Small Electric Blueberry Lemonade

by T.L. Tomljanovic

I blink. “It costs how much?” I still take the cup. The cashier chews a nail.

Overpriced and unsanitary. I harrumph. Tapping my card, I turn on my heel and trip.

Refreshment cascades in a shimmering arc onto the gentleman behind me, bathing him in icy slush.

He freezes. His white button-up turns translucent. Looking at me, he wipes off his chest and slowly licks the stickiness from his fingers flashing a Rolex.

Rich and dirty? Holy hell.

When he smiles, his eyes crinkle.

I swallow and turn back to the till. “We’ll take two small electric blueberry lemonades, please.”

We’ve Just Met, and I Adore You

by Carmen Farrell

I marvel at your face. You! My new baby. The operating room sterility, spinal block anesthetic effects and clanking of surgical tools mark the frigid ticking of time. Suspended within the white pale blue coldness of our glaring bright operating theatre, your face glows warm, tiny, cherubic. Miniature bow mouth, your five-pound human perfection stops time. Wispy lashes over closed lids I can’t brush. My arms strapped to the table. Instead, my laughter bubbles up through the smell of antiseptic and iodine, to reach you. “Hello, I love you.” Salty tears pool in my ears while I jiggle with joy.

Placing the Man 

by G.J. Williams 

The one they call Glebe, Mr Glebe, he of the muffler and the sorrowful moustache, he’s the one to ask, he’ll know who was who what was what. Treat him to some bottled god he’ll remember everything like it was yesterday. No enquiry too trivial. He’s been here forever, or close enough. Murders, wonders, scandals. You’ll see him about. He’ll be glad of the opportunity. Some liquid sunshine and he’s the world’s. He’ll set you right. He’s a graveyard full of friends. He’ll know the man you’re looking for and how he ended his days in a place like this. 

Escaping the Memory

by Alyce Wood

I found you in the woods, sky still ravaged in ash and amber light. 

Two squirrels waited with you. I always joked your hair was a squirrel’s tail—like that one in our yard, grey with the red streak down its back.

They can sense one of their own in trouble—and you were.

I sank to my knees, the smell of wet earth up my nose.

We were told not to search.

(“Could still be out there,” they’d said).

I crossed your arms over your chest, pressed your eyelids gently closed and asked you to please come home soon.

Mia Visits

by Rachel Miller

In a reversal of our usual roles, I drive. As the rain becomes ever more insistent, electricity arcs between us. We talk about anything and everything, stirring up a warmth that condenses on the windshield. When our voices tire, my mind views us from above: just a speeding metal lozenge, wending its way toward the thundering Pacific.

Thick, cold sea foam runs through the folds of my brain, gently fizzing over each sharp-edged thought. As Mia buckles under jet lag in the passenger seat, it occurs to me that giving in to the waves might not be so bad.