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ANTHOLOGY UPDATE

2009-08-08T12:15:00.003-04:00

Thanks, all of you, for submitting to--and allowing your work to be included in--what we'd hoped would be a TS print anthology.

However, it looks like it won't be happening.

We hope you submit your exceptional pieces elsewhere, and that you have much success in your writing lives.

Thanks for being a part of TS, whether as writers or as readers,

K & S

Archaeology

2009-08-05T13:20:00.001-04:00

by Hoa Ngo
95 words

On a rectangle of paper, a series of antique creases. Like the wrinkles or furrows that surround, form an old wound.

A forgotten artifact I am compelled to read. Your handwriting still immaculate but as foreign to me now as hieroglyphs. I am excavating the tomb of our experience, deciphering the origins of the fall of our empire.

Soft sentences when first inked. They have grown sharp, honed by time to a fearful edge. Even that word. The word which for years you have no longer used, caught in the fold of a scarred letter.

Hoa Ngo is a graduate of the University of Missouri's Ph.D. program and the recipient of an NEH Fellowship. He lives in central New York where he teaches Karate to exactly one student. His website is located at hoango.com.

The Sin of Proximity

2009-05-25T18:32:00.001-04:00

by Grant Hettrick
94 words

She wore camel colored Uggs and had visible panty lines under gray chiffon sweats. Her straw hair peeked from under a hot-pink alpaca hat. A snowsuit bundled toddler held her hand and their boots made tiny footprints on the gossamer layer of snow-brushed sidewalk.

Arbitrary gusts of winter wind seemed intent on flaying every inch of exposed skin from victims whose only sin was proximity. The pessimists cursed the bitter chill, the stoics endured, the optimists dreamed of summer. Mother and child twisted and twirled as they tried to catch snowflakes with their tongues.

Grant's work has or will soon appear in Peeks and Valleys, Heavy Glow, Toasted Cheese and Ruthless Peoples Magazine. He likes to eat bowls of Honey-Oat Cheerios and play Sorry Sliders with his wife and and children.

Time Travel Machine

2009-05-25T18:31:00.001-04:00

by Marilyn Peake
55 words

Haze danced, grotesque phantom above primordial soup. I checked the time travel machine’s destination point. Had I traveled backward? No, I had moved clockwise within history. Earth had found its remedy, dumping humanity through cataclysmic funnel into oblivion. I hoped for parody, replication of that moment when life quickened within the womb of elemental stuff.

Marilyn Peake is the author of three novels and numerous short stories. Her writing has won numerous awards, including a Silver Award and three Finalist placements in the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards, three Finalist placements in the EPPIE Awards, and Winner of both the EPPIE and Dream Realm Awards. James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief of the Midwest Book Review, describes Marilyn Peake as a "story teller of considerable narrative skill". Margaret Marr, reviewer for NightsAndWeekends.com, describes Marilyn as "one of the best e-authors on the Internet.” Further information about Marilyn's work is available at: http://www.marilynpeake.com

I Don’t Want To Know

2009-05-25T18:29:00.001-04:00

by Rachel Yoder
99 words

Please don’t tell me you used the word “celestial” in a poem, or about that girl you almost fucked, but instead left in your bed while you masturbated in the living room. I don’t want to know about the bus you rode through the mud hole. Please don’t speak of your mother, happiness, all the letters you haven’t sent. I hate hearing about

Panama

, and the way you say how’s your Spanish? Resist the urge to justify your jeans.

Look, it’s raining. Tomorrow’s Tuesday. Let’s stick to weather, orienting facts. How it’s colder now. How I’m renting a room.

Rachel Yoder attends the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Other tiny writing of hers can be found in Quick Fiction, flashquake, and Juked.

Bedroom Art

2009-05-25T18:28:00.001-04:00

by Lorraine Descallar
66 words

The dark grey factory erupts on the skyline, churning out carcinogenic smoke. The warmth of the buttery-yellow terrace house left behind, just as the sky turns from royal to cold azure. Wheeling your pushbike along the narrow street, before cycling to work. Flat cap dipped down against the bitterness. The loneliness of the early shift. Monday to Friday, overtime Saturday.

On the opposite wall is Tuscany.

Lorraine Descallar is a scientist who finds creative writing hard.

Tightropes

2009-05-25T18:26:00.001-04:00

by Edmund Sandoval
100 words

My father is drinking. I am with him and drinking also. He's been telling me about success and how to walk the tightrope without falling. He's saying it's easy. Just walk and think of nothing else, he says. He minces the air with his fingers to make a pair of legs. He walks his fingers across the bar and up my arm. I see lint on his jacket sleeve; I see yellow sweat and dirt stains on his collar. He leaves his hand on my shoulder. Tightropes, he says. His hand is heavy as anything and I let it rest.

