POSSUM KINGDOM — MARISA MOHI

Cory could tell you the name of a song right before the radio played it, like she had some moment of clairvoyance brought on by those words from our sponsors.
            Those nights summer air congealed in humid clouds taking up most of the bench seat in the front of that '78 Caprice Classic. But there was still enough room for us and I'd drop it into neutral and we'd coast down Bryant Avenue, just trying to see how fast that hill could make us go. We’d stick our hands out the windows like wings and Cory would close her eyes as we picked up speed. We’d share a Big Gulp—the syrup sticking to the back of my throat and keeping down the words I regretted never telling her during that summer before she grew up way too fast and me not quite fast enough.
            I’d watch her brown hair blow across her face. Cory would say “Possum Kingdom” and like magic the Toadies would play through the three speakers that weren’t busted.

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Marisa Mohi lives and writes in Oklahoma. When she isn't working on fiction, she writes for a blog that riles up local politicians and media personalities. You can find more out about the author at marisamohi.com.

SAD IF I LOST IT — RON BURCH

Your email says, "How're you doing?"  That's it.  It doesn't say where you are or how you are or why you are.  Or why you are sending me one.  You are sending me one that prompts an answer.  That puts upon me to answer.  To tell you, at my expense, how I am, whether it's true or not, whether you will even look at it or not.  So I delete it.  You are gone.  Bye bye.
            It's been three Christmases since I last heard from you.  I had given you up for dead.  Or at least living in Florida.  But you sent that email a few days after the holiday.  I'm surprised.  I'm surprised that you know what my email is and that, somehow, you have found my email address since I have changed it several times now.   Another one arrives that night:  "Thinking of you" on the subject line.  I consider it, tempted, but delete it.
            A day later you send me yet another one:  "Call me."  I know if I open it, a phone number will be there.  I close it and go into the yellow kitchen to do the dishes in the sink. I can smell the honey in the nearby cabinet while I place a dish on the white plastic rack but I think about the email.
            I look up the area code, which is in Chicago.  I ask myself why you would be in Chicago, but I don't have an answer and I don't know why I even care.  I can't place you there but there you are, at least for now.  I finally delete this one as well and sit with my little parrot on my lap, stroking his head until he falls asleep.
            An hour later another email arrives.  I hear it ding as it arrives on my laptop.  I am watching a British quiz show and try to keep focused on the trivia that they talk about in their pronounced accents.  I try not to think about this email either, but I know it's there and eventually I go to my laptop and find it there, waiting to be clicked.  I want to delete it, to make it go away, but there is this thing inside me that I cannot control, that I cannot quench in order to make it go away.
            I open the email:  "Give me your number," it also says "and I will call you." And at the bottom:  "I've been waiting."   And I know, in that fucking part of me that I could never control, that beats every second, that I have been waiting too.

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Ron Burch's short stories have been published in Mississippi Review, Pear Noir!, Eleven Eleven, Pank and others.  His first novel, Bliss Inc., was published by BlazeVOX Books.   He lives in Los Angeles, where he is Co-Executive Producer on a TV show for DreamWorks Animation.  He is also a produced and published playwright.  Please visit:  www.ronburch.com.

70 SENTENCES THAT DUOLINGO.COM BELIEVES I WILL NEED TO KNOW IN SPANISH — CAITLIN HORROCKS

I am going to tell you everything: I have a house in every country. I have a dog in each one of my houses. The houses do not have roofs. What are they, exactly? It is a region without water. Naturally, it’s worse here. You see the blue areas? It’s different in the islands. I am from the west. My city is some kilometers from the coast. We don’t have food, but at least we have water. I cannot live without water.
            Do you know me? You are new in the neighborhood. Do I want to live here? I don’t know what to think. I hate my neighbors. My sister loves me. My parents do not love her. She always knew. My sister thinks that it’s her. She took a knife. Then, my sister insisted: It was the knife that did it, not me. My sister is famous. She is in the prison. It’s a bad road. I think of her. She does not remember who I am. She cannot feel this.
            Yesterday, I touched a bird. I am almost another person. You do not touch animals. You touch me a lot. You always pay. It is giving and receiving. You never loved me. I want you, but not much. I love you, but not a lot. We didn’t play well yesterday. We were not friends. Are we a couple? Are you a victim? What is a revolution? Can we resolve this or not?
            The cats drink anything, from milk to beer. They left this by the door. It's not simply a belt. It is not necessarily a person. It is mainly fish. I consider it an animal. Probably it’s a monkey. It’s impossible to know. You denied everything. The judge looks for clues.  I have an enemy. I have a witness. These weapons are legal.
            Are you going to be at your house tomorrow? Are you alone? I have to speak to you.  Currently, it’s like this: You and I go together. I stand in the street. I die alone. I cannot die. I am going to discover a country. We see ourselves. Anything can happen. 

