Portrait - page 4 - all works

Short Fiction

Portrait Humor Sorrow 3 min Mature Audience

The Secret Rules for Children of Priests

Rule Number 1: When asked about your parentage, give suitably vague answers.

It was Jimmy Doogan, a boorish kid with freckles spread like flak across his face, who had been the first to ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Nostalgia 4 min Mature Audience

Saudades

Susan Ayotte

For Amy

Emilio's mother was long-practiced in the art of summoning a saint. For a burn, she'd appeal to the apostle John. It was John who got the call twice a day for a year when Emilio was ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Suspense & Mystery 3 min Mature Audience

She waited for almost two days before calling the police. Even though she knew in the pit of her stomach that something was terribly wrong – her husband had never gone a single day without talking ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Sorrow 5 min Mature Audience

My Father the Somniloquist

Rosaleen Lynch

My father was a somniloquist; he only talked to me in his sleep. Lured at night by his one-sided conversation one room over, I would escape the cot I'd grown out of, gaze at my sleeping mother, and ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Sorrow Magical Realism 2 min Mature Audience

Francis Valencia Ortiz

Martin Hill Ortiz

For all his life, Frank had been at war with the willows. They sprouted in and around the stream, clogged the irrigation ditches, and choked off the water flow.
His land, a narrow plain between ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Sorrow 4 min Mature Audience

Displaced

Sarah Blake

When they first moved in, the forest was big and lush behind the apartment building. It was the entire view through the kitchen window, standing at the sink washing dishes. Birds were often in the ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Nostalgia 2 min Mature Audience

Chekhov, the Old Man, the Seagull and the Crab

Mark Budman

The old man is watching a seagull eviscerating a crab. The decapod crustacean probably was handsome in his youth but not any longer. Does he wish he could scream? Or is it better to be stoic and ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Humor Absurd 2 min

Leaving

Gillian Rolfe

Freddie left the red and white cannon at speed. He whizzed over the open-mouthed crowd in a graceful crescent arc and was quite frankly bored, bored, bored.

The large frayed net loomed up, saggy ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Sorrow 3 min Mature Audience

The Pugilist in Repose on His Porch, Most Sundays

Christopher X. Ryan

The moments of lucidity were rarer and rarer, but when they came, he regaled me with tales of swallowed teeth, basement brawls, and AIDS tests administered at midnight in ramshackle midtown health ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Nostalgia 5 min

Borrowed Memories

Julie Meier

Mamma always had a love for other people's possessions.
One of my earliest memories is walking to the park, my hand firmly tucked into hers. I was an impulsive child, and likely would have darted ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Sorrow 5 min Mature Audience

Swimming Lessons

Rachel Malmin

The liftoff is like an elevator.

You know that feeling you get when you're going up? Like your stomach is getting left behind? It feels like that. Remember when we were kids and we were staying ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Humor Quirky Magical Realism 5 min

Chimera

Nicholas Perilli

A woman who claimed to be a chimera called the library most Tuesdays, on the old line they never got around to disconnecting after the renovations. The call went straight to a yellowed phone hung on ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Sorrow Magical Realism 3 min Mature Audience

Blueberry and Sky

Jessica Normile

There is no cheerful clatter of pans, or old Beatles records spinning in the living room. No warm cinnamon smell fills the air – only burnt coffee. For a moment, I'm half expecting Papa to swoop me ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Quirky 3 min Mature Audience

Fred Is (Not) an Arsonist

Nathan Alling Long

Fred is an arsonist—and, Fred is not an arsonist. Let me explain: Fred has thought of fire, its power and grace, for a long time. Perhaps since he was a child. He often watched fires, mesmerized by ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Slice of Life 5 min

Rest Stop

Koji A. Dae

The old priest considered the cast-iron oil pot sitting in the corner of the immaculate kitchen. It was heavy, and his back hurt.
The trees growing on the canyon walls whispered to him. "Prepare ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Nostalgia 3 min

Trampoline

Ulrica Hume

My new neighbor was a hoarder. She hoarded everything. Crystals, pink bakery boxes—she even took in children. Each one was flawed: too restless, not bright enough, a daisy-shaped head. The sound of ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Suspense & Mystery 4 min Mature Audience

Streets of Gold

Stephen Hundley

When I get home from Sunday Service, I strip my pressed white shirt in the living room. I step out of my slacks. Peel off the tight black socks. I fumble naked for my dive skin, the black and blue ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Sci-Fi & Fantasy 5 min Mature Audience

The Earth is Nothing More Than A Marble

Spencer Nitkey

There is a story and it goes like this. There is a tower of brick and stone, raised up like a mountain. Its peak puts holes in the bottoms of clouds. A princess sits by the window at the top, and ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait 2 min Mature Audience

While We Breathe

Mountain Nose

One March afternoon in 1969 I was on the deck of a Chinese junk listening to the water clop against the wooden hull and enjoying a breeze that blew toward the South China Sea. The junk bobbed ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Nostalgia Sorrow Historical 1 min

Exile

Sonia Warczincela

It was dangling there, hanging from a nail in the wall on a little copper-plated hemp string. It shone softly with a crystalline silver reflection, almost translucent. Sometimes, when through the ... [+]

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

The Secret Rules for Children of Priests

Saudades

Gone

My Father the Somniloquist

Francis Valencia Ortiz

Displaced

Chekhov, the Old Man, the Seagull and the Crab

Leaving

The Pugilist in Repose on His Porch, Most Sundays

Borrowed Memories

Swimming Lessons

Chimera

Blueberry and Sky

Fred Is (Not) an Arsonist

Rest Stop

Trampoline

Streets of Gold

The Earth is Nothing More Than A Marble

While We Breathe

Exile