Playing with the Wizard Dawn Sperber __________ Sure, he was a charmed minstrel, a fine carpenter, a grunt laborer, and a timeless wizard, but what stands out to me as a heartbreakingly lovely quality is this: Matti told himself elaborate nightly bedtime stories. Deep inside that elven man’s mind, as…
Read MoreThe Nightmare House Sam Ruddick __________ We live in a haunted house. It is unusual in that it is haunted by the living. Multiple moments occur at the same time in the same place, past iterations of ourselves overlapping. We are making love in the center of the bed, our…
Read MoreDodo Richard Peabody __________ I am the Dean, this is Mrs. Liddell.She plays first, I, second fiddle. — Oxford Undergraduate Doggerel Time to wake him. He looks so frail. And sadly, migraines have again twisted the soft features she cherishes into a diabolical death mask. Something worthy of math wizards…
Read MoreA Thornbush’s Embrace Missy Nieveen Phegley __________ I find much joy in riding bikes, and I frequently imagine my kids sharing my love of riding as we go on all kinds of cycling adventures. So, one day when my five-year-old asked to ride her bike, I stopped what I was…
Read MoreNo One Says the C-Word at the Comprehensive Cancer Center Mikki Aronoff __________ You haul your ass and your cancer over for your one o’clock—the cancer your newly uninvited passenger, all grunt and elbows jostling for space smack dab in the middle of you, this bully breed, unruly teen (mercy,…
Read MoreMidnight in the Valley of Spam Steve Almond __________ Dear Sir, my name is ________ ________. I am the Prince of a faraway land, though I live now in the kingdom of Disgrace. A Great Treasure has been taken from me. Stolen. Looted, sir. For this reason I now request…
Read MoreLetter from the Guest Editor Taryn White __________ Without particularly knowing why, texts like Alice in Wonderland, Frankenstein, and Ulysses have always brought a sort of comfort to me. During times when my own skin and bones hardly felt like home, I felt as though I had to become less…
Read MoreLetter from the Editor Vallie Lynn Watson __________ I have spent a lot of my life on the move. I was born in the Midwest, lived overseas in the Middle East until I was eight, then moved to the Deep Deep South, my family’s birth home, where I stayed put…
Read MoreLily: A Found Flash of All Thirteen Stories Mia Bonds and Alexandria Knight, Editorial Assistants __________ I’m interested in this place. It was staggering to witness. Branches bent like ostriches, afraid to look. Sometimes, slivers of light would invade, indicating the buildings were wooden slats. She’s wearing a black trench…
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