Edmund Sandoval likes running up hills in Southwest New Mexico and looking at the emptiness of the hills. He likes bourbon. He has had stories in Hackwriters, Drunk and Lonely Men, Dogzplot, and the Thieves Jargon.

Fireflies

2009-05-25T18:25:00.002-04:00

by Jenny Halper
90 words

Why do fireflies light only at night, the girl asked her mother, who was swirling a tube of dust into a glass of wine. When her mother didn't answer the girl took a jar from the highest shelf, a jar her mother used to store jam they ate on cracked wheat bread, and went outside to capture fireflies. Later, the house was filled with candles and clinking glasses, and the girl stayed in her room with the jar buzzing black and the light off, hoping that no one would notice.

Jenny Halper's fiction has been published in Smokelong Quarterly, Juked, Helicon, and New England Fiction Meetinghouse, and her stories have been finalists in contests run by Glimmer Train and the Sonora Review. As a journalist she’s written for papers including the Boston Phoenix, amNewYork, and examiner.com (http://www.examiner.com/x-8509-NY-Film-Examiner). She recently earned an MFA at Emerson College.

Race Me?

2009-05-12T06:05:00.000-04:00

by Caitlin McGuire
86 words

I decided it was time for a race around the world, so I dared you to meet me back here as fast as you could. You must be really fast, because when I came back in three weeks, you were sitting on my couch watching TV, with a container of kung pao on your lap. You told me Hong Kong was nice in the springtime. I conceded defeat, and sat down next to you, ignoring the receipt from the Chinese restaurant downstairs stuck to your foot.

Caitlin McGuire is a student at UC Berkeley. She has been published in the First Kiss Project and Ruined Music, and is an Assistant Editor at the Berkeley Fiction Review. She writes short stories because they fit her five-foot frame.

My Heavenly Bride

2009-05-12T06:04:00.002-04:00

by Tom Lassiter
100 words

My bride-to-be lived as a modest woman and I as a good Christian man, so it was not until our wedding night that I discovered she had three breasts. I prayed on the matter, and like only God can make clear, the answer revealed itself starkly.

I took in each of my hands one of her breasts rising from the familiar places, caressing, and with my lips and then mouth fondled the unusually placed third. Thus I served all, and so was blessed with the heavenly sight of not two but three engorged areolas and as many erect nipples. Amen.

Tom Lassiter lives in South Florida. His work has appeared in Tropic magazine, New Times, many newspapers, and at verbsap.com

Deserve

2009-05-12T06:04:00.001-04:00

by Dave Erlewine
74 words

Now that we’re fighting all the time my wife insists I take our son to his weekly appointments.

She’d love me to call her on it. She’ll get that look on her face and say since you brought it up I do think it makes sense for you to take him. Don’t you?

And perhaps I’ll reply well who pushed me on the bed and whispered in my ear that stutterers deserve kids too?

David Erlewine’s stories appear in Tuesday Shorts, elimae, The Pedestal, SmokeLong Quarterly, and a number of other journals. He blogs, weakly, at http://www.whizbyfiction.blogspot.com/

bleeding words

2009-05-12T06:03:00.000-04:00

by Matt Leibel
94 words

I started bleeding words. I went to a doctor and tried to explain my situation, but my linguistic arsenal was shrinking by the second, plus I was losing a lot of blood and feeling lightheaded. The doctor disinfected the cut (which seemed, at least, to keep me from losing more dirty words). He told me not to worry about it, language is overrated—words just end up causing problems, getting misinterpreted. Besides, not having words meant never again having to say I love you or I’m sorry. I’d kill for that, the doctor said.

Matt Leibel's has published work in Quarterly West, DIAGRAM, Failbetter and other places. He has more stories at http://web.mac.com/mattleibel

Charity Begins at Home

2009-05-12T06:02:00.000-04:00

by Scott Wilson
76 words

Volunteering to collect donations for a charity called. ‘Homeless Christmas Goblins’, you vow only to eat food that you can farm; meaning Christmas dinner is hamsters and marijuana. Due to the mistake of revealing your holiday plans to relatives, they plot to destroy your genes.

Because of this, you are fired at the end of a holiday text message and a powerful Deity decides to smite you with poor E-bay feedback and a creepy dating rating.

Scott has been writing for half as many years as he's been breathing now. Over thirty of his short stories and flash fiction have been published by various ezines and publications.

