine” and wrote “Annie Morgan,” on the discharge papers.   On the way home, she said, “Annie, I like the name Annie.  I don’t like where you found it though.”  Mr. Morgan said he liked it too and “what difference did it make where he found it.”

More tomorrows came, the child grew and, as children eventually do, Annie asked about her birth.   She was turning ten next week.

Mr. Morgan rubbed his forehead and looked straight at her.  “I will tell you the truth, Annie and, the truth is, you were not planned.  It is also true that you were the best mistake I ever made.”   Then Mr. Morgan told her about finding the name Annie in the obituary column and how it “just sounded right.”

“Besides, I figured the woman in the paper wasn’t using it anymore,” he laughed.

Annie’s eyes opened wide and Mrs. Morgan walked into the room just as Mr. Morgan was telling her about her name.   “It took five days after you were born for your father to decide on a name.  I don’t know what took him so long.”

Mr. Morgan looked at his wife and said slowly, “You know, naming something means it belongs to you, that it is yours.”

Mrs. Morgan paled as he added, “I wasn’t sure.”

They both stared at each other, forgetting that Annie was in the room.   When they remembered, Annie had retreated to her bedroom and closed the door.   They thought it best to leave her alone.

Years have passed now and they have never spoken of the matter again.  Not ever.   Not even Annie.   Especially not Annie.   When family and friends ask about her from time to time, her parents say she is “doing fine, really fine.  She does, however, seem especially fond of black crepe dresses and she wears no makeup, except of course, for the white lipstick she applies all day long.”

Deanna Morris is a second year MFA student at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Her story “Charlie” was published at Subtle Fiction, her story “Orchard” was published at A Small, Good Magazine. Her story “Connections” is published at Clever Magazine and her story “Birthday House” is being published in the upcoming issue of Scissors and Spackle literary magazine.  Her poetry credits are “Sewing Room” published in IUPUI’s genesis [sic] literary magazine as Best in Poetry, “Go Now” published at Quantum Poetry and “Ice” to be published at Eunoia Review in May.

Natasa forgot that right of way is guests, hot food, cold food, empty plates, empty-handed staff, not free for all, and collided with Stefanos, causing Table 14’s moussaka to fall off his tray like an angel of light from the sky. I was signaling Stefanos to get Alecto and her sisters a new moussaka plus a shiraz on the house when Georgios at reception started tapping his right temple with three fingers at me and I thought, VIP Party of 3 isn’t due till an hour later, and in swings Orpheus with his Telecaster slung over his shoulders, THRACE FTW stickered on the body, and that was the beginning of the end because my best table, the window seat with a view of Styx Piers and Charon’s new fleet of hydrofoils, wasn’t cleared yet and where was that new busser Eurydice when you needed her.

Crystal Koo was born and raised in Manila and is currently working in Hong Kong. Her most recent publications include short stories in The Other Room; Corvus Magazine; and Short, Fast, and Deadly. She maintains a blog at http://swordskill.wordpress.com.

