by Mika Yamamoto
Masako woke up craving udon. Her mouth watered at the thought of the thick, chewy noodles dipped in fish stock, with a sprinkle of thinly sliced green onions and a dash of hot sichimi pepper. She sat up, rubbed sleep out of her eyes. Her husband, Higashi, was sleeping on his right side with his right arm tucked under the pillow. He slept quietly and Continue reading
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by Karen Fayeth
Be cool, man, be cool, said the voice inside Billy’s brain as he looked at Josey Adams looking at a pillow top Posturepedic with double lumbar support.
Boy, I’d support every single one of her lumbar, that same voice said. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
by Shannon L. Bowring
No one’s asking what I think about the tree.
“Tear it out,” says my father.
“If you had it your way,” my mother sighs, “the entire lawn would be a golf course.”
“If you try to tear it down,” my Sister the Activist proclaims, “I’ll live in it. You aren’t so heartless that you’d bulldoze a tree your own daughter was living in, would you?”
“Lawn guy’s coming Saturday. The tree goes.” Continue reading
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by Corey Farrenkopf
I bought a mouse from the pet store. The clerk, Archie, whose name I finally learned from his laminated nametag, didn’t look at me. Two weeks later I bought a canary, orange as a tangerine. Archie remained aloof, his fingers scrolling through his smartphone. I thought he would notice when I purchased a hundred gallon aquarium, thirty some-odd fish, and all the filters/chemicals needed to develop an aquatic ecosystem in my bedroom. But no, Archie just chuckled under his breath at a photoshopped cat eating a taco. They didn’t sell cats. I would have bought one.
Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
by Sue Allison
One day the weather disappeared: it wasn’t fine or foul, hot or cold, wet or dry, mild or severe. It wasn’t anything you could name. It wasn’t light but it wasn’t dark, either. It was murky. The outside was murky, as if an opaque scrim had descended and hidden the blues and greens and lilac shades and all the varying temperatures there wasn’t a scale could measure, there were too many and they were in flux. At first, everyone assumed it was a new weather, but still weather and as such would burn off or blow through in a day or two, the way weather did. If anyone had known it was going to be permanent, something might have been able to have been done about it, or so people said afterwards; but, as other people said after that, it is easy to say things afterwards. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
Hawaii Pacific Review 