MEAT by Nathan Cover
What they couldn’t see: his heart pumping arterial and venial dilated with rage at being short but filled with fearless venom.
BOSS OF THAT BEAST by Jennifer Wortman
We were always competing for not-worst drunk. But we were also secretly competing for worst drunk. So both of us always won. And lost.
THE C WORD by Chloe Alberta
If I could only stay kind and beautiful, I, too, could survive on the happiness contained in a single shot of frat boy whiskey. But I always had trouble with kindness.
A v ~A by James Tadd Adcox
“They don’t feel anything, do they?” she says. He smiles at her. His smile says, who cares if they do.
I’M JOHNNY KNOXVILLE by Rachel Attias
He knows without a shadow of a doubt that he cannot die. It makes him reckless in a way everyone loves, except for Steve-O.
IN LOVING STRANGLEHOLD by Brecht De Poortere
Mosi is Sprite, Banji is Coca Cola. Whoever loses, does the rounds to check for hippos that might have strayed too far.
SUDDEN SILENCE FOLLOWED BY MILD APPLAUSE by Matt Kirkpatrick
The music lifted like a cosmic prayer. Then the collective scream: the squawk, the beef and bleat of the slaughter, a rumbling dusk arcing across the auditorium.
I AM MEAT JELLO WITH FEELINGS INSIDE by Pat Jameson
I’m about to reverse out when I think–drunk kid. In my car. And I’m drunk. Maybe a bad idea.
SUMMERTIME PURSUIT by Severin Wiggenhorn
But there are two kinds of shame: the kind that you cannot speak the words to, even in your head, and the kind you can’t stop talking about. I told the story for years.
MOVING HOUSE by Daniel David Froid
The crack widened at last and cleaved the porch in two. The tree had effected a crack that, the men saw, was surprisingly neat. The work of the devil, said Fred.