They’re showing True Grit at the Golden Oaks Village again, not even the new one, and Grandpa Ernest makes a sour face and says he doesn’t care what anybody says, John Wayne was the most one-dimensional actor in Hollywood. Which is a relief to the three of us kids because the last thing we want to do is sit in a stinky cafeteria with a bunch of blue-hairs watching a cardboard western. Chandra asks if she should grab the Euchre cards but Gramps says hell no, he’s been laying around all day and he’s gonna get his ancient ass up and stretch his legs. Sissy gets all excited and says she knows what we can do and Chandra and I share a look because last time we were here Gramps was off getting an X-ray and the three of us kids had a modified scavenger hunt (my idea) and barely had time to get the oldsters’ belongings back in their rooms before Mom showed up. Mom drops us off every Sunday at Movie Time so she can get two hours of Peace and Quiet, being a single mom and all, well single in the sense that my stepdad’s off fighting terrorism in a desert (staff sergeant, Second Infantry Division). So then Sissy suggests we go find The Most Interesting Things in Golden Oaks and Gramps asks her what she’s talking about and she tells him what we did last time while I hold my breath and Chandra tugs at her lips. But instead of being mad Gramps gets a big smile and says let’s split the hell up and meet back here in twenty minutes. My half-sisters run one way and I run the other and proceed to rummage through three rooms before finding a suitable entry. Twenty minutes later we’re back in Gramps’s room holding our entries behind our backs and Gramps says Puddy (that’s my nickname), you go first and I hold it up and say: hand-written novel containing the words henceforth and cockamamie within the first three pages. I get nods and tongue-clucks and then Chandra brings hers out and says: shark tooth, roughly two and a quarter inches in length, and this gets a much better reception even though I have serious doubts as to its authenticity. It’s Gramps’ turn now and he makes a big show of whipping out a tent-sized cloth and holding it high for all to see. One pair bloomers, adult large, yellowed with age, he says and we laugh until we’re wheezy. When this dies down Gramps says okay, Sissy, let’s see what you got and from behind her back she produces a solid rubber tube with a bulbous end and Black Mamba written on the base. A miniature billy club, says Sissy, swinging it back and forth, and now Grandpa Ernest is laughing so hard he bends over and squeezes his chest. Chandra and I share another look, bug eyes, because we know what this is, at least I think I do, and it’s definitely Inappropriate for Children. Gramps’ face is purple now and tears are running through his wrinkles and there’s Mom standing in the doorway with her mouth open. Are you flippin’ kidding me? she says. Then: Dad, are you having a heart attack? Gramps says so what if I am, I’ve got six weeks left on this earth and goddamn it if I won’t spend it laughing with my grandchildren (Gramps has been complaining about having six weeks to live for two and a half years). I asked you to stop swearing in front of the kids, says Mom, and snatches the tube from Sissy. Where did you get this? she says, and Sissy points down the hall and says Room Seventeen. This is stealing, says Mom. You’ve taught my children to steal. Oh lighten up, says Gramps. When did you lose your sense of humor anyway? Mom waves her hands around and says, Since this. All of this. Then she flings the black tube to the floor and digs in her purse and comes out with a letter. She shakes it at Gramps like she’s angry or sad and says I’ve been carrying this around for six hours. Gramps takes the letter and looks down at it for several seconds and says, very quietly, They don’t do it by mail, honey. IT’S AN OFFICIAL FUCKING LETTER! screams Mom, and suddenly she’s crying and Sissy is crying and Chandra is about to cry. Gramps pats his bed and Mom sits close to him and we kids join them and Gramps says, I’ll prove it to you right now, and begins tearing at the envelope with shaky fingers.

Andy Henion’s fiction has appeared, online and in print, in Spork, Hobart, Word Riot, Thieves Jargon and many other publications. He hails from the Midwest.

They look to me to heal their wounds, to mend the red gulfs between flesh and flesh, but I tell them those run as deep as time, deeper even. I tell them, the Incans would write their history with strings; wars, famines, endemics, straight lines interrupted by a knots of human carcass. The dreads of history are messy and black and undulating, and I am no hairdresser. I am a woman who never wears stockings and who could cook a fine dinner in pure dense darkness, sit and eat it too.

But this town is lost; prayers, they do not help, nor do tears, meetings, or strong herbal teas. So they turn, for the first time, to a gypsy woman, with raven black hair and eyes the blue of false opals. I give them what I know but know it’s not enough. I become nervous. I rub my body in coals and dance, lost in mirrors. I try unhinging my jaw to see what healing waters might spill, down, down from my skull into hungry bobbing mouths. Nothing.

The morning was hushed, washed in pale white petals. A banging, Come, come, see my daughter. My bones were not yet settled, the day barely ripped open, but I followed this man nonetheless, to his home, to his daughter sitting in her bed motionless. Her eyes were bloodshot, skin yellowed and crude, lips yellow like disease. I could feel it pumping from her lungs, the yellow, as if they were caked with the powder of hard-boiled yolk. I closed my eyes and held onto her ankle. I saw the green filaments of fresh, white lilies, dancing and etching broken lines, pollen fertilizing the air.