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Caitlin Horrocks is author of the story collection This Is Not Your City. Her work appears in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The Paris Review, Tin House, and elsewhere. She is fiction editor of The Kenyon Review and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

SHOPPING LIST — SHAUN TURNER

In the grocery store, the aisles are full of undergraduate students moving to town, some away from home for the first time. I see excitement in their hands, their flushed faces. They buy boxes and boxes of macaroni.
            In the soda aisle, two young men argue over three golden bags of Lays Original. One holds a jug of sweet and sour base, the other, six tubes of instant pina colada. In the cart, they stack red Solo cups with blue boxes of macaroni. They heft cases of Bud Light Lime and Pabst Blue Ribbon.
            "It tastes like piss," one says, "but we can use it for beer pong."
            A set of parents enjoys the excitement, for the most part. The stand together at the end of the aisle. Each has one hand gripped to the gray plastic cart. The mother looks at the other busy parents, neck craned, but the father looks down the aisle.
            He is waiting for their son to bound up to them with his arms full, waiting for their son to fill the empty cart.

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Shaun Turner writes in West Virginia, where he is a 2nd year MFA student at West Virginia University, and fiction editor for Cheat River Review. His work been published or is forthcoming at Southwest Review, Night Train, Hobart, and Word Riot, among others.
 

HACKER — RYAN J. OUIMET

I open the edges of your cloud like bees pry petals, because there is something inside that I need.  The bee needs pollen to feel like a bee.  I need you.  I need pictures, late night conversation, desperate hello and goodbye. I need your faces and bodies, your millions of images, your billions of thoughts, to feel human.  The first time I did it I promised myself I would only observe.  I would never take, and never give you away.  
            They gave me my first computer when I stopped talking. Age 10.  My parents thought it would open me up to the world.  They were right, but I didn’t talk to them as they’d hoped.  I could only talk to the faceless.  I could only say what I meant to a void.  The warmth there is limitless.
            I started to hack.  I hacked my way into your many hearts.  It’s a violent word for something so abstract, so perfectly nothing. I could see into strangers lives and what I saw was beautiful.  Everyone as strange as me.  Everyone as stupid.  Everyone as hopeless and needy.  But trying.  Struggling exquisitely.
            There are lovers tangled.  There are lovers alone.  There are old ladies learning to type for the sake of their families, who don’t have time for them outside of email.  There are children hunting for the disturbing face of the world.  There are so many secrets, out in plain view.  So many people dying to be loved.  Willing to hurt themselves for it.
            I have never met a person.  I have only seen their private thoughts, their private photographs.  I am sure they would hate me if they knew, but I don’t mean harm.  Only to solder myself into the scramble of lives out there. 
            I would love to show you all one another.  If you could see what I have, you’d not feel so lonely.  If you could see into thousands of files, like the contents of souls, you’d feel at home finally.  You could all know each other finally.  I could give that gift to everyone but I won’t. 
            I told myself when I started to pry, slipping past the membrane of these heavy, strange clouds, that I would leave these worlds undisturbed.  I promised myself I’d come in and out of many lives without anyone ever knowing me. Only a bee, opening its flower and then floating away.

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Ryan J Ouimet is currently living and writing in upstate New York.  His work has appeared in Mulberryfork Review, Bartleby-Snopes, and Fifty Word Stories.

ORION'S TOOTH — PETER CLARKE

Stargazing is a real thing I try to explain to my fellow creatures every chance I get. At the moment I have something stuck in my tooth, which doesn’t sound like a very big problem until I explain that it’s a dentist’s probing instrument and along with it he has both of his entire hands shoved into my mouth. I can’t speak and pretty soon my whole jaw is going to come ripping off my head when all I want to do is patch up a simple cavity.
            In other circumstances, as I was saying, I would right this very moment be telling all about the marvels of stargazing. The last time I talked to a spry old Jack Russell Terrier about it, I started getting through to her right away. She hugged my knee and barked as I pattered her head. The way her playful nub of a tail wagged, I knew she understood completely.     
            Dear lord, my jaw! Not to mention my aching tooth! And my dying face! I wanted to scream… The pain was almost intolerable. Why wasn’t it numb yet? Numb thoughts, numb thoughts. Please dear god make it get numb already!
            This is exactly why I never go to the eye doctor, why I never get my hair cut, and why I only eat food that never requires the use of silverware. All of these things are impure and simply serve as distractions from stargazing. It was only when my tooth started to clearly rot itself out of my head that I knew I needed some professional help.
            This dentist may be the only one of my fellow creatures I ever refrain from telling about the wonders of stargazing. He may never get to know those incalculable joys. As I was saying, if I ever get out of here alive, I know exactly what I’m going to do. First thing, I’m going to head straight for the dog pound, then to the candy store, and then back into the hills for good.

