The Frog Pond
Abby ManzellaThe rain’s moisture seeps into my car, smelling like the pond where my brother and I hopped across rocks, catching frogs to show to each other and then release.
Dark Wood
By Leonard KressWe realize that we are lost in the dark woods. Then we encounter familiar voices and faces, ones we’ve met before on the outside.
Flemish Tavern
By Phillip SterlingHe tells me that if you were a sniper in Belgium during the war, you wanted to be in the Ardennes when the rations ran out—there were still rabbits and squirrels in the mountains ...
Photo Story: Seasonal Monogamy
By Rachel CainAt the park we watch the sunset turn muddled purple, like a bruise. He says, “Did you know ducks are only partners for a season?”
A Life Lesson from My Father
By Jonathan OdellDad tended chickens, thousands at a time. They were housed in long narrow buildings that looked like barracks.
The Counting Game
By Roberta BearyThe time she was too hungover and the security guard found her son asleep on the playground bench his backpack a pillow the time they counted fireflies in the backyard the time she missed his science project for drinks with the guys ...
Photo Story: Declarations
By Erika NgHer voice is swallowed by the sound of a dozen languages cutting across your ears. You ask her to repeat the question and she says, more annoyed this time, “Do you have anything to declare?”
Chocolate Cake
By Jennifer WortmanMy dad’s student from the college, who’d come over for dinner, looked at me and said, “You can’t have any chocolate cake!” I was one. He thought he was making a pretty good joke.
How My Mother Posed Me
By Gary FinckeThe photographer instructs my mother to hide under the dark maroon blanket to hold her infant still. “It takes time and quiet for your darling to be perfect,” he says.
The Swedish Word for Joy
By Brett Ann StanciuI begged off 2000 Census training and rushed up the windowless stairs of the cheap-paneled church basement.
Teaching English in the Biology Lab
By Gary FinckeSea life charts are props for Melville, the mounted cat a visual aid for Poe. Leaves are displayed like a nod to Thoreau.
Photo Story: Warm and Alive
By Andrea DanielsA careful undertaker from Sheepshead Bay. We met via personal ad, his exactly three lines long. A tidy accounting of loneliness.
Dimensions of Human Behavior
Alexandra N. KontesShortly after we last spoke, you became a ghost, and I became a hermit.
