The Birthday Party

October 6, 2026 4 Comments

By Muffy Srinivasan

“The pink is fading,” my wife says. Standing on a dining room chair, she holds one end of the birthday streamer that swings between us. I wait for her to tell me where to stick the tape on the wall.

Over my shoulder I see my almost-nine-year-old daughter in the kitchen, sizing up the ballerina-slipper cake for a swipe of icing. She thinks better of it with a shrug, but then spots the leftover Fruit Roll-Ups we used for the laces and pounces on them, victorious.

“That’s good,” my wife says, and we both stick the paper to our spots at the same time. She puts one foot on the ground and looks up at the streamer. “This’ll be the last year.” Her skirt spreads out like a fan between the leg on the ground and the one on the chair. A fan that hides a secret smile.

[Read more…]

Insurance

October 5, 2026 3 Comments

By Shahrzad Warkentin

Our beautiful Japanese magnolia was a fire hazard, they said, just eleven months after the double inferno decimated one of the wealthiest enclaves in the City of Angels. The Magnolia that stood watchfully over the house that had seen both our children born and my mother pass away. Fifteen years ago, when the realtor handed us the keys to our first home, that tree stood five feet from the porch, waiting patiently to reveal the secret it kept, which unfurled each year in January.

[Read more…]

On the Roof

October 4, 2026 2 Comments

By Wayne Bernstein

“Let’s go up on the roof,” Linda said.

Neither of us could sleep with the heat. The air crackled with static electricity that we could feel on our skin, and the bedroom window flickered with far-off lightning. We’d already made love, nice but uncertain, a bit too aware, so more of that was not really an option.

She led me outside. I wore only pajama bottoms, she an oversize white T-shirt with half-length red sleeves, same nightdress as before, but it was past midnight and opaque dusty dark, so there was no need for better attire. The small stucco house stood only one story, eight feet at the eaves, the roof almost flat. A few steps up the ladder and we could pull ourselves onto the shingles. It was cooler on top than inside, and not as dark, with a blue-white glow from the mercury streetlights on the stretch of highway through town. The big tinny box on the roof thrummed like an idling pickup truck.

[Read more…]

A Long Drive

October 3, 2026 4 Comments

By Tom Newrick

The drive from Hagerstown to Cumberland should not have taken longer than an hour, especially late at night.

It couldn’t have been much later than 11:00 p.m. when he finally left the office, late heading home once again. He promised her it would be different, but this was another promise he could not keep, no matter how much he wanted to. Time and again as his career progressed he brought her assurances that he would be home more, that he would be there for her more. He ached with a litany of longing, wanting to be with her but unable to reforge the long-ago shattered distinction between his work and his life, as much as he desperately wanted to. He often wondered if she doubted whether he wanted to at all.

As he stepped out into the cold and quiet of the night, he realized how tired he was. Had he ever been this tired? Sliding behind the wheel of the car, he gunned it to life and began the drive home.

[Read more…]

Camping

October 2, 2026 3 Comments

By Michael Degnan

“Sorry for being late,” my dad says, meeting me in line at the back of the ballroom. “What did I miss?” He runs his hand through his long, wavy gray hair and smiles an easy smile, one somehow unburdened by guilt. I’m about to ask what the hold-up was, but he’s the type of guy who lies about why he’s going to the drugstore, so I just move on.

“Turns out Tim Gagliardi is as good at motivational speeches as he was at basketball,” I say, and judging from the applause he had received from the packed room—especially the handful of dudes wearing Gagliardi’s old Heat jersey—I wasn’t alone in thinking that. I wasn’t sure what a keynote at the Miami Realtors Convention would be like, but there wasn’t any talk about real estate. Gagliardi focused on resilience and adaptability, putting each in the context of his career: playing for eight teams in fourteen years, having to move with his wife and kid from city to city, experiencing different expectations with each team, from being the leading scorer to a role player and mentor.

[Read more…]

In the Dark I Only See You

October 1, 2026 5 Comments

By Sav Mann

*Encounters between two anglerfish are so rare in the deep ocean that they have evolved an unusual mating strategy called sexual parasitism.*

You remember existing in time, an aberration of light then dark then light then dark, when your body moved too freely in a world too exposed. Almost everyone born with you is dead now. Swallowed up in mouthfuls or drifting alone to their doom. You survived, though. You shuddered free from the soft skin of your egg, and the tiny bodies of plankton fed the tiny body that was you until you grew and grew heavier and descended to a place beneath time.

[Read more…]