Photo credit: newyearseve.nyc I don’t know why I agreed to this. I could be sitting at home on my couch, watching the ball drop in Times Square. That would have been so much better. I wouldn’t have to try to keep my eyes open all night. Yet, here I am. 2014—two hours away. Just another year. I jab the pad of my thumb into the elevator button, watching the numbers ascend until the thirteenth floor approaches. Thirteenth floor? I don’t know why the number didn’t dawn on me before, but thinking about it now, buildings don’t have a thirteenth floor. I shrug it off, forcing myself to care as little about that as I care about enduring this party tonight. The metal doors part and I step out…
“Home,” from “Ivy’s Island” a Novel by Laurie Skiba
Editor’s note: This is Chapter 3, “Home,” an excerpt from a novel-in-progress. I found my mother sleeping under the bridge, her arm slung over her eyes, the flies buzzing so loud I couldn’t believe she could sleep. The fact that she had tired herself out swimming across the sound the previous night, and had slept on the beach while I had spent the night in the car awake and smacking mosquitoes, spoke volumes about who was an island girl and who was not. No matter how much I wanted it, clearly I was the non-native species. “Mama,” I tried softly before she woke up, and then, “Ellen,” and nudged her. She groaned and turned over, got a mouthful of sand, spat, and sat up. Her hair was sticking up in clumps, her face smudged with…
“The Max Farkas Chronicles” a Screenplay by Brick Andrews
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a screenplay in development, based on the short story collection, Five Days of Farkas, by Jake F. Simons. EXT. GRINDHOUSE PARKING LOT – NIGHT Luie’s car whips into the parking lot and screeches to a halt across three spaces. Max gets out of the car and Luie opens his door, pokes his head out looking like he’s going to vomit. MAX Uh, maybe we should get a cab on the way out of here. LUIE (clearly sick) Nah man. I’m good. Just need a little air. Luie drops his keys on the ground. He gets out of the car and tries to pick them up, accidentally kicking and fumbling them into a nearby drainage ditch. MAX (laughing) Dumbass! LUIE Damnit! Well I guess we are taking a…
“All Things Buried” by Jenny Cokeley
It was the hottest day in July when the first puppy died. Sweat poured over Braylee’s eyebrows and trickled down her chin. Her blonde hair stuck to the back of her neck and her bangs fell into her eyes as she tried to force the shovel into the concrete-hard desert dirt. Despite her best efforts, she could only scrape away the top layer of rock and dead fluff grass. With each blow to the ground, fatigue and frustration gripped her arms and back. “Come on! Come on!” she groaned. She used the force of her scrubby fifteen-year-old frame to finally slip the point of the shovel into the stubborn dirt and pushed with all her might until flesh rubbed away from the palm of her hand when the ground finally broke. Braylee removed the last shovelful…