January 2025 | fiction
When I entered the parking, there was a problem. A BMW SUV with a Connecticut license plate was parked right in the middle, blocking access to the specialty food store. I was angry. Why the fuck couldn’t that dumb bastard park in one of the nearby spaces, instead of in the middle of the lot?
I entered the fish store to get a sandwich. When I finished, I walked over to the specialty food store.
Perhaps someone had a problem. The temperature outside was below zero, so I thought — having cooled down while eating my fried chicken sandwich in the fish store. Perhaps some poor slob had a car issue and might need assistance — like a tow truck.
On entering the store I saw an aging, grey-haired man in a Brooks Brothers overcoat and tyrolean hat who was pawing the lettuce.
“Yeah, that’s my car; what of it,” he said, checking each head carefully as if he might find gold under one of them.
“Does your car have a problem?” I asked, noting not to buy lettuce.
“Not that I am aware of,” he replied, continuing to pick amongst the lettuces, probably to find the largest head.
“Well, it’s blocking the entrance to this store,” I told him, now getting a little annoyed.
“So what?” he said, finally choosing a head and putting it in his basket.
“Well, it’s inconsiderate,” I told him, following him as he walked over to the cashier.
“Says who?” he said.
“Listen, mister, you’re blocking the entrance to this store. Why don’t you move your car?” I asked, politely.
“I don’t give a shit, sonny, let me handle this first.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are, asshole?”
“Listen, sister,” the man said, “don’t play games with me.”
“Are you going to move your fuckin’ car? Why don’t you just move your fuckin’ car, asshole,” I said as politely as any Cuban could, gesticulating with my arms in his face — for emphasis.
“Listen bitch,” he said to me as he turned around, “why don’t you mind your business and let me mind mine.”
“Who’re you calling a bitch, fuckin’ asshole?”
“Bitch, go suck tit. Can’t you see I’m fuckin’ busy?” the asshole said.
I wasn’t going to let anyone — especially someone from the city — mess with me.
“Asshole, just because you come from the city you think you own the place; you’re our guest, so fuck off and move your fuckin’ car.” I had become so mad, and when a Cuban becomes mad his arms move so that the other person knows what he’s talking about.
“Bitch, as soon as I’m finished ….”
At this moment Jesse, the store manager, appeared from the back room.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Oh, José’s been talking to himself, —you know, just being himself,” Mariah told the store manager.
E.P. Lande
E.P. Lande was born in Montreal but has lived most of his life in the south of France and Vermont, where he now lives with his partner, writing and caring for more than 100 animals, many of which are rescues. Previously, he taught at l’Université d’Ottawa, where he served as Vice-Dean of his faculty, and he has owned and managed country inns and free-standing restaurants. Since submitting two years ago, his stories have been accepted by publications in countries on five continents. His story “Expecting” has been nominated for Best of the Net.
January 2025 | fiction
At home, we are preparing to paint the living room walls pale yellow. Its summer. The heat is oppressive. There are cobwebs in every corner of the walls. The spiders have weaved their webby homes in our spacious one. They are in clusters, like spools of grey cotton thread dangling from the walls. I see the spiders suspended in the air, unfazed by the height, and drop to the floor. I am scared of heights. Of falling from the rooftops of restaurants we often visit. I am even terrified about diving from the diving pool in our club swimming pool. I am trying to understand why. I usually dream about falling and wake up screaming loudly. Why does it happen only to me? My husband thinks it’s irrational. My kids laugh at me. I am afraid for these eight-legged creatures. The mere thought of them falling and dying gives me shivers. Why can’t they build their homes in the shrubs or trees outside? The ferocious summer heat drives them indoors. Perhaps the pungent paint smell will drive them out. Seasons will change. In the meantime, I see the spiders continuing to spin, suspended in mid-air. The sight is scary as I watch them with bated breaths, their delicate movements adding to my unease.
Swetha Amit
Swetha is the author of two chapbooks, Cotton Candy from the Sky and Mango Pickle in Summer. An MFA graduate from the University of San Francisco, her works appear in Had, Flash Fiction Magazine, Oyez Review, etc. Her stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
October 2024 | fiction, Pushcart nominee
I was in line at a fast-food restaurant with which you are familiar, standing behind a software engineer who, like all software engineers, had a touch of the –tisms. He was tall, of course, neatly muscled, and odd, all of which was already apparent but became clearer when he turned to me, as if surprised to find me standing behind, and said,
I redesigned my points app so that it randomly chooses a food item from the menu within my points price range.
