Flash Fiction | JOYLAND

Maps to Nowhere

Nara Vidal, translated from Portuguese by Emyr Humphreys -

How vast the human body, your human body, is. The nervous system sprawls like markings on a vast map of pleasure and affection. The things...

A List of Things I Have Used the Knife for Thus Far

Alexander Lumans -

It’s best not to mention the wedding at all—let alone the bride. It’s better to recall the last visit, with her, to the art...

The Origami of a Settler’s Heart

Rajiv Ramkhalawan -

You are headed to Trinidad for Carnival. In the lead up to your flight, the island of your birth consumes you, maddens you in the...

Woman Flower

Jiaming Tang -

The woman who falls has many names. To customers, she is Mei—a sex worker with good prices and a sharp tongue. Online, where people...

Like Goldfish

Shy Watson -

First, I’d eat several Schwan’s confetti cups, then, I’d make out with Morgan. It wasn’t gay because we were playing boyfriend and girlfriend. My...

Sissy

Rebekah Morgan -

Sissy sits on the wooden porch swing overlooking our whole and entire everything. Sits eating paw paws with her eyes shut tight and knuckles...

Before 32 (or I, Céline)

Maryam Kazeem -

Like clockwork, it comes up. It seems like we’re designed to be slightly dissatisfied with everything, she says. They’re sitting outside at a street café in...

Agape

Hunter Braithwaite -

Mark is on the living room floor and his wife Sheila, she’s walking all over him. It’s like he’s one of those sushi platters...

Chloe

Ambika Thompson -

It started the day I got my negative pap results back. Slowly. At first it was just one, a toddler. The toddler seeped in...

Livestream

Elle Nash -

I made plans to drive to my parents’ house in Bend, Oregon, a dirty white clapboard on...