by Dick Bentley
On this hill, in this clump of trees at the edge of the golf course, I sit with the wind swaying the daisies. Now distant, Bernardini’s milky eyes are focused on the golf ball as he bends down before putting. He studies the ground. He analyzes the lie, the turf, the wind. Bernardini is the President of the Health Group that has denied me treatment. The treatment is too experimental for my tumor, the bean counters said. So I am to die.
Filed under Fiction
by Marlene Olin
South Miami Senior High, 1986.
As soon as the bell rings, Luca runs through the empty corridor, finds the custodian’s closet, and pees into a pail. Next he slips outside and tiptoes to class. His eyes scan every shadow and every hidden door. The hall monitor glances in his direction. A ceiling camera zeroes in and whirrs.
Filed under Fiction
by Daniel Uncapher
Shelter’s got some really good ideas but I don’t always know what to make of them.
We met on a dating app, which he says he uses strictly for technical inspiration with the single exception of my case specifically, and it was his idea to delete the app together.
I’d been experimenting with the concept of dispossession in general and loved the idea. I went ahead and deleted my news app, too, after reading that 357 whales beached themselves again in New Zealand and no one can say why the sweet saps did it.
Filed under Fiction
by Jen Michalski
“We’ll come back some other weekend,” your mother says. You sit in the parking lot, all four windows of the Subaru open, because your mother, in her quest to get the best gas mileage, doesn’t believe in air conditioning.
“We’re turning around and going home?” You look at her in disbelief. About three miles before the exit for Kings Dominion, you’d discovered, while rooting for Tic Tacs in your mother’s purse, that the discounted tickets she’d bought a month before at the grocery store were missing. Not missing–you could see them very clearly in your mind, at home on the dining room table next to the electric bill where she’d left them. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
by Matt McGowan
Artie talked like he owned the place, loud and fast and with a discernable accent. Take our first encounter, the bathroom in Neff Hall. I can’t remember what he was talking about, but I know the person he was talking to said only five words: “uh huh” and “is that right?” While urinating, Artie talked some more and then finally had to be alone with his Grand Central Station brain when his friend hustled out of the bathroom without washing his hands.
Which is what I was doing when Artie addressed me for the first time. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
Hawaii Pacific Review 