This month’s artwork is by Fabio Sassi

Leviathan
by Jack Caulfield

As the water rose and overwhelmed us, we found that more living things were left in it than we had anticipated. We had poisoned the seas first inadvertently and then deliberately, fearing retribution for our initial error and seeking in place of clemency the annihilation of the atrocity’s would-be avengers. Yet here they were, the writhing masses.

The Pits
by Terry Cree

He is at the stage when girls his own age have changed shape and turned into something untouchable a long, long way away. They all have laughs that can wound or even kill. He and the friends he doesn’t like very much kick holes in fences, wrestle each other into headlocks, smell like cured meat. The future that people talk about is like the weather forecast; it might not happen but it probably will. In the bathroom mirror, he tries by small adjustments over many days and months to sort out the mess.

Chorus
by Renee Reeves

Emmaline was still doing her calculus homework when the moon rose. She could hear them in the darkness, crying in the woods that ran, vein-like, through the suburban neighborhood. The popular girls, cavorting in their wolf forms, sang harmonies to the harvest moon. She longed to hear paws scratching against the door, feel dank wolf breath against her skin, but she was too tame to run for them. Perhaps, on a night she was feeling brave, she’d walk into the woods and call it an audition. Tonight, Emmaline closed the window and reached for her headphones.

Roots
by Abigail Skinner

She was a flower once. The hurricane came, ripped her up, tossed her around, and displaced her for miles and miles. She began to follow the wind, here, there, everywhere, and back again. She would pass the other flowers – their feet in the dirt, roots holding firm – and laugh with feral glee to leave them behind. Free, she saw wonders, met strangers, and wearied her bones, until an odd wind brought her here. Now the wind calls to her again – teases, pushes, pulls, and blusters. She stands in the yard, buries her feet, and prays for growth.

Dancing Turtles
by Danielle Burnette

While strolling past a jewelry store, you wonder aloud about the job opportunity in Copenhagen. About bicycling every day to work and learning to love rye bread. I need a change, you say. You deserve a gift, he says and steers you into the store. He guesses which bracelet you like before you pick it. He knows you love turtles, especially golden ones with zirconia-crusted shells. They conga a ceaseless line around your wrist—one bedazzling dancer for each year he hasn’t proposed. A sign, perhaps, of how much he loves you.

Amazing Bike Ride
by Charles Gray

I’m pedaling through the park, watching ducks, and enjoying the smell of grilled steak, when four cyclists whiz by me. Pissed off by their rude behavior, my rental transforms into an Arabian horse. I kick her into an all out sprint, grab the reins, stand on her back, and feel the wind. She gallops through their slipstream and tramples them. Bikes flip, riders tumble, tires mangle. I cross the finish line, the winner. The crowd applauds. I take my bows. Then I open my eyes and see them in the distance, their muscular calves pumping, like pistons, a perpetual machine.

New Year’s Resolution
by Rich Gravelin

My resolution was decluttering, but it was disingenuous; I’d carried an unofficial obsessiveness diagnosis for years. Christmas was hardest; unlit pine candles and dusty tomtes flanked an artificial tree that lost needles anyway. I rarely read cards upon receipt; too busy whisking them from envelope to bookshelf. Cleanup was easier — sweeping into squared piles more efficient — but the photo of mom and me dancing at the wedding re-emerged. Two Christmases have passed since I phoned goodbye from an airport terminal. “We all die alone, anyway,” she said when I asked to come earlier, but I never believed she meant it.