You Get Elected to Do Things by Carter Jefferson
Leaning back in my swivel chair, wondering if firing Bill Morrison would affect the fate of World Civilization, I stared at the volumes of French history on the bookshelves and wished somebody else was in charge of oiling the guillotine...Practicing by Laura Loomis
My date's downstairs waiting for me, and my hair won't cooperate. There are only a few gray hairs, but they're twice as thick as the brown strands, and they always want to go in a different direction. I'm still attempting denial about the gray, a strategy that hasn't worked particularly well in other areas of my life...Bitter Melon by Sarah Black
He came for the bitter melon every Tuesday night. Sometimes he ate it with delicate white fish and sometimes with rice noodles in tangy ginger sauce. With each bite of the bitter melon, he tasted his regrets, chewed his sorrow, and swallowed his failures. They lodged in his fertile stomach and sprouted an evil vine that twisted up his esophagus, wrapped tendrils around his heart and lungs, and bloomed with deadly flowers in his brain...Barnyard Mercy by Kirsten Culbertson
"Now Ernie, you know what you got to do," says my Aunt Pearl, sitting at the head of the Thanksgiving Day table, where we're all a little rattled from the dog that sits on the front stoop crying because its face just got broken.Unstable by CK Edgeware
My former FM, foster mother to officials, fake mom to me: fifty years old, wispy hair, a scalp with five o'clock shadow due to the black dye and female pattern baldness. She is grossly obese. Smells like bologna that's been left out on the counter too long. Smokes Marlborough Light 100s washed down with pots of Mr. Coffee...The Bear Hunter by Rachel Elizabeth Cole
The October morning breaks clear and crisp, like an aged Riesling, pungent with the bouquet of dying leaves. Mist curls from the lake. Jays chatter in the bronzing poplars. Under my feet, the porch groans and mutters as a sharp north breeze cartwheels a handful of leaves across the floorboards that catch in the rockers of an ancient rocking chair...Monotony by Justin S. Crouse
Clyde leaned forward and cracked open his third beer. In the four months since we started clearing ditches together, he ate no lunch, just drank three beers. I held out half of my sandwich and received the customary headshake. I told him roast beef, but he waved it off. I knew he would never take the sandwich, but asking him became routine. The other guys at work joked that I must have done something wrong to get assigned to Clyde for the summer...What About Louie? by Mark Venturini
Rain-streaked windows rise thirty stories above the sidewalk. Tim stares at the revolving doors to ten years of his life and doesn't want to go in. Freezing rain slaps his umbrella; damp cold seeps down deep until all he wants is to crawl back under the covers. What about Louie and the others? What are they staring at this morning — alarm clocks that aren't needed? Dry-cleaned business suits hanging unused?