Y=1/X

2009-05-12T06:01:00.000-04:00

by D.C. Porder
63 words

Sarah drowns in the sky. I stand on the earth and throw life-preservers at her but they turn into words and in the stratosphere they lose their meaning. I steal an airplane and sail it towards her, though she is infinitely far away. I realize I am a line in calculus, edging forever towards zero. When I arrive I am still not there.

D.C. Porder is pursuing his BA in creative writing at The New School. His work is forthcoming in decomP and Word Riot. Read more at www.dcporder.blogspot.com.

Handle with Care

2009-04-28T18:05:00.000-04:00

by Corey Ginsberg
100 words

First a finger arrived, jammed into a jewelry box in an unmarked white envelope.

Then on Tuesday, a package with "Handle with Care" stamped across the side showed up at Judy's cottage. Inside, an entire hand, bloated digits stained with blood, middle finger up.

Thursday, a tube with a fully extended arm wrapped in bubble paper arrived. A Timex on the wrist, stopped at 12:28—her birthday.

Saturday, when the UPS man pushed a tall narrow box onto her porch and asked her to sign for it, she scribbled help me on the sheet and hoped it wasn't too late.

Corey Ginsberg is an MFA candidate in nonfiction at Florida International University. She is currently on the job market, so please hire her. She will write for food.

Parable 1

2009-04-28T18:00:00.000-04:00

by G. David Schwartz
95 words

It is like the king who found himself alone at the boarder of his kingdom. When he heard the growling and prancing of a lion approach, the king prayed to be saved. He found the strength in himself to run to a tree as the lion gave chase. The king climbed out of the way just as the lion leaped. The king climbed higher and higher to avoid the stalking lion below. When he was near the top of the tree, an eagle that thought the king was invading her nest plucked out his eyes.

G. David Schwartz - the former president of Seedhouse, the online interfaith committee. Schwartz is the author of A Jewish Appraisal of Dialogue. Currently a volunteer at Drake Hospital in Cincinnati, Schwartz continues to write. His new book, Midrash and Working Out Of The Book is now in stores or can be ordered.

It Won't Work, Melissa

2009-04-28T17:53:00.002-04:00

by Apryl Fox
97 words

There was the time Melissa tried to get me into a singing career; there was that agent at the Billowing Pig, who knew someone in Hollywood who knew some casting director at American Idol and was looking for new faces. I don't care about Hollywood. I care about reading books. So, Melissa, if you are reading this, no, I am not going to be an actress or a singer in Hollywood, no matter how well I sing. I'd rather learn how to make birds out of loose leaf paper. I'd rather learn how to make paper cranes.

Apryl Fox loves to write and currently resides in North Carolina.

Transplant

2009-04-28T17:50:00.000-04:00

by Robert Scotellaro
66 words

He had a heart pickled in loss and other bitter brines. Its removal was simple—like lake ice cracking. From a sternum to a well they drew from. The Bible, which replaced it, had fly wing-thin white pages.

Nights, when his wife could not sleep, she'd lay her head on his chest—listen to her favorite passages, in lieu of crickets, banging away in the dark.

Robert Scotellaro's short fiction and poetry appear or are forthcoming in: Dogzplot, Ghoti, mud luscious, 971 Menu, The Laurel Review, Storyscape, Battered Suitcase, Red Rock Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Macmillan collections and others. He is the author of several literary chapbooks, two books of poetry, and the recipient of Zone 3’s Rainmaker Award in Poetry. Born and raised in Manhattan , he currently lives in California with his wife and daughter.

______________________________

The Wandering Eye of Harold Krapp

2009-04-28T17:46:00.000-04:00

by Sabrina Stoessinger
100 words

Had the clerk at Ellis Island better penmanship, the Knapp family would have been spared generations of humiliation. Had Eugenia Krapp ignored the traditional practice of passing family names, her son may have escaped his formative years relatively unscathed. Had Harold exercised caution in pursuit of his tormentor (reciting the familiar “Hairy Crap” limerick) he would still have his eyesight.

The fourth escape of Harold's prosthetic eyeball proved exasperating and he immediately petitioned the local judge for a legal name change. To begin his life anew he would be Ignatius Patch; it was, after all, his favourite fictional literary character.

Sabrina realizes she misjudged Ottawa, Ontario upon their first meeting and is now willing to reconcile and give it a second chance.

Wood Pile Bird

2009-04-28T17:37:00.001-04:00

by Edmund Sandoval
100 words

There's a turkey by the wood pile next to the splitting stump with the maul in it, blade heavy and dull. The turkey's dead. When I first saw it I thought it was a hawk - it was the feathers, dusky brown and white. My brother said, Nope, that's a turkey. Been there for months but nothing will eat it. Must've been sick.