You must like variety, I replied.
Not really.
The person in front of him, who was ordering from this well-known menu ploddingly, as if she had never heard of fast food, asked time-consuming questions to the minor in the uniform, some of which the minor, helpful but baffled by this line of inquiry, passed on to the tired manager who expedited both dine-in and drive-thru lines.
If not for variety, then why adapt the app?
Because you get what you get, the tall man explained.
He turned back around and, as if studying the selections somehow mattered to him despite the app, resumed his prior gaping, over the head of the astonishing newbie, at the menu, which suddenly appeared, mounted over a Bunn and two soft-serve machines, as if it might fall from the wall and crush the harried manager and the uniformed minor.
You are entitled to what you ask for, I told the tall man, who turned at the waist and looked down at me another time.
You get what you get.
Because of the app, which you made!
Correct.
Therefore, you like variety.
I would not say that.
Then you like surprises.
No big surprises on this menu, he said.
Then you do this, why? Because you ascribe to the philosophy in the Rolling Stones song?
I would not say I am dissatisfied.
I mean the other song, the one with the children’s choir.
John Lennon’s X-mas song?
No, I mean…
You do not seem to comprehend that you get what you get.
Because you have asked for it, I insisted.
He turned back around to check the progress of the menu, which was irrelevant to him.
By redesigning the app to deliver unnecessary variety, I added, you are essentially getting what you want.
Previously, the tall man had turned at the waist to look down at me over his left shoulder. Now, as if alternating for sake of variety, he turned to look over his right.
The app randomizes my order.
There has never been a question about that, I replied. The question is why you have randomized the app.
Because I can, the tall man said. And because you get what you get.
####
At this point you interrupt me and ask why I started this story with the words “of course.”
What? I ask.
In your exposition, you remind me, you said “He is tall, of course.” Why “tall”?
“Was,” I correct you. I said “He was tall.”
Matt Wanat
Professor of English at Ohio University Lancaster, Matt Wanat is co-editor of Breaking Down Breaking Bad and The Films of Clint Eastwood. Wanat has published critical essays, encyclopedia articles, reviews, and book chapters on various authors and filmmakers. Wanat’s fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction publications are available or forthcoming in The Wayfarer, Coffin Bell, The Wax Paper, and Pennsylvania English. Wanat resides in rural southeastern Ohio.
October 2024 | fiction
The thing about meditating with other mental patients is that they are mental patients. Yeah, you’re a patient too, but I get it, they’re annoying.
The woman beside you sucks on a baby pacifier.
Helpful Tip: Breathe in and out at the same rate as she sucks.
Your group counselor says, “Now think of a conveyor belt and put your thoughts into boxes that go down it….”
You breathe in and out and wonder where do the boxes go? Do they spill onto the linoleum floor?
Helpful Tip: Distract yourself by squinting at the pacifier woman, commend yourself for not needing one to suck on. Do not ponder that this is a very low bar. Instead, imagine the conveyor belt turning and turning….
Do not think of your thoughts strewn across the linoleum floor like limpid half-dead octopi or like spilled magnetic refrigerator word tiles. I see you open your eyes. The man sucking his thumb stares at you. There are bars on the windows reminding you, reminding all of us, that we’re in a mental institution. A nice one, but still people try to escape. The weird man stares at you; he has a Calvin and Hobbes tattoo on his neck.
The therapist says, “Now imagine boats going down river, and put your thoughts into each boat….”
Oh, Jesus, what kind of boats? Rowboats? Tankers? Skiffs?
The woman smacks on her pacifier. Smack, smack, smack.
Put your thoughts on a damn boat, any kind of boat will do.
Dig down deep, Patient 89. Remember the story you told us in group, how you were on a real boat a month ago; this was back when everyone thought you were okay. You’d straddled a gunnel, one leg in the Dominican ocean. You’d breathed in and out, fishing line cast until the mate hurled you into the boat because he saw a water snake—beautiful, many colored— so venomous it could have killed you in fifteen seconds. It hadn’t seemed such a bad fate to you. The sky was a perfect blue, your tears made no sense. At least that’s how you described yourself on that boat that afternoon.
