FICTION: BUSY HANDS
An elementary-school principal visits tea, small sandwiches, and mouth-kisses upon her best female students; when one of her particularly exceptional students takes a turn toward delinquency after the onset of puberty, she finds reassurance in an unexpected place.
A man loses his job and decides to play along with "Man Vs. Food" at home, eating his weight in all variety of foods, absent any other meaningful pursuits in his life whatsoever. This is one of those stories where you want to say which one of the protagonist's hallucinations is the most hilarious, but you can't because they're all so great.
DRAGONS LIVE FOREVER by Patrick Sauer
"The Son of God tried to watch the rodeo, but calf-roping was more than he could take. It didn’t look like the calves enjoyed it one bit. He walked through the displays in the basement of the Metra. They called it an Expo. The Son of God looked at an airplane made out of a can of Budweiser."
Excerpt: BLACK GIRL @ THE GAY CHANNEL by Darlyne Baugh
A single mother goes to work at The Gay Channel when in desperate need of work, any work. However, she knows almost nothing about the LGBTQ community and, at first, finds the experience baffling. In this passage, Charlene goes into head-slapping, Archie Bunker-esque hysterics when she meets a transgender colleague, and watches a group sex tape featuring a closeted professional athlete.
IF AND NO, NEVER by Alison Steedman
"The palm of his hand rests on the top of my thigh and his fingers curve around to the fleshy inside of my leg. He drums them. Pointer finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky. He does this twice but does not look over at me."
After finishing his PhD in Physics, a young man attempts to remain the slave of his former advisor, making him color-coded drinks at department parties and avoiding the topic of Physics in every conversation at all costs.
AN ABSENT GOD IN LOVE by Patrick W. Gallagher
"My parents owned a vast estate, one that had been in both of their families for generations, and that had still teemed with tenants, whole societies of them, when I came of age. I instituted a religion, centered on my person, and obliged the thousands by force to convert. When the clock struck upon the hour of my success I declared the end of time; my handmen brought all clocks within the estate to a halt and all clocks discovered thenceforth operating as nigh but a monument to my ascension became in their mere possession a punishable offense!"
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