SOMETHING ELEMENTAL — ALYSSA JORDAN

Not an hour after they gave her the news, Jules took home a stranger from her favorite bar. The mirror above her bed gave her an excellent view, a generous offering; she stared at her reflection while he undressed her, and again when he pressed their bodies together, forcing hipbones to stomach, shoulders to neck.
             When he climbed on top of her, she tried not to think about gloved hands or tight smiles.
             Jules stroked his back with heavy, bloodless fingers. Her hands traced the baby fat on his sides, the dimples in his back. A tattoo bisected the skin on his shoulder blade like the singed remains of a wing. She carefully sunk her nails into the dark, inky swirls.
             What would it be like, she wondered, to be fucked by an angel?
             Maybe it would absolve every flaw in her body. Maybe it would flatten the puckered slopes that formed her cesarean scar. Maybe it would shrink the lump in her breast, tear it down cell by cell, fixing things she hadn’t even known were broken. 
             Brimming with grace must make you heavy, Jules thought, heavy and monumental, like the tectonic plates that shifted underneath their feet, giving rise to mountains and volcanoes and oceanic trenches. She saw herself kneeling at the bottom of the ocean, mind and body bent from the steady pulse of life.
             When Jules ran a hand down the man’s heaving back, she pretended to feel the flutter of wings.

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Alyssa Jordan is a freelance writer in California. Her work has appeared in publications like Every Day Fiction, Reflex Fiction, and 100 Word Story. Her work can also be found in two print anthologies, The Lobsters Run Free: Bath Flash Fiction Volume Two and Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story. Currently, she is an Associate Editor at Tethered by Letters and the 1888 Center. Follow her on Twitter @ajordan901.

WHERE EVERYTHING IS PRISTINE — RUTH LeFAIVE

Before letting our visitors in, my mother bends with a nicotine whisper. “Play nice with Miss Debra’s baby.” I imagine a downy bundle—loaf-sized with curious eyes—benign as a rolled up sock. I’ll shield her from cigarette smoke, build cheese pyramids, and eavesdrop for words like kiss and sex. Except a meaty pudge toddles in—neither baby nor girl—something halfway in-between. She goes right for the pickles, grabs one in her tiny fist, and smears it along the edge of the coffee table. I step back.
             “So cute!” Mom pops ice from the tray. Tonic fizzes. Miss Debra’s mascara has run already. I want to hear why, but the waddler is charging down the hall to my bedroom, a green nub in each doughy hand. By the time I catch up, she squats over my rainbow rug. She’s dropped the pickles, drool lopping from her chin.
             “Pick those up.”
             She lifts one and licks its warty skin.
             Back in the living room, between saying He this and His that, Miss Debra cries like bees have stung her. If Dad were home he’d say, Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about. Mom says, “Here, drink this.”
             The baby stands and wields the pickles with clumsy accuracy, smudging my dresser, my bed, my closet door. “Mom!” I yell, tucking my hands under my arms to avoid the sour trail. “Mom!” I yell again. 
             My Barbie Dream House is in her path. I grab plastic-headed Ken by the legs and stand guard. She looks at the second-floor nursery where everything is pristine: a mini blanket on the mini rocker, an itsy bear in the itsy cradle. “No!” I prod her shoulder with Ken’s head. “Get out.” She reaches for the bear with sticky fingers, so I swat her knuckles with Ken’s face. There’s an unsatisfying silence and I want her to hurt so I whack again, slamming her forearm. She shrieks and plops down sobbing. I grab her around the potbelly and lift until her feet are off the ground. I grip tighter until her little shoes—weak as wings—kick my knees. Her middle is a ham-sized water balloon. Burst, I want to say, squeezing and squeezing until Miss Debra rushes in and swoops her daughter away. I think I hear Mom coming down the hall. I hope it’s her, but she never arrives. My room is tainted. I use a wad of toilet paper to trash the pickles.
             In the kitchen, I find the box of Wheat Thins and stuff five into my mouth. Then I climb onto the couch next to my mother and lean into the mole over her elbow. All her attention is on Miss Debra who is still He this and His that, even as she feeds the baby cheese. Both have stopped crying. I stay limp so every time Mom raises her cigarette, I sway. Flick of an ash, sway. Back and forth.

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Ruth LeFaive lives in Los Angeles where she is writing a collection of linked short stories. Her fiction has appeared in Atticus Review, Split Lip Magazine, and is forthcoming elsewhere. More at RuthLeFaive.com. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM CHEAP POP!

From all of us here at CHEAP POP, happy holidays!

We've had a stellar year, thanks in no small part to y'all, and we are gearing up for an amazing 2018, too. We have pieces starting Tuesday, January 9 and going through April, and submissions will be opening back up late winter/early spring—when submissions do open back up, we'll make announcements on our website here, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. So, stay tuned!

Again, thank you all for a fantastic 2017, and happy holidays, wherever you are!

—Rob, Hannah, Elizabeth, Letisia

SUBMISSIONS ARE CLOSED — NEW STORIES COMING JANUARY 2018

Hi friends!

We hope you're enjoying this lovely autumn weather. Submissions have officially closed—we are excitedly digging in as we speak!—and we have new stories coming January 2018. Very excited to share these with you.

