It’s late, but the neighborhood is still awake. The Roman candles are just about exhausted, but the steady drumbeat of M80s has another hour to go. Out back your drunken neighbor is giving a pitch-perfect rendition of Bill Pullman’s Independence Day speech from his deck. Across the street, a new eighty-inch beams through a bay window: Mayor Vaughn is telling Chief Brody there’s no need to close the beaches. An intoxicating mix of Coppertone, charcoal briquettes, and chlorine hangs in the air. You settle into your chair and can’t decide if you want the latest issue of Backstreets or to peruse your well-thumbed copy of The Necronomicon, when you notice something wedged in-between them. Is that the new issue of Jersey Devil Press? You hesitate. It is late. Maybe you shouldn’t. You touch the pages cautiously and the journey unfolds in your mind. The space station. The doctor’s office. The bowling alley. A long walk home. Oh, the justice of foxes. Whatever happens in the moonlight. And the KISS tribute band. You understand the fireworks are just beginning.

Bottle Rocket the PDF or Cherry Bomb it online.

Time travel always screws us up. And, really, what is the dawning of a new year if not the crossing of a threshold into the future? A little while ago it was 2018; now it’s 2019 (sans flying cars and replicants, sadly.)

Fortunately, the work in our January Issue speaks clearly, if darkly, of the world as it is and, occasionally, of the world as it should be. There are four wonderful pieces of flash fiction, two cutting pieces of free verse, a steamroller of an essay, a stunning sestina, and an excellent abecedarian.

Let these writers’ words be the balm on your aching head, the cool mint kiss that soothes your anxieties, and the fresh pack of Star Wars cards that makes you feel young, as when the world was new and we just yelled at each in real life instead of over a series of interconnected processing nodes. (Personally, we would’ve preferred flying cars.)

Who knows what 2019 will bring any of us, but if it’s anything like the writing in Issue 103…maybe it’ll be okay.

Alka it online or Seltzer the PDF.