ANYTHING WOULD BE FINE — MARK McKEE

/

Late afternoon. Cloudy. Row after of row, cars slink toward the horizon. You study the license plates as you pass. Most are from here. The occasional from a neighboring county. From between the cars you see her. She's coming back from break. She smiles, waves. You look down at your shoes, scuffed. At the pavement, stubbled. You're sweating because it's hot. Sweating because it's hot. Because it's hot. Because you want to say something. Anything. But nothing comes to mind. In seconds you'll meet. Pass side by side. She'll smile, wave again. Have something to say. You should. You've practiced at home. In the car. Conversations. Held with her for hours. In your head. Now, in person. Where it would mean something. And she's smiling. You could speak. You could say, "Next time, how bout we go together? My treat." You could say anything, really. Anything would be fine. Anything for a start. Get the ball rolling. And even if she declined, she would know you were interested. At least she would know. You would know. You could move forward. Instead of being stuck. Always stuck.  And she's right there. She would know. You would know. You're almost abreast. And she's slowing. She wants you to say something. Wants you to say something. So open your mouth. Make conversation. All the words you've practiced. Anything, really. Before she. Before. There's only so much before. Before no words come. Only so much. "I guess I'll see you inside," she says. And you see the red highlights that were not there yesterday. Not there before. Before, you said nothing. But still you could. Could start the ball rolling. As she walks away. As you hear the scuff of her sneakers. As the words slink away like light toward the horizon. 

Mark McKee is from the American south. In his spare time he collects nervous breakdowns. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in decomP, A cappella Zoo, and others. Find him at markmckeejr.tumblr.com.

MULTIPLYING, ALWAYS MULTIPLYING — ANNABELLE CARVELL

/

The light flickered dull above them, humming with grunts and flies in the heat.
            There was nothing but a curtain surrounding the chair that she’d been made to sit on. Two men held her still.
            Her legs were set wide apart, held up by leather stirrups attached to wooden poles that were set into the mud at obtuse angles. Nothing covered her body from the waist down.
            She could taste blood and oil in her mouth, grit on her tongue, and could smell vomit clumping in her hair. Her teeth were firmly clamped around a dirty rag from one of the men’s pockets.
            He wasn’t even wearing gloves on his hands. He slurped the dregs from his beer, and slammed the empty can down onto the splintered edge of one of the poles, wiping his mouth with the back of his free hand. Her legs shook with the vibration.
            Her mind darted between the horror of what was about to happen and the infection that was sure to spread afterwards. She imagined herself as the unwilling host, organisms burying themselves deep beneath her skin and multiplying, always multiplying, oozing yellow and rancid.
            No man would touch her now.
            He held a large wad of yellowing cotton between his cheek and his shoulder, and a rusting pair of surgical scissors in his hands. Sharp enough to glint in low light; blunt enough to snag on smooth flesh. She was sweating, crying, and begging.
            Apologising for loving a white man.
            Apologising for saying she loved him.
            Begging him not to continue as his fingers closed in.

Annabelle works in publishing by day, and the explosive world of Synaesthesia Magazine by night. She is currently working on a short story collection inspired by the twisted world of taboo relationships, predominantly influenced by Ian McEwan and anything else that’s drenched with the disturbed.

THE BUCKET — THOMAS MUNDT

/

The Commission needed a Volunteer, so Carlisle gave them me.  My willowy bones were perfect for The Bucket, he said.  Plus, I already had the helmet. 
            I didn’t have the heart to tell Carlisle it was just a novelty, a door prize won at the Grand Opening of a beauty supply store.  There was a button you could push to play “Camptown Races” but it was neither the time nor the place.
            I was ordered by Carlisle to think about all of the good I would be doing with this Retrieval.  I was thanked in advance for my commitment to The Commission in these crucial first few days after The Dissolution. 
            Rinse cupped his hands under my armpits and lifted so Ernest “Malbec” Redwine could tuck my feet into a pair of fluorescent blue galoshes.  Next came the lead apron, festooned with a daisy chain.  The latter was handcrafted by the daughter of a Commission chairman during a recent sojourn in The Country, where she reconnected with The Soil for class credit.   It was believed that something, anything, borne of the few remaining acres of undeveloped land before The Dissolution had curative properties.  I wanted particulars as to what ailed me.
            It was hard to say, said Malbec.  Too young for gout.  SupraOccipital Sunlight Avoidance Disorder (“SO SAD”)?
            The Bucket was retrieved from the back of a hearse-cum-Crisis Management Vehicle.  It reeked of pine, which was comforting.  It meant the scraps of the last Volunteer had been powerwashed into The Sluice and its inner walls were wiped clean with bare, disinfectant-soaked hands, per industry standard.  All the top Volunteer sites agreed that if you had to tangle with The Depths, you needed a clean Bucket.  The Den Mothers didn’t land on Destiny Beach so you could settle for bush league equipment.
            A three-step flight of stairs was provided, and to spare me the embarrassment of asking Rinse and Malbec for a solid.  I barely had a leg over the side The Bucket when the mobile crane lowered the graphite hook, almost braining me.  Carlisle gave the Operator a dressing down that bordered on sacrilegious but pulled back.  For the good of The Objective, Carlisle said. 
            Handshakes were exchanged with Rinse and Malbec, who insisted they’d see me at tonight’s Retrieval Feast.  A request was made that I not wear The New Shirt, The One With All The Beadwork.  I made no promises as the mobile crane swung The Bucket ninety-degrees counterclockwise, over The Depths. 
            I removed the foam pad on the floor of The Bucket so I could make use of the Viewing Glass.  As the winch screeched and The Depths swallowed me whole, I waited.  The sites said you could see Specks as early as five minutes in, or never.

