Fiction | JOYLAND

The Knife Mandate

Richard Chiem -

I am a gold medal hopeful, battle worn, battle angel. I am a calm nervous system. I am the man you thought you loved...

Year of the Rat

S.M. Sukardi -

There comes a time in a girl’s life when she will dance with her father. We know this because all the girls before us...

Amsterdam

William Pei Shih -

For the past two days, Mildred Wong hadn’t been sleeping well. She’d awoken that morning in Amsterdam, her body consumed—by aches, fever, an unfamiliar...

Small Green Shoots

Aarti Monteiro -

The girl’s smile was much less awkward in person than it had been in the photo. In real life the sides of her mouth...

The Hamptons

Marne Litfin -

Oh, I’m ready. A little afraid, sure, but who isn’t? I don’t expect it to hurt. I’ve been near the end three times before,...

Tart

Amy Sauber -

I love bras and I love taking them off and that’s about all I love about them. That’s my favorite part. Not the sudden...

You Could Hear Splinters

Christie Louie -

The night before her grandmother moves in, Holly soaks her tongue in vinegar. It floats in the clear liquid: pink, bumpy, unzipped at the...

The Girl with Flies Coming Out of Her Eyes

Sally Wen Mao -

Imagine you are a young woman. Imagine you want to cry, but you can’t, because of a sickness where your eyes make flies instead...

A Recessive Trait

Victoria Cho -

While the crooked, stained table from the thrift store and the small plates of browning fruit spread across its surface hardly resembled her memories...

Creep

Sheena Raza Faisal -

On Saturdays, the men drank whiskey-colas around the kitchen table. They ironed their slacks and swapped silver-buckled belts. They were living on top of...