The Shot

Ekanth carefully eases the postcard out of its nail. His fingers caress over the smiling faces etched against white peaks and pine-specked slopes. Bittersweet childhood memories rush through him: the long-planned vacation, the magical snow, the family selfie for a postcard, and then the crack of guns. All that remains is the postcard, now framed.

Setting it down with a tremble, he climbs onto the stool beneath the fan. Noose in place, he closes his eyes.

Just then, the doorbell rings. His eyes jerk open. Neha smiles at him from a postcard, the Eiffel towering behind her. His gaze falters.

From Guest Contributor Naga Vydyanathan

Naga likes to pen stories that explore the quiet fears and hidden thoughts of her characters. Her work has been published in online magazines like Literary Stories and MeanPepperVine.

Country Noir

A B-girl with sleepy, mud-colored eyes slipped onto the stool next to mine. “I am here to entertain you,” she said and then added as a tease, “but only during my shift.” At least she wasn’t the kind of woman who would refer to poetry as “verse.” I conspicuously returned my attention to the ball game on the TV over the bar. She leaned in closer and started to stay something. I cut her off. It’s not that I wasn’t tempted; it’s just that I’m cautious. Prison workshops and small rural cemeteries are filled with men who should have been.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication this summer.

Lonely Planet

Sometime after midnight I stepped into a smoky cellar bar, gave the miserable clientele the once-over, and located an empty stool toward the back. The bartender, a cigarette between his lips, was drying glasses with a dirty rag. In my beret and belted black raincoat, I might have been taken for a fugitive Trotskyite – or perhaps the assassin sent to execute him. A woman slipped onto the next stool. She had a face like that of a 13-year-old girl who died of heart failure following prolonged laughter. “I am here to entertain you,” she said, “but only during my shift.” From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie Good is the author of The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and The Trouble with Being Born (forthcoming from Ethel Micro-Press).