La Gorda and the City of Silver

by Sabrina Vourvoulias

I.

I was born on a Wednesday, in the middle of a chapuzón.

The sudden squall of sky water bears little resemblance to a thunderstorm — it’s more like a vertical flood, though very brief.

I considered Chapuzón for my luchador name — I had poured out of my mother with the same fulminating relentlessness and washed her into the hereafter — but fate took a hand, and the name is still available to anyone who wants to design its mask and come up with some signature moves.

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There Are No Wrong Answers

by LaShawn M. Wanak

Please select the answer below that feels most comfortable to you. There are no right or wrong answers. Your results will be tallied at the end.

Question one: If you were to arrive at your apartment to find your front door ajar and your chocolate Labrador missing, would you:

1. Wander about the apartment complex, tapping a can of Alpo with an opener and calling (softly) “Here, Marti! Here Marti!” Grin sheepishly when the Filipina neighbor across the hall peeks from her apartment, then swear when she slams the door.
2. Call the police and argue with the dispatcher. “Of course it’s an emergency, she’s a chocolate lab, dammit. You know how much money I paid for her? Hello? Hello?”
3. Screw it. Go fix yourself a margarita because Marti is bound to get bored at some point and come back. Stupid dog.

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Words Never Lost

by DaVaun Sanders

Imala spat on the schoolhouse’s brittle timbers as she passed, slipping behind the Tyre Orphan School’s woeful outbuildings and through the fence. A lashing awaited anyone caught here, but she had broken her promise to meet Vachaspah one too many times.

The soft crack of fledgling bone pulled her eyes up. An owl had perched atop a nearby saguaro, its dead barrel bleached white. Pitiful screeches and wet, tearing sounds floated from a wicked nest made entirely of long thorns. The owl’s wet beak dipped down again and again, skewering its floundering owlets. Bloodstained tufts of soft down littered the ground.

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Three Cats at the End of the World

By Aimee Ogden

On the heath at the beginning and the end of the world, a witch once built a cottage where she could live with the past, the present, and the future. They are hers, and she is theirs, for as long as life and as deep as death. (Continue Reading…)