And if you didn't get your story into us on time? Fear not! Submissions will be open again in 2018—stay tuned!

—Rob, Elizabeth, Hannah, Letisia

AWARD NOMINATIONS—2017

We are so pleased to announce our nominations for two awards: Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. We owe everything to all of our wonderful contributors, and every time awards come around, it feels impossible to decide which stories to choose, but we felt these pieces really highlighted our focus and drive here at CHEAP POP.  

Without further ado, here are our nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize:

Best of the Net: 

• Jim Warner—"Adobo Breath and the Country Bear Jamboree"
• Meghan Phillips—"Mayflies"

Pushcart Prize:

• Matthew Fogarty—"Black Holes"
• April Bradley—"Little Wake"
• Jim Warner—"Adobo Breath and the Country Bear Jamboree"
• Meghan Phillips—"Mayflies"
• Annie Frazier—"Slather"
• Jeremy John Parker—"Spectrum"

Best of luck to these talented folks, and a huge thank you to everyone who submits to our site. We couldn't be CHEAP POP without you. You make us pop. <3

SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN — 9/18 - 10/31

Hi friends!

We are delighted that submissions will be opening at 12:01 AM on Monday, September 18 through Tuesday, October 31, 2017. 

Be sure to read over our submission guidelines before you hit SEND: http://bit.ly/1cXg2PY. Remember:

1. 500 words (or less),
2. No poetry,
3. Make it pop.

So excited to be back. So excited to read your work. 

—Rob, Elizabeth, Hannah, Letisia

RHYMES WITH ORANGE — ANNA O'BRIEN

The two of us sit across from each other at a scratched card table with pocks along the edges where wheelchairs have kissed it. The lights in the ceiling hum.           
             Mom, are you hungry? One face turns to me, slack and vacant. This is the most common one now. There are two more, hidden from view. Your old face—original is more fitting, they're all old—clear and present, only occasionally surfaces now. And the third face, hard and mean. That one has always taken up too much space, requires too much. The room's not big enough for that one.
            How often do you break from the ether? Switch faces for me now; I want to read your eyes. I can still coax them out of you. Words, I mean. Here, let's do the crossword.
            You used to invent words for things with no name. Silly stuff. The time water from the tap hit the silver spoon in the sink and leapt right back out on your white apron? Pseudoaquanastics. I still remember. Do you? God, how you laughed, which made me laugh, too.
            Words were like rain to you, falling and collecting in small pools around the house, the kitchen humid with crosswords, bedrooms damp with filled notebooks, notecards dripping in the den.
            Tides changed with me. You changed. Pain, serotonin levels. Pills and therapy. You said I took your words away.
            Still, I grew. I showed you my own words. You wore your third face. How much, you asked. I told you what I'd earned. Your dark eyes narrowed. For that?
            Look here. Back to the present. Twenty across. Rhymes with orange.
            I remember at the start of your waning, you'd fill in boxes with invented answers. Pizza topping, nine letters. Pepperont, in ink. A type of hat, you said. You were convinced. You almost convinced me.

---

Anna O'Brien is a writer and veterinarian currently living in central Maryland. She has had fiction published in Cease, Cows; Scrutiny Journal; Luna Station Quarterly; Panorama Journal; The Reject Pile; and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She is also a contributing editor to the magazine Horse Illustrated and writes a monthly blog on the creative side of the veterinary industry, called VetWrite. She loves hiking, Labrador Retrievers, and lives by the motto: "no coffee, no workee."

BANG THE DREAM — BECCA YENSER

You never do what you say you will anymore. You tell him you will be the woman of his dreams- red flats, spreadsheets, salads. You will be the kind of woman who pats the heads of children, begins a knitting project bigger than a headband, owns nice bras (forever white, breast-shaped even when empty).

You see shadows beyond your Sears curtains in the shapes of sparrows, snowflakes magnified by streetlight, butterflies. You ask your boyfriend what they are and he says Crows. You pull the curtains and the world spills out, yellow. Yes, out on the frozen yard is a murder of crows. Who is going to die, you wonder. You can’t help it. You watch Hitchcock, Dateline, Lynch; you look up the deaths of friends of friends on Google because you want the details. As if the details could explain why. Details only explain how. You think you read that somewhere, like maybe in a Joan Didion novel. Yes, definitely Didion.

You have ideas of what to do with the day, like swim laps in a pool, wipe down the kitchen cabinets, do your nails in Bang the Dream black.  But you end up drunk, on the bank of the Arkansas at night, watching yourself swim the length of the river, from Bitting Street Bridge to 13th, or up in the sky between the slow moving satellites.

A cat comes up to meet you and you feed it a McDonald’s hamburger. The river smells like river. When you were young you lost sleep over trout. The question was, did they prefer woolies or woolie buggers?

You never do what you say you will anymore. You never put on the suit with the flowers that fly neatly over the crotch. You never wipe the cabinets clean.

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Becca Yenser just drove from Portland, Oregon to Kansas with a U-haul and a dog. Her work appears in 1001 Editors, The Nervous Breakdown, Hobart, decomP, >killauthor, Paper Darts, Metazen, Filter Literary Journal, and HOOT. She likes paying attention.