Bad Actors

There are some of you, and you know who you are, who will never set foot inside a robot whorehouse. There are some of you, and I won’t name names, who have decided that places like At Your Leisure, no, they’re just not for you.

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fiction, 2017SLMJessica Bonder
Like a Diamond

You told me I was crazy —yes, you did; don’t you remember when we were traveling through North Thailand on the sleeper; I could hear you rolling over on the bottom bunk — “Listen,” you said, “I think you might need help” — and I couldn’t even respond; I was so mad

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fiction, 2017SLMAnna Cabe
Cup and Balls

It was fall and my brother Aaron was in an Elvis phase. Every Saturday he would wake our sister Jeanie up and she would kneel in front of him on the bed and slick his hair back with Vaseline and paint sideburns down to his chin with magic marker.

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fiction, 2016SLMSchuyler Dickson
Home

He’s tall, the tallest guy I’ve ever been with, structured face, stubble on his chin, runner’s build, practices yoga.

He balances a blanket under his arm, a bottle of white wine and two glasses, and nods at the large plate he set for us, filled with cheeses and meats and crackers and olives and all of these things I see in restaurants but never actually order…

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fiction, 2016SLMAlisha Ebling
Cyber Monday

10-Piece 2.25"-10.25" Glass Nesting Bowl Set / “Nesting set of 10 includes a size for every task.”

There’s something infinitely pleasing about nesting bowls, how they fit into each other like round, glass Matryoshka dolls.

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fiction, 2016SLMAnne Rasmussen
Bodily Possessions

Tonight, neither of us are in our own bodies. In fact, no one here will ever be. But everyone still likes to talk about how unnerving it is to be outside themselves, to adjust to their new bodily possessions over tentative sips of cheap red wine.

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fiction, 2016SLMBrianna McNish
Seeds

Sow seeds outdoors, as soon as soil can be worked in spring, at depth of ½ inch.

When Maisie was born, Daniel wasn’t there. There were no stories about her birth that included him.

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fiction, 2016SLMRobyn Ryle
Millions of Tiny Things

When Hammond was very young, he had a hard time sleeping. It felt as though there were millions of tiny things crawling around beneath his skin, and the small, small spaces that separated each of these tiny things was known to him, and so it wasn’t just that there were millions of them, but that he never felt whole, and that he felt always on the brink of dissolving.

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fiction, 2016SLMBrandon Taylor
Wall

There was a brown spot on the wall. It looked a little raised, but that could’ve been an illusion created by the combination of the color and the wall’s texturing.

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Tending the Kettle

Ellen started baking in the afternoon and did not stop until around midnight, (after the soufflé had fallen, after the tea kettle cried, after she remembered, suddenly, what she had been trying all day to forget), she was tireless

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fiction, 2016SLMSonja Vitow
The Twelve Twenty

Vic noticed a long-haul configuration dead-stopped a few tracks removed, both doors on both sides of its baggage car open such that he could see clean through, policemen on the near side lowering guns they had just pointed into the cavity of the railcar.

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Only a Joke

I kissed someone for the first time last night. It wasn’t the first time I kissed anyone but it was the first time I kissed this person. He’s about to be famous—or already is, a little.

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