Fiction Archives

‘Any Orange Is Orange’

by Olivia Clare Friedman

October 2, 2023

Posted on October 2, 2023 (October 2, 2023) by John McMurtrie

Since Happy started saving lives, he’s gotten superstitious. You learn quick—don’t call him up on his shift and ask, How’s the day going? Any calls? because then for sure the radio will start, and they’ll be racing over, lights and sirens, to a one-bedroom in Pelican Bluff on Cooper Candy Drive, which is all gravel and no pavement, and a tire-busting pothole every quarter mile, and the parking lot full of lost dogs and baby diapers, and the ambulance too big so he parks on the grass, and the one-bedroom doorway so slim the stretcher won’t ram through. Not to […]

‘Moldova’

by Ruth Madievsky

June 16, 2023

Posted on June 16, 2023 (June 29, 2023) by John McMurtrie

Sasha and I landed in Kishinev as the sun was rising and took a bus from the tarmac to our terminal. I hadn’t slept on either of the flights and felt the edges of reality ungluing. The bus was stuffed to the windows with blue-eyed children waving American coloring books, women in sweatsuits carrying knockoff

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The Bus

by Nishanth Injam

June 6, 2023

Posted on June 6, 2023 (July 19, 2023) by John McMurtrie

The bus has a bathroom. Other buses that leave Bengaluru for my hometown don’t have bathrooms. They pull over on the highway when you have to pee, or they stop at a dhaba and the driver asks passengers to go so he won’t have to make extra stops along the way. The bus is a

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After Dark

by Rhoda Huffey

January 5, 2023

Posted on January 5, 2023 (January 11, 2023) by Zack Ravas

When the pigeon first appeared in my front yard, I noticed because he didn’t fly off immediately. He walked over to the jade plant by my front porch and contemplated the leaves of the succulent. My mind was full of other things at that moment: what to wear to that evening, did a man named

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Obverse

by Yuri Herrera

November 22, 2022

Posted on November 22, 2022 (December 2, 2022) by Zack Ravas

Translated by Lisa Dillman And that was why they decided to go off and explore the other side, on which, they hoped, there would be no watery cliffs or dragons awaiting them at the end. They traversed iotas and iotas. Deserts of iotas and dales of iotas and mountains of iotas. Millions of iotas. Until,

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Flat Map

by Yuri Herrera

November 15, 2022

Posted on November 15, 2022 (December 2, 2022) by Zack Ravas

Translated by Lisa Dillman Perhaps they could have saved the lives of all those who died chasing the truth to the ends of the earth if they’d thought more about, say, the thickness of trees. But these people, like all people, felt compelled to see things with their own eyes, which would later be eaten

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Interoffice Memorandum 10/18

by Christine Sneed

October 18, 2022

Posted on October 18, 2022 (October 17, 2022) by Zack Ravas

Date: October 18 To: All Quest Industries Employees From: Mid Level Management Subj: Returning Full-Time to the Office Please be advised that as of one week from today, we will resume full-time work in our offices at 1 E. Wacker Drive, i.e. we will no longer observe a 3-days-in-office/2-days-remote schedule. Please do not grouse about this policy within our earshot. We have no intention of changing our minds! Please also be advised that air fryers and heavy metal-extracting saunas are no longer permitted on these premises. The City of Chicago’s Public Works Department recently informed us that overuse […]

May 17th, 1974

by Dagoberto Gilb

October 3, 2022

Posted on October 3, 2022 (October 2, 2022) by Zack Ravas

“Slauson,” Sherry said. “Doesn’t that sound…maybe Watts, like that, to you?” “What?” Danny said making the word shorter than it already was. “It’s kind of a ghetto name, right?” Danny might have looked up and away irritated if he wasn’t driving her car. Slauson was the name of the street they were on, wide and

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The Murmuring Killed Me

by Peter Orner

September 15, 2022

Posted on September 15, 2022 (September 14, 2022) by Zack Ravas

Every few years or so I go to visit my dead at Beth El Cemetery in Fall River, Massachusetts. It’s across the street from a Cumberland Farms. My grandfather always said that being dead didn’t seem so bad if he could run over and grab a pack of cigarettes and the Fall River Herald. On

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Part of a Deer

by Lucy Corin

August 10, 2022

Posted on August 10, 2022 (August 9, 2022) by Zack Ravas

Here it was suddenly ninety degrees, and across the country it was suddenly frozen. I’d been texting about it with Basil all morning, getting my stuff together for running errands. In the car, I swapped into my sunglasses, setting everything up to follow the driving instructions I’d texted to myself by trying to balance the

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INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM 1/3

by Christine Sneed

January 27, 2022

Posted on January 27, 2022 (January 26, 2022) by Zack Ravas

Date: January 3rd To: All Quest Industries Employees From: President Bryan Stokerly, Esq. Subj: Welcome Back/In-Office Birthday Celebrations It’s good to see everyone back in the office again, but it’s obvious very few of us got any better looking in the months we were working from home. Be that as it may, let us hope the year ahead will be an improvement on the last one, which was probably the worst year of my life, but I won’t go into that right now. Today seems an optimal moment to share with you a few preferences regarding in-office […]

In the Black, With Jessica

by Christian Kiefer

April 20, 2021

Posted on April 20, 2021 (April 19, 2021) by Zack Ravas

The sound of a car gearing up the ashen road. Chuck thought at first that it had to be someone from Cal Fire or another crew but then the radio crackled and Bob told him it was a civilian. “Copy,” he said, and then, after releasing the button: “Fuck.” No part of him that was

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