Category: Fiction – 13th Edition
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My House the Atoll
The sunrise on the other side of the fingerprint-smudged window broke into my view with its musty, tainted rays. Although I couldn’t see it through the glass, I knew the light was pouring onto the mountain grass like a starburst. I counted the cows we passed— they were one of the only easy things…
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Trick or Treat
It was a cold night and the streets were gloomy, which made her think that there weren’t going to be many kids in costumes begging for Halloween candy. Betty had only one bag of goodies left, as she had finished the rest of the candy while watching a horror movie. She was alone, in charge…
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The Wickie
I came to the lighthouse for solace. Exquisite alone time. I’d welcome the loneliness the same way the beacon welcomed incoming ships. In the weeks leading up to my internment as wickie at Pachad, the port master kept going on about how lucky he’d been to have found me; how their last keeper was…
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Return of the Monster
As I stand in front of the grave for the late Mary Shelley, crowbar in hand, I wonder if I’m just crazy or if the guy I’m doing this for is. See I own an independent bookstore that has really been struggling recently. In order to keep the business afloat I put an ad in…
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My Sister`s Button
“Here`s the room, Mr. Jones. They will be with you in a little bit. If you need anything, just ask,” the secretary said. “Thank you.” She nodded and closed the door behind her after I entered the room. I pulled out the papers and started setting up the material necessary for this presentation. I even…
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Jericho
CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of suicide and graphic death. It began as a whisper. The file was named Jericho. It started showing up on all sorts of social media- the forums first, and then onto the more mainstream sites like Twitter at the beginning of October. It made its way into the news cycle early on.…
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Fresh Fruit
They didn’t believe him at first. Neither one had seen Sam in hours, and when he appeared to them back where he’d gone missing from the trail and told them what he’d discovered–it seemed too strange to be true. It couldn’t have been. It was actually impossible. And yet, there he was, standing in front…
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Connection
Wind whipped around rocky cliffs, fresh and salty from its journey over the sea. Along the craggy coast there were a few scattered stretches of pure white sand, settling in ripples around the islands of thick black rock that thrust up from the ground. They were tall and rough, pointed as if reaching for the…
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Conditions
It had been suppressed from the beginning. There was no platform on which such rage could stand, for it was larger than himself — larger than his tiny theater of the world. He could not even begin to fathom the size of the injustice, and so he left his rage to the winds of war…
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Christmas Dinner
BANG! I’ve been waiting for the phone to ring for the past two hours—it won’t. The last time I bored holes into the clock’s face as it evenly ticks about in my kitchen while it performs its simple life purpose, it was 5:30. BANG! I’ve never had a problem breaking down meat for dinner. The…
Arrow Rock Literary Journal 