Notice how they stand in the background of an old family photograph. How they all wear white. How they cloak their bodies in the pallor, fade like a troupe of ghosts. Remember how they started disappearing. How your tío went first, drank himself to death. How he was...
His boots lay down a path through the Timothy and Queen Anne’s lace. This tall, tall boy, with his long boy-legs, muscular basketball player’s legs, strides through the meadow as warblers alight on stalks of ironweed, then lift again and call out. The dog sniffs the...
I'm so proud of our team for reading so many micros! We're so impressed by the sense of place, the knowledge of character, the use of compression to create resonance in these 52 longlisted micros! Writers please celebrate loudly and proudly, but anonymously as the...
https://fracturedlit.com/welcome-to-our-home/ https://fracturedlit.com/sapphire-eye/ https://fracturedlit.com/ostrom/ https://fracturedlit.com/explaining-divorce-to-my-three-year-old/ https://fracturedlit.com/jones/...
Lost Centuries by Shome Dasgupta Motherhood: A Hexaptych by Candace Hartsuyker Nothing the Wind Might Sting by Edie Patterson A Nice Blue Place by David Byron Queen A Guide to Small Town Ghosts by Regan Puckett Lessons in Negative Space by Sara Hills
When the semi flipped on its side, cows were launched like bowling pins across multiple lanes. Several died inside the truck. Eventually, many uprighted like dice. The driver lay dying, his belly forming pleats on the steering wheel. After slamming into an ice...
There were aliens in What Cheer, Iowa, aliens with platinum skin and tentacles adept at probing populations, aliens opening up minds and internal organs, flaying off skin and sinew with minimal host damage, aliens who knew their work was little more than basic...
Baby, when the toast goes cold, the butter will not spread. The daffodil fat just sits on stiff bread. You can make it work, sure. Smear on strawberry jam, mash an avocado, fry an egg and let the residual heat warm you. You can reheat toast and endure endless...
We are weary in sweat and heat that settles like skin to skin. Deep in the buzz and whir of small things, dragonflies, mosquito blood suck. We left his car a mile back, broke down again. “What are you giving up for me?” he asks. Accusing is a love right, and any...
Francisco looks down the long wintry road. Wisps of mist hang over the dark trees. The sound of the cooling engine fills his ears, click, click, click. He takes his hands out of his pockets and checks his watch. He will give them fifteen minutes, no more, no less. His...
She’s Splenda-sweet salvation, preened by her parents, who do everything in a -ly way: welcome you hesitant-ly, talk about you loud-ly, watch you knowing-ly before you know why. Your church girl is daisy socks, French braids, smiley-face pancakes. She’s citrus shampoo...
In the beginning, the women were gooseberries. Plump on the vine, squashed under toe, murderous towards pine. When the rains fell, they became millipedes, scrabbling in pain for warm dirt. When the air dried, they jumped into the pond, careening as frogs, then...