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Peter Clarke is a writer and musician with a BA in psychology and a JD in intellectual property law. His short fiction has appeared in 3AM Magazine, Pif Magazine, Curbside Splendor, Hobart, Heavy Feather Review, and elsewhere. Native to Port Angeles, Washington, he currently lives in San Francisco. See: www.petermclarke.com.

HIDING PLACE — WILL SIMMONS

Standing on the top rung of the footstool, up on his tiptoes, he could just reach it.  His mother’s secret stash was kept in an old cookie tin on the top shelf of the kitchen pantry.  She didn’t think anybody knew about it, but he’d seen her once, through the backdoor, arms stretched out of reach.
            The top shelf was a graveyard for failed gifts.  Nobody went up there.  It was where they kept the pasta maker his father had given her for Christmas, back when they were married.  They’d probably only used it a couple of times.  The counters covered in flour, a clothesline strung up across the room to hold drying fettuccine.  He’d thought it was fun, but his mother said it was a pain in the ass.  Also up there was a fondue set and a fancy coffee maker, each with a similar history.
            She’d squirrel things away in other more obvious places too.  He’d been through desk drawers, jewelry boxes, a set of those Russian dolls that sit inside each other.  He’d climbed up on top of the refrigerator and found a box of black licorice secreted behind the flour and rice canisters.
            Sometimes he would turn up a bag of sweets and slip a few out if there were enough to not draw suspicion.  If he found a lottery ticket or a gift receipt or a dry cleaning tag, he’d just look at it and try to imagine where it had come from and why she held on to it.  The paperwork on the desk was largely unintelligible, but in a pinch, he’d excavate looking for clues on the blotter underneath.
            Coat pockets and a black day planner she called her brain held the biggest mysteries.  Scraps of paper with phone numbers, dates and times, and abbreviated names.  One time he’d gotten bold and telephoned a number from a matchbook found in the bathroom trashcan.  When a man’s voice answered, he’d panicked and hung up.
            Her shift ended right around the time Solid Gold came on.  He’d make sure to be soundly planted in the beanbag, in front of the TV, with his RC Cola and Little Debbie oatmeal cream pie.  Hi honey, she’d say, coming in the door with a bag of groceries, what did you do today?  Not much, he’d answer, not much. 

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Will is a musician, writer, photographer, and general curious soul.  He grew up in cheap "soda" country, but does his thing in Pittsburgh, which is firmly "pop"—an adjustment that still feels weird.

DATE NIGHT — BRIAN LEE KLUETER

I get in my car and drive the ten minutes it takes to get to the nearest fast food restaurant. Five bucks worth of chicken and fries can never fill me up, but that’s all I have to spend.
            I can tell by the sound of her voice that the girl working the drive-thru has been there all day. When my car pulls up to the window, she can see all the various paper and plastic bags lining my back seat, and when she hands me back my change she silently judges me with a solemn “Have a nice day.”
            The greasy smell fills me up like an appetizer. I get home quickly and don’t even bother getting out a plate or silverware, the idea of wasting time on that unnecessary task bringing a thoughtful exhale out of my mouth.
            I almost forgot what I’ve ordered until I notice the white bag says Wendy’s.
            Good. I love Wendy’s.
            I throw the bag on the ground after emptying its contents, and it falls on its side, the red face of the Wendy’s logo staring at me.
            It’s okay. She can watch.
            It tastes so fucking good. I know how bad this is for me, but my superego is taking a break for the moment. This is almost on par with sex, and I’ve had sex. It was a long time ago, but it happened, for sure. If given the choice between the two, I’d probably at least think about if for a while.
            I turn on the TV to add to the romantic scene and it’s a Wendy’s commercial—irony incarnate.
            Spicy chicken nuggets that look better than the one’s I’m eating. I look down and the bag is still looking at me, and I stuff a handful of fries in my mouth in spite of her.
            The food is colder, but still tastes great. The commercial ends, but another one, another Wendy’s one, replaces it. It’s a bunch of kids laughing because they’re eating salads.
            Fucking assholes. I know they’re laughing at me, laughing at my fat rolls, laughing at my double chin hidden underneath my beard, laughing at the danger of the clogging heart that will end me before I reach my sixties, the pain of a heart attack so close that I’m sure I’ll die slow enough for each second to replay every meal that’s led to this point.
            I begin sobbing, then crying, then shouting at the TV, my mouth still filled with food, the Wendy’s bag still staring at me, judging me like the drive-thru worker, and I shake so violently that I can’t tell if I’m still eating, or if I hate that bag more than I hate myself.

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Brian Lee Klueter will graduate from Bowling Green State University in May with a BFA in creative writing. He is also the creative nonfiction editor at Prairie Margins, BGSU's undergraduate literary magazine. He has previously been published in The Blue Route and Enormous Rooms, and is obsessed with chicken fingers.