Thomas Mundt is the author of the short story collection You Have Until Noon To Unlock The Secrets Of The Universe (Lady Lazarus Press, 2011).  Additional risk management advice and teambuilding exercises can be found at www.jonathantaylorthomasnathanmundtdds.com.

PAPER PLATES — RACHEL TANNER

/

We were standing on your side porch. It was freezing outside and your cigarette had finally gone out, your housemate finally inside. All I wanted was for you to pull me into you. All I wanted was for you to put your hand on the small of my back and crush our faces together almost unnaturally in the cold—nothing romantic about it. I don’t know why I wanted it; I just did.
            “Do you want to go inside and draw funny faces on paper plates?”
            No. Not what I wanted you to ask. Not even close. But you said it and your icicle words fucked with my head and I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around what you could have possibly meant.
            “What?”
            “Paper plates. We’re going to go draw on them.”
            You started to move towards the door to go inside. Paper plates. We were going to draw on paper plates. Is that what we were actually going to do?
            I had a dream later that night, before I woke up beside you and silently left you sleeping, that we were living in an old house together and the doorbell rang. We raced each other to the doorbell, shakingwith anticipation about who would be on the other side of the door. We were obviously a new couple (or felt like one, at least), and little things like that made us happy. I opened the front door to find that someone had left us a free, wrapped Christmas tree on the porch. It was for us. For our first holiday spent together. You told me that I should unwrap it and I asked why you didn’t want to. “Because that would take the fun out of it.”
            “The fun out of what?” I asked, honestly puzzled.
            “This whole thing. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know it’ll make you happy and that’s going to make me happy. So that’s what I want to see.” You kissed me and pointed at the tree, waiting for me to unwrap it just as I woke up and crept out the door, but not before stepping on the paper plates with stupid faces on them that I’d tossed to the side of the bed. 

Rachel is a future English and writing professor. You could probably find some scrunchies in her apartment. You should follow her on Twitter at @rickit.

OVER THE PHONE — DUSTIN PETZOLD

/

I rubbed the candy bar all over the receiver, even though everything I knew about the world led me to believe that no, you can’t smell things over the phone. Flecks of chocolate were getting ground into the little slits where your voice is supposed to go.
            “Are you getting anything?” I asked. 
            “No. Here, I’m going to spray some Jordan cologne.” It was so cool that Bryan had his own cologne already. Mom said I couldn’t get any until I was twelve. “One, two, three…”
            I heard spritzed liquid hitting plastic. I drew a deep nose-breath into the earpiece, but all I smelled was the same combination of dog hair and hardwood flooring that my house always smelled like. Of course you can’t smell over the phone, I scolded myself. What kind of Fourth Grade Science Fair Winner even tries that? You can hear over the phone because the receiver captures sound waves and carries them over an invisible wire to another phone… or something.
            “Nothing?” Bryan asked.           
            “Nope.”
            “My dad has some instant coffee. Can I try that?” 
            “Uh, sure, whatever.” I put the phone on speaker and walked away.

***

Ten years later, I called the same number, this time without any experiment materials by my side. 
            “Hello?” A woman’s voice answered.
            “Hi, Mrs. Handler, it’s David. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner. I really just didn’t know what to say. But I’ve thought about Bryan every day these past six months. I guess I just want to you to know that I enjoyed growing up with him, okay? It sounds weird, but whenever we did things together, I sort of felt like anything was possible.”
            “Thank you, David. Thank you.”
            “I’m kind of late, but please let me know if you need anything. I hope you’re doing okay.”
            Mrs. Handler said that my timing was just fine; after the first few weeks, all the sympathy cards, visits, and homemade baked goods go away. People move on and forget. But Mrs. Handler remembered everything. When she talked about the night it happened, I could smell the smoke that came from that single gunshot. When she told me about the family-only funeral, I could smell the rain-drenched headstone and the muddy grass. When she brought up the university investigators who came looking for signs they could’ve missed and ways they could keep this from happening to someone else, I could smell the stale cigarettes on their breath. I could smell the tears being soaked into tissues, and maybe trickling down the phone to where the cologne had been. I don’t know how; I just could.

