Glimmer Train Stories, #103

Gregory J. Wolos
Boy Strangling Goose
But the terrifying, breathtaking span of those spread wings had stopped Reilly dead--he couldn't even raise his cane against the wild thing's attack.

Andra Nicolescu
The Dead
Romanians have this weird thing about the dead, you see. Until the twenty-first century, we kept them in our living rooms. We couldn't let them go. Who wants to let go of their dead, anyway?

Randolph Thomas
Heir Apparent
Taking care of it was beyond my dad's abilities, and this wasn't even really his fault. Keeping up a house just wasn't the kind of thing he could manage.

Peter Nathaniel Malae
El Camino
But as this youngest one believed that you had no say in his affairs, it was therefore perfectly safe to include you in whatever he'd decided he'd do. He was only letting you know as a courtesy.

Amy Koppelman
The Moses Basket
I couldn't shut my mind off. Didn't want to. Even then I understood it had something to do with a lack of control. If you let yourself relax, anything can happen.

Ethan Chatagnier
Dentists
It was as if all of the intricate and detailed Pakistani designs I'd expected to find suffusing the house had been concentrated into the teapot, hidden there under its cozy.

Arianna Reiche
Archive Warden
Maybe she wanted me to come join her for a little gossip, or to warm our fingers on the photocopier like some of the ladies do. What can I say, women get cold!

Kristen Hamelin Tracey
A New World
Perry didn't know what to do with those first few minutes. No boyfriend. No relationship with God to speak of. In the end she sent a text to Sophie.

Ajit Dhillon
Waiting
As we searched, I wanted to tell you something, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember what. I think it was a joke tinged with profundity, you know how I like those, something to set our minds at ease.

Corey Flintoff
Early Stages
Haley. Hydrangeas. Chickadees those are the birds. Chenille that's the fabric of the bathrobe. He feels buoyed by the memory of so many words.

Maxime Kawawa-Beaudan
Waiting for Fireworks
There was the brotherhood of long friendship between us, a channel that was open without any need for preamble.

Chad Schuster
We Work in the Dark
"Where'd you get the gun?" he said to my mother. "Oh please, Tony," she said. "It's not that hard to get a gun."

Gabe Herron
An Incident at the Bell Museum of Natural History
I mean, Jesus Christ...this was his life. His very own life! He could do anything! And he hadn't ever stopped to think about that before.

Jeff VanderMeer
Interview by David Naimon
What I really wanted to do was wed the epic and the personal in a way that I don't think is that common.