The West | JOYLAND

Coyote Smith

Madeline Stevens -

Elmer had seen a skull once, as a child, by the Zigzag river. There’d been moss growing over the bone as if it were...

Roadkill

Jenny Xie -

Life is pretty good now that it’s just Roadkill and me. There’s no school, for one—just the hollowed-out building with the doors wearing tatters...

Cancer is a Day that Never Ends

Janice Lobo Sapigao -

Today my mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer. The first time the nurse took her blood pressure, Ma was sitting down, and it was...

The Father Scale

Scott Broker -

Three years after our son Mack disappeared, I found him on the back deck, sitting in the dark as if it belonged to him....

Family Ledger

Tommy Kim -

She had not been invited to the wedding, but decorum—which was really nothing more than a mask for frailty and fear—would not stop her...

Snatch Shots

Elizabeth Ellen -

“The true surrealist answer to why anybody is anything is there is no why. Stop asking why.” — Susie Bright For years, the paparazzi had been...

Tarquin’s Party

Emma Sloley -

Tarquin Gould’s parents were out of town, so he had to throw a party, those were the rules. The news circulated like a virus:...

What Nakedness Is

Dini Parayitam -

Hours from the southern border, Vu Tran thought about the great pretense of love. His ex Nisha was—according to the e-vite—“Can you believe it?...

Some Related Restrictions

Leora Fridman -

In time, I will believe there is meaning to this. In time it will be soaked with meaning. It is soaked already with content...

Slumber Party

Donna Miscolta -

Angie Rubio shrank at the snickering of classmates, cringed at the embarrassed looks on her behalf. She tucked the newspaper clipping inside her notebook...