Stories - America: color it in. - Summer 2020 - page 1 - Short Fiction

Short Fiction

5 min

Eva

I awoke and tried to open my eyes but found that they were taped shut. I couldn’t move my mouth, and my hands felt to be frozen in wet towels. An ache radiated from the wrists up to my shoulders ... [+]

Short Fiction

3 min

The Weaver

Crowe Rowe

The Weaver weaves through their workshop among their prized quilts: one depicting pale-faced kings, another black-skinned warriors, another almond-eyed holy men, and many more quilts with many more ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

A Sense of Failure

Joe McGehee

With a pounding heart Brian rose up in bed, drenched in sweat like a drowning man gasping for air. Surrounded by darkness and immersed in memories, these nightmare images floated through his mind ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

Radiant

MCHayes

It was the kind of crimson-covered sole that coaxed me to go to the Shoeshine Man. Most of my needs were met by black cobblers around the corner from our church on Sixteenth Street but they knew ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

The Maid's Cadillac

M Wilburn

Emelda Beason had a lovely lilt to her laughter, a natural hoarseness. Her words and tone were gracious. Jakesport was a fishing town on Alabama’s Coosa River before developers turned it into a ... [+]

Short Fiction

Inheritance

Susannah Cate

Joan feels remorse for having hated her toes most of her life. She inherited them from her grandmother, who had hated them too. Her grandmother had cried at the swimming pool on Joan's 11th birthday ... [+]

Short Fiction

4 min

The Waiting Room

Grace Freedson

The words in my textbook dance off the page in highlighted neon lines. I hadn’t made the highlights. They came with the book despite Ebay’s reassurance that it was in “good condition; like new.” ... [+]

Short Fiction

3 min

Wildflowers

lovelmo Gordon

It’s a cool Saturday in October and Peter Jenkins, age 11, is bouncing the basketball in the ball court, of Capital Public Houses, where he lives. The chubby, caramel-colored Black boy plays ball ... [+]

Short Fiction

3 min

The Hole In The Wall

H.L. Dowless

Sister Sue lived in the convent. Tim Flowers worked nearby on the land. Sister Sue had lived behind the wall for such a long time. Flowers thought it was all so grand. The convent was ... [+]

Short Fiction

1 min

My African brother

DJD

One day my African friend Mogio and I are walking to a sub shop. While walking we hear word of a black movement squad making their presents known by playing hip hop basketball and picketing marching ... [+]

Short Fiction

1 min

The Mechanics

Elaine Rosenberg Miller

The walls of the Manhattan apartment had been repainted many times. They were bubbled and uneven. Here and there their surfaces had cracked, revealing the colors of decades past.

“Can I get you ... [+]

Short Fiction

4 min

Outside McBride's On the Evening of Prohibition

John Mahaffie

Friday, January 16, 1920

The regulars drifted onto the patch of sidewalk outside McBride’s the evening of Prohibition. It was Friday, it was their long-held habit to stop in.

Stopping in ... [+]

Short Fiction

5 min

America in the Sky

Bozlich B

I remember that day starting off ordinarily enough; there I was playing in the open field not that far from home, the sky azure with hardly a cloud blighting its face.

The lie of the land is so ... [+]

Short Fiction

4 min

Get Back On

Tisha Reichle-Aguilera

When Daddy’s brother, Uncle Edward, got a new horse for his fancy shows, he gave me his gentle old mare, Pearl, for my seventh birthday. I thought she was the best present ever.

“That’s a ... [+]

Short Fiction

1 min

The Knight In Gold Armor

Manuela Guerra

There once was a thriving village ruled by a council of elders. Crops grew strong, bellies stretched wide, and rivers were inviolable. Neighbors were allies. One day, when the sun was at its highest ... [+]

Short Fiction

3 min

Schrodinger's Scale

Rekha Valliappan

'I guess we don't know what's real or unreal . . . ' - Anne Rice

One day in midsummer the snow on the meadow turns red. All Simi can do is prepare for the end of the world. She thinks she ... [+]

Short Fiction

1 min

I wear a mask!

Joyce Scott

“Put on your mask,” Victoria said.

“What?” asked Michael.

“We have to wear a mask. I wear a mask and you wear a mask,” answered Victoria.

“Why?” asked Michael ... [+]

Short Fiction

Slice of Life Portrait Sorrow 3 min

Out of Reach

Julie Wilkerson

He was reaching for the top shelf then stopped. He moved his eyes to the next, lower shelf down and chose a jar. His hair was sheet white and his body frame resembled my father, tall and heavy set ... [+]