Black River, Andrea Danowski
“She sat and plunged her feet into the water, screamed from the shock of the cold. It felt colder than anything she had felt before, colder than snow. Colder than an ice cube dropped down the back of her shirt. She wondered if the water would be cold enough to preserve her body from decomposing.”
The People They Became, Thomas Broderick
“Leah closed her laptop, and took her husband’s hand. She did not speak for several seconds. ‘This is what I….we look like, Daniel. This is who we are. We agreed. Do you remember the alternative?'”
Seeking Sunday, Haley Johnson
“Then the obvious, to be able to join the circus. To accentuate the small of my back with the graced movements of acrobatics; the ability to fling myself from one bar to the next, twisting into beauty along the way. To have the balance that Sunday brings on a regular basis would purge this all away.”
Dippin’ and Dustin’, Nicola Belt
“‘Home is what you carry,’ Mama said, as the taxi sharked its way through the streets of silver shutters; of bus stops and upturned bottle banks, beneath the stars scattered like dandelion seeds. ‘But we aren’t going there.'”
Salivate, Nick Sawatsky
“I heard it echo over itself, my name — Chastity. Chas·ti·ty. ‘Chastity’ through the woods and off the woods. My name flung birds against sky, sent rat-things to burrow. ‘Chastity’ was above the locust-hiss, in the tree-tops. I couldn’t hear any farther than that. I listened for it in the sun, but then I looked for it in the sun, and everything washed white.”