“Lilies,” I told him as we were eating chili in the kitchen. “Shower her in lilies.”

Armine Pilikian is currently a junior at Stanford University pursuing an English Degree. Her work has been published in Solomon Dutch and Unlikely Stories. She’s from LA.

My parents would have been pissed if they knew I was there but I’d wanted this girl for four years.

It was the only parentless graduation party in the neighborhood, the basement of the nefarious Frank Marino. My dad would call Frank’s dad a greasy poltergeist and then snort his prick snort, muttering something about the screaming dego family being hard of hearing.

I showed up at Frank’s already topsy-turvy from drinking a six pack to work up my nerve. I hated the Marinos, but I hated my parents more for looking down their snotnoses at them.

Frank called me Einstein more often since word of my academic scholarship got out. I called him Tuxedo since the senior prom because he changed out of his and into jeans and a tank top in the hotel lobby. I pushed through the losers by association to Frank and demanded, “Tuxedo, where’s Celeste?” He answered, “With her boyfriend, Einstein,” which I knew was a lie. Half his mouth went up and he added, “You want a piece of that too?”

I spotted her on the edge of a circle of girls, walked over, and told her to come outside with me. Addressing her by name for the first time felt like a porno scene on my tongue. As we walked, I told her my parents had names for everyone and that I was scared shitless of the pressures that were about to suffocate me, that I wanted to ask her out since freshman year, that my family would say she was fast and going nowhere fast. She grabbed my hand like we’d been a couple forever and said she needed Doritos.

We ended up at Finkel’s Deli where my mom called the owners unusually generous Jews. Celeste said my Adam’s Apple was hot and my scholarship was hot. The crinkle of the Doritos bag in her hands was a firework. I always imagined I’d finally kiss her up against a wall in a remote corner, pinning her from all the pent-up desire, but instead it was gentle in front of the blinking light of the unusually generous delicatessen.

Nicole Monaghan is founder and editor of Nailpolish Stories, A Tiny And Colorful Literary Journal. She is editor of Stripped, A Collection Of Anonymous Flash due out from PS Books in 2012. Her work has appeared in Bartleby Snopes, Used Furniture Review, Foundling Review, Storyglossia, and Literary Mama, among many other venues. Visit her at www.writenic.wordpress.com.

Jade raises money for kids with leukaemiea. She sells miniature clay skulls. Their tea lights seep amber from eye sockets, gaping noses and between crooked smiles. She fires them in a kiln in her backyard and sells them at craft fairs, car boot sales and on days when she’s not busy, from a fold-up pasting table on her front lawn.

Jade saves stamps for the blind, buys pet food for the animal rescue centre, volunteers two afternoons a week at Mind. She collects jumble for the Lifeboat Association and shops for elderly neighbours. She feels it wasteful to allow time to fritter.

Her husband said their marriage might have lasted, if they’d had more idle moments. Jade signed up for the evening class as soon as he had gone.

A nightlight was the first project. While others fashioned toadstools and rockets for their children, Jade’s thumbs rounded out two hollow eyes, a rigid grin. The uneven base wobbled as the flame caught the wick, then, fire dancing between jagged teeth brought something dead back to life.

At home she made another then another, painted each a different shade, added fake jewels, bandanas, fangs. She made one for every child on the ward, to their individual specification: rock star, furry, fairy skulls with tiaras, pirates slashed from hard fought battles. Skulls dipped in glitter, with feathers and earrings, one with false lashes to frame its blank stare.

When all her clay is used up, her hands unemployed, Jade slumps from the weight of doing nothing and sobs.

Her tears are frustration for the poor children, she will tell you, for the abandoned pets, for the old folk, housebound, no family to visit, for the starving in Africa, for those unable to help themselves.

LA Craig writes in the UK. Her work has appeared in Everyday Fiction and The Pygmy Giant.