Online Issues
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Boxed
image curtesy of the Public Domain Review
by Margaret Ries
Make the pieces small. Easier to explain a hand or a foot. A whole body’s something else.
But what to do about the blood? What if the ground sheet of plastic is not enough? I had imagined the job would be as easy as sawing logs for a fire. But when I start in, the blood begins oozing thick and gloppy onto the basement floor. It’s hard to keep a grip. She’s already gone stiff and she shoots down the plastic like she’s on one of those waterslides I used to make for Danny out in the backyard.
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Motel for Sale
Art by Matt Bollinger
by Katie McDonough
The day before the motel sells I’m on a train headed upstate, trying—and failing—to focus on work. This is an ill-timed trip: It’s mid-week during the busy season at my job, and I have a young son at home. But as dutiful as I am, I am equally sentimental, and I don’t want to miss my chance to see the place one more time.
When I arrive at the train station my mom is waiting in the parking lot. “Is it really going to happen?” she whispers goofily,
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Demons are Real?
Art by Andy Mister
by Steven Karl
It was evening. I was depressed. I was in bed, my secret Sony Walkman tucked under the covers. The lights were off. My parents were in bed. My sister had already been kicked out. Another hushed-up and closed-in night. Outside bats began to rise and fall while cats hunted voles. The moon a static smirk.
I clicked play and the opening notes of Slayer’s “South of Heaven” bombarded my ears—a steady death march. In secrecy, I had spent the entire week trying to learn the song on my BC Rich bass.
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Aim High
photo by Joyce Ellis
by Brian Ellis
No childhood is complete without facing this one question one thousand times at least. It may come from a friendly aunt at Thanksgiving dinner, a well-meaning neighbor from behind the wooden fence or an adult you’ve never seen before and never will see again, but ultimately the person asking you the question is inconsequential. The important part is to have an answer for when the inevitable time comes.
“So…what would you like to be when you grow up?”
Since you are a small child,
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The Guy Who Has 15 Things
image curtesy of The Public Domain Review
by MJ McGinn
1) Don’t look now, but they’re coming. They want your shit. They want it. They want it and nobody cares how you never had a birthday party. They’re hungry and wanting and wanting and hungry and wanting, and most of all, they’re coming.
2) I live on the backs of trains where it’s warm enough. If you can’t count the spokes, it’s moving too fast to get on or off.
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Self-Guided Study
image curtesy of The Public Domain Review
by Meredith Gordon
This quiz is for self-enrichment only. Its content may be triggering.
Any reaction should prompt further self-study. There is one correct
answer for each question, but there are no wrong answers.A classroom, a back row, a dilemma: A 500-page statistics book sits with
its spine uncracked on your desk. Under your desk, thick, glossy issues of
Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Self, are splayed open
in your lap.
