FINN HAD BEEN FOUND on a street corner near Ellie’s office. Thankfully, she didn’t have to pass that spot on her walk to work, and each morning she determinedly avoided looking in that direction. Instead, she’d concentrate on the smells of toasted bagels cutting through the winter air from the bakery, or the thump of … Continue reading Finn’s Corner
ELEANOR JACKSON STUDIED her body in her closet door mirror. She had avoided looking into this mirror for several years and always had it covered up by clothes hanging from a row of hooks above it. But now she removed the clothes and inspected her body in fascination. A waist that had expanded over the … Continue reading Rewind
STANDING IN LINE for our food stamps, I thought of my new love, a tiny Asian stripper with two young kids working it in a KCDC housing project polluted with bloody gangsters while trying hard to make it out – killing rats and the resident sewer roaches, wanting that degree from the community college, somehow … Continue reading Surviving It All
SHANNON IS SEARCHING for the barcode on a box of trash bags when a commotion breaks out near the self-checkout registers. A male voice, strident: “—coupon says buy two get the third free! It’s right here, I’m looking at it!” Dennis’s voice, low and soothing, indistinct. The customer: “It’s only expired by a week!” The fluorescent lights … Continue reading Ant Mill
HOT WINDS RACED through the canyon, turning the acrid air thick. Desiccated flora spun aimlessly. Creatures lay dead and those dying writhed in agony upon the hard land. Bodies heaved like bellows, tongues flapping over rotting flesh. No man or animal sought inspiration in such turmoil. No thought or habit — good or treacherous … Continue reading Forsaken
Here are Hidden Peak Press' 2023 Pushcart Prize nominees. While Seeking to Understand Her Brother's Death by Camille LebelPainkillers by Julius OlofssonWindmill Tequila by J. Alan NelsonI Miss You, I Love You by Skylar CampDaytime Fireworks by Matthew MersonFrancis The Shards by Michael Dean Clark The Pushcart Prize honors the best poetry/fiction in small presses … Continue reading 2023 Pushcart Prize Nominees
CONSTANT EXPOSURE to the elements without the option or luxury of shelter is thought to cause one’s physical and mental well-being to deteriorate. Nineteenth-century Mountain men were known for having grand delusions such as feuds with neighbors who were never there or even visions of grizzlies tearing them to pieces while they slept. Such is … Continue reading Humphrey Catskill: Undone
THE KID'S THERE by the door, leaning against the brick wall under the blinking Budweiser sign. Gets deposited there almost every night by his old man. I’m half-drunk. It’s like I never left. Everything’s different. Everything’s the same? Sounded better when Sheri said it in French. I’m not the same guy is what I’m trying … Continue reading A Good Day
I DON'T KNOW HOW to start this, to write it all down, other than to say none of it was planned or simple. Neither was what happened. Nothing ever is. And yet, all the work, my collection of years collecting the raw material and nights lost to the city in search of the perfect spot, … Continue reading Francis The Shards
FOR THE PAST THREE HOURS, I’ve been full of gas. And I don’t mean that in a crude way. I mean that I feel like I’m full of compressed air from my pelvis to my shoulders. Nothing really helps—not eating, not drinking, not even farting—except for lying on the floor of the antique store. Somehow, … Continue reading Framing Elvis