Our Writer of the Month Cezarija Abartis with a tense short story about the futility of revenge, "Family Café" (formerly featured in Crimson Fog).
The linoleum was green as hope in summer. On the wall were framed photographs: three tow-headed kids at the beach–probably Kittredge's kids–a calendar, a photograph of these same kids, older now by a few years. In my purse was a gun.
Paul Riker's unforgettable short story, "Before Len Was Struck by Lightning".
Before Len was struck by lightning he rode the maintenance cart (approx. $5,000 resale), making stops at every single trash can around the club house, taking the trash, tying the bags, and throwing them into the flatbed of the cart. He did not replace the bags.
James H Duncan's short story "The Road to Luckenbach".
A lot of bad ideas disguised as great ideas crop up during long nights of heavy drinking in the strings of dive bars along the outskirts of mid-sized Texas cities.
Our Writer of the Month for August, Cezarija Abartis, with her flash fiction piece "O Tannenbaum".
Ellen thought it was a lovely tree and they would have a lovely life. She and Nate had found each other, and now life lay before them–gleaming, endless, rich, complex. She noticed the bills on the table and laughed to herself: perhaps life was only complex and not gleaming and rich and endless.
A once in a lifetime chance for a young songwriter in Neil Schiller's "100%/Serpents".
I can feel my face starting to flush slightly, but fuck it, I’ve gotten this far. Anyway, I think they’ll be surprised.
‘Ok. This is something I’m working on ..."
Our Writer of the Month, Cezarija Abartis, with a story formerly featured in Metazen, "Postpartum".
The baby was an armful of squamous tissue, gleaming, squirming, like a glistening, beating heart. Undirected, unfocused, barely human. If she squinted and looked sideways, it could have been a jelly mass, a wet sock with fingers, a wiggling pudding.
Dennis Hernandez returns to Drunk Monkeys with a musically-inspired flash fiction piece, "Ferry Cross the Mersey".
"That Gerry Marsden was a gentleman,” he bellowed.
Heads turned about the room like an unplanned alarm had gone off. Just as quickly our shipmates steered their focus back to the task in hand. But I'm a young man in an old man's bar and I've got a lot to learn. And clearly there was a story here.
Our Writer of the Month for August 2015, Cezarija Abartis, with her short story "Matilda the Cat".
There was a monster around the edge. Or something worse. She heard the monster’s snarfling, snuffling, chewing, imagined his sulphurous breath. What was he devouring, masticating, swallowing?
David M. Hoenig with a beautiful updating of Hindu mythology, his short story "Deva Rising":
"As I stand, the semblance of humanity sloughs away from me- first one new arm sprouts, then a match on the other side, giving me a second pair below the originals. I feel my wings once again push out from my back, and I extend them, enjoying the stretch. As I turn to face the monks, my third eye, in the center of my forehead, opens and sees them as they begin to sing."
A man faces a moral dilemma in Rick Neumayer's short story, "The Blind Man".
"The blind man says he usually knows when someone is trying to cheat him. 'If it’s not a twenty, most of the time I can tell by the feel of the bill. Ones get more use than other bills. They feel soft. Twenties stay crisp. And when someone is trying to put something over on you, their voice usually gets higher, and their sentences shorter. They’re nervous. If I take the bill and start to pull out change, they think they've gotten away with it and that’s when they come up with some overly polite thank-you. That’s when I know.'"