I wanted to fling it into the field with the tall yellow grass. Grass that's spindly, cutting. I pick up the maul and wind up to hit the bird but my brother stops me. No, he says.

Edmund Sandoval likes running up hills in Southwest New Mexico and looking at the emptiness of the hills. He likes bourbon. He’s had stories in Hackwriters, Drunk and Lonely Men, Dogzplot and The Thieves Jargon.

Jealousy

2009-04-14T09:14:00.001-04:00

by Tom Doughty
98 words

I call you to come over, knowing what a big deal it is to escape. People to mislead, arrangements to be made, tracks to be covered. I suspect the hassle is part of the allure, a penance for the sins about to be committed.

You show up out of breath, saying it wasn’t easy getting out, hair disheveled, face and chest flushed. You look like you just rolled out of bed after a polite marital missionary fuck. Maybe you did. You certainly have the scent of excitement wafting from you. Fresh for me or just warmed up leftovers?

Tom Doughty spends too much time inside his own head. He doesn’t see it as that big a deal but family and friends keep encouraging him to, “get out, have some fun, find a nice girl and settle down. . .You’re not getting any younger you know.”

Those Nights

2009-04-14T09:12:00.000-04:00

by Ethel Rohan
100 words

The couple at table nineteen want to send back their dinner. The guy is pale, slight, with chiseled features. I've brought home worse.

He says, "the first and last time I get duck."

The woman, greasy hair, skin, tongue, says, "way too much cinnamon in my mousaka."

They don't want anything else, just the check for their wine.

I lift the plates, cross my arms. "Did you want to try swapping?"

"Excuse me?" she says.

He smiles.

I carry their plates out the front of the restaurant and into the cool air, drawn to the streetlight and its buttery cast.

Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, Ethel Rohan now lives in San Francisco. She received her MFA in fiction from Mills College, CA. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from several literary magazines including Cantaraville; SUB-LIT; Word Riot; Prick of the Spindle; Identity Theory; and mud luscious. She is a brazen chocoholic. Her blog is www.straightfromtheheartinmyhip.blogspot.com.

On the Porch

2009-04-14T09:11:00.001-04:00

by M. Stowe
100 words

Charlie stands under the pale porch light. “Your mom dumped me on her coffee break, kid. I’m leaving for Austin in the morning.”

In the darkness of the hall, hair up and glasses on, she is the image of her mother. “You stink.”

“Been drinking.”

She pulls her robe tightly around her neck. “Were you in my room last night?”

Charlie spits into the withered azaleas. “I want you to come with me.”

The wrong response will bring him through the door. His anger is quick.

“Pick me up at seven.” She closes the door and listens for his footsteps.

M. Stowe is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His work has appeared in Peeks & Valleys, Riverwind, and decomP.

How I Talk to Myself

2009-04-14T09:10:00.001-04:00

by Eric Bennett
100 words

I write letters, sorry so few. The telephone just doesn’t work for me, too many flying verbs. I’ll remain in vocal exile.

I miss our hip action, our 1988 love. But, I’m terrified of our 1996 anger.

I misplaced everything; you gave me everything. And now, I can’t remember where anything is.

The crows in the front yard heckled me. So, I left, left, and left. I left the shot glasses we bought in Vegas and the towels we stole from that dive on 66. I left our cat.

I still talk to you, but you don’t answer. Not anymore.

Eric Bennett lives in New York with his wife and four children. He loves trees without leaves, the silence between previews at a movie theatre, and writing short stories. His work appears or is forthcoming in Why Vandalism?, Gloom Cupboard, Bartleby Snopes, Smokebox, Apt, decomP magazinE, The Battered Suitcase, Dogmatika, Up the Staircase, and Dogzplot blogspot.

Windows

2009-04-14T09:09:00.003-04:00

by Tom Lassiter
99 words

Molly sets her menu aside and orders blueberry pancakes “with crispy edges” she’ll drown in maple syrup. At 10, she’s sure in her wants and unafraid to ask.

“The same,” I tell the waiter.

Molly hunts among the crayons in a tin bucket and chooses red, the color of her hair. She turns to the fairy princess outlined on her place mat. We breakfast every Saturday morning, then do whatever strikes us. On Sunday, I return her to her mother.

The crayon, flickering like a sparrow’s wing, pauses.

“Come home.”

“Oh, sweetie, I--”

“Please?”

Yes, yes, but how?

Tom Lassiter lives in South Florida. His work has appeared in Tropic magazine, New Times, many newspapers, and at verbsap.com.