Breathe in and out, Patient 89. Soon they’ll give you a capsule, a sip of water. Patient 89, you’re no different than the pacifier woman, the Calvin and Hobbes man, than me. Your brain can’t be trusted any longer, so breathe in, breathe out… And know that I’m watching your every move.
Signed,
Patient 52
Laurie Lindop
Laurie Lindop holds an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. She has published nine non-fiction books with Lerner and Simon and Schuster. Her short fiction has been published by Redbook Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly, The Beloit Fiction Journal, and elsewhere.
October 2024 | fiction
We just had sex. But I wasn’t thinking of you.
When you pulled me to your chest, your head resting on my hair, I was thinking of my old physics professor. Wondering how he’d have fucked me if given the chance. When you breathed a sigh over my face and whispered, That was amazing, I wondered how he’d have spoken to me in an after coitus-glow, if he would have noticed that I wasn’t feeling it with you because there was still so much hurt tangled in the sheets of our shared bed. You kissed me, but it wasn’t gentle.
I think that guy from the record store would have kissed me softly, with his fingers playing silent songs along my spine. Perhaps then he would have pulled me closer if I tried to move away. But you just let me roll over to my side of the bed. It’s a familiar position for me, my back turned to you, and I wonder how you can bear not to see my face. Aren’t you curious about what’s running through my mind?
My friend from the restaurant would be. He would have been tugging my hair and saying, Please let me into your head, and I would’ve said, Of course. Because I’d want to let him in, to feel that intimacy with someone who doesn’t want my back turned, who doesn’t let me turn my back. Is that so much to ask?
But you would say, yes, it is actually, because there is nothing more that I need to know about you. I have checked all of the boxes and seen the necessary disclosures. But what you don’t see are the men shuffling through my head like a deck of cards, or the ones I swipe on when I hide in the bathroom with my phone. You don’t know about the people I kissed, and how they tasted sweet after we shared a chocolate souffle. Although none of that matters. We just had sex, and you’re not thinking of me. But I’m thinking of you.
Sophia Carlisle
Sophia Carlisle is a creative currently living in the Midwest. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Diet Milk Magazine, Erato Magazine, Crow & Cross Keys, and elsewhere. She enjoys wistful stories of all kinds and has a particular soft spot for the ghosts we let linger.
July 2024 | fiction
The blond man in front of her is too tall. European of course, Dutch perhaps. It’s claimed the Dutch are the tallest people in the world. She’ll find out if it’s true soon enough. Amsterdam is their next stop. Kyoko stands on her toes. She can’t even get a glimpse of the woman with history’s most mysterious smile, only the right upper edge of the gold-varnished, renaissance-inspired frame. How she’d love to see a friendly face, even if it’s just a painted one.
***
She planned the ten-day Euro trip with her daughters right after the divorce. A chance to forget, at least momentarily, to “make new memories together”, which was what the travel brochure said, “while admiring artworks with a lasting impact”. Now, she’s standing here alone. She’d already booked three tickets and didn’t want them all to go to waste. Her teenagers preferred shopping on the Champs-Élysées, without her. She just wants her daughters to be happy again. It already means the world to see the girls getting along. That hasn’t always been the case, but a common enemy unites.
She’s the guilty one, the instigator. She’s not even sure why she did it. She simply didn’t have a choice but to leave their father. If she has to describe the reason, the feeling when growing out of her favourite dress at the age of thirteen comes closest, the blue one with ruffles. She still loved it, but it didn’t fit anymore.
***
She had expected the Louvre to be busy, but not like this. Crowds are a strange phenomenon. Each has its own distinct character: some fierce and loud, others dumb and dangerous. Though obstructing her vision, this one seems kind, rocking her softly from left to right, holding her tight, making it impossible to fall over.
Josje Weusten
Josje Weusten, PhD (she/her), is a writer of (auto)fiction and a senior lecturer in literature and creative writing at Maastricht University. She is a Faber Academy London alumna. Josje aims to write fiction that stays true to Oscar Wilde’s words: “A truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true.” Her shorts have appeared in Litbreak Magazine and Flash Fiction Magazine. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions 2023. Her first novel, Fake Fish, a near-future story on the devastating impact of fake news, will be released on November 14, 2024, with Sparsile Books (Glasgow, UK).