Dustin Petzold graduated from George Washington University in 2013, and currently lives in Washington DC. When he is not writing fiction, he is writing other things, some of which have been published by Salon and Philanthropy. Dustin is a co-founder of Crooked Scoreboard, a blog focused on humor and culture in sports, and writes at FlipCollective.

MADE IN QUEENS, NY — CHRIS WODICKA

/

Nolan decided that, no, he didn't know English after all. On the playground of another school, they'd demanded the proof of speech, and his stubborn, useless mouth refused to budge. In his closet, he found the white face paint, the leftovers from his Halloween costume. He applied it in gobs, rubbing and rubbing, blotting out that face of his. He found his parents in the den. It was tax season.
            He started off slowly. He constructed a box, indicating those four familiar walls. He'd seen a mime on TV, in a movie, in a dream. It seemed simple enough. His parents looked up with concern, then amusement. A performance! A show! Their creative little boy. Their little genius.
            And where was he from, people asked. Columbus. Before that, Billings. No, originally, they'd say. China? Japan? One person guessed Hawaii. Queens. Just Queens.
            A domestic adoption.
            Nolan was no pro. They didn't teach these skills in fourth grade. He memorized multiplication tables, wrote a story about his weekend, and even listed the presidents and their terms, but why and for what? He took a punch to the shoulder. Another to the arm. Pushes and shoves. A more pressing matter: how to breathe inside the box. How long did he have? He calculated the minutes and seconds, the life expectancy of himself. Math was a strong suit. Inhale, exhale.
            Now he realized claustrophobia took many forms, could manifest suddenly, just like speech became more than grammar and syntax and “I’m fine. How are you?” He waved his arms. He pounded his fists, pounded the sides of the box. He wanted to burst out, rupture the air. He was suffocating. If only he'd known. They hadn't taught that in school either.
            His arms couldn’t take anymore. Then his muscles and lungs. Yes, he wanted to scream, but oxygen had become precious, and then he couldn’t help himself. He gasped and gasped, growing woozy. He hoped they’d liked it. Would there be applause? His father clutched Nolan's body and shook him, saying, what's wrong, what's wrong? His mother stood teary-eyed and wondering about parenting and missed opportunities. Questioning their choice of social worker and adoption agency. All the moving, across the country, then across the state. Too much to put into words. Easier for the three of them to sit spent on the floor, with Nolan cradled in the middle. His parents’ clothes, the carpet, it was all covered in splotches.

Chris Wodicka lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin. His fiction has appeared previously in Juked.

NOMINATIONS — QUEEN'S FERRY PRESS BEST SMALL FICTIONS 2015

/

We are pleased to announce our nominations for Queen's Ferry Press Best Small Fictions 2015:

"Jellyfish" by Zara Lisbon
"Two Thousand Miles Running" by Anthony Martin
"Paint Job" by Tatiana Ryckman
"Heat Wave" by Aki Schilz
"Nettle Creek Cemetery" by Eric Shonkwiler

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: we are nothing without our wonderful contributors, and while it was difficult to pare down all our stories to just a handful, we feel these exemplify what we're looking for in short—popping!—micro-fiction.

We wish all of our nominees good luck, and if you haven't already, check out their pieces (and thank us later)!

A DIFFERENT THING — MEL BOSWORTH

/

We’re sitting opposite each other on worn but comfortable chairs and the shelves around us are crammed with spines I don’t know. He asks questions, nervously smoothing the front of his shirt, and I don’t know but say yes oh yes of course I know. This goes on for a few minutes and I am polite. I am not literary though I understand the plight of this store and others like it. It is my business to understand its difficulty. And so I smile because they tell us it’s good to smile. Through the storefront there is a particular gloaming, a late-summer pinking that could make a lesser sky fearful of winter. I am respectful, sipping and nodding to familiar sounds. My right shoe dangles over my left knee and for a moment I lose myself in my laces, admiring the leather, the knot. Feeling a sharp expectation, I grip my heel. He has asked a different thing and I am caught. I smile and he suddenly sees me behind this veil and it makes him smile, too. Before removing the note from my jacket I hesitate to allow us this time to be everything better.

Mel Bosworth is the author of the novel Freight. Visit melbosworth.com.