By Cole Kroeber

I can’t keep my eyes off the bag. I use my signals and keep my hands at ten and two, but I’m staring right at that black duffle in the back seat, you better believe. I weave between cars, trying not to turn off my cruise control. How many times have I done this? How many times have I taken a bag of life–changing money from Donovan’s hands and passed it off to some greaseball coke runner? One of those decrepit, low-rise billboards passes by—a southern staple. Real estate or something. A Better Life Awaits, it says.

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By Anaïs Godard

The first time my husband transformed into a goat, I thought it was merely a quirk of his, a strange habit I had overlooked before. But as the moon rose higher, his behavior turned increasingly erratic. He bleated, pawed at the ground, and charged at me with his horns. I tried to evade his absurd advances, but he caught me off guard and left an angry bruise on my arm.

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By Scott T. Hutchison

The hospital’s actual title: The Rosenblatz Institute. But that’s not the phrase patient-kids elbow one another with, my superiors informed me on my first day, along with the advice: ignore “cutesy” nicknames, and remember they all have trauma, medications, and triggers. 

I’d been hired fresh out of college to teach Art Therapy—assigned to the ward for ages ten, eleven, and twelve. I went in starry-eyed and optimistic, wanting to make a difference, guiding kids toward transformative discoveries of the inner cosmos, leaving behind any cluttered need for words. 

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By Lia Mulcahy

It would not take a skilled hunter to follow the trail his wife had left in the foyer. 

Her heels had been neatly stepped out of, her pale scarf draped over the bannister like a sheaf of woven moonlight. There was a chaise lounge that he liked and his wife tolerated by the staircase, and her coat had been thrown over the back of it, dark and rich as panther’s fur. If he pressed it to his nose, it would smell of a perfume that had not been in production for thirty years. 

There was also an emerald tie, lying abandoned on the ground. He only wore red ties, or black for funerals. 

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By Willie Watt

In her cerulean gown and carmine lipstick, Mrs. Bakewell looked good enough to eat, and Mr. Bakewell, who was dying, experienced a rush of halcyon pleasure to see her so well. It was his wife’s sixtieth birthday. They dined at a ritzy French place to mark the occasion: L’évier de Cuisine.

“Ovechkin is wonderful, of course,” she was saying.

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By Emily Neuges

On the plane, Richard and I fail at sitting next to each other. That’s what we get for not shelling out the extra forty-five dollars for assigned seating. I hold up the line as I reach for the overhead bin and tip the carry-on precariously over the edge. People glare and ask if I need help. No, I don’t. I may be short, but I can handle myself. My husband watches from three rows down and flattens his lips, looking around as if to say, “I don’t know her.” It would’ve been nice if he helped.

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