e c l e c t i c a
f i c t i o n
e c l e c t i c a
f i c t i o n
(These are excerpts—click on the title to view the whole piece!)
The dirt roads are orange brown, and from them, and from all surrounding me, I see steam rise from hot earth touched by wetness. I close my eyes and take in a full breath. I am kneeling on the ground, close to petrichor. I remember this smell from when my first husband danced with me and held our infant son between us. The last time I saw my mother, the great Kpagbawai, whose name itself meant a person who could not be easily broken, but who was nonetheless trampled by an inattentive fish truck driver, petrichor had been there at our parting.
Iyesatta Massaquoi Emeli
His hands, twisted and gnarled, were not the hands of a child, his shivering thin body not the body of a naked boy soon to be enveloped in warm lavender-smelling towels, his mother cooing in a language he had forgotten except in dreams and nightmares.
Janice D. Soderling
Arnold's
(Spotlight Runner-Up!)
Tricia filled herself with pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage, omelets, toast. Her face threw a narrow flickering shadow, her jaw was a mechanical thing. Ralph said her name. She had never eaten like this. Her hollows seemed to fill out, her bones singing with appreciation. She sat up straighter, felt a force inside her she hadn't known in a long while.
Gary Moshimer
Jack’s Wife Moved to the City, Planted Herself on a Barstool, and Never Left
Had Jack either sensitivity or thought, he'd have realized Bessie was in mourning, her calves sold when they were but two days old to be processed into meat. Instead, he perceived devotion and pined the times he spent without her.
Mikki Aronoff
We don't even have a candy drawer anymore. No one wants to buy chocolate for someone who might be a drug thief. So, it's not our allegiance to one another protecting the thief. It's only because of corner cutting that management can't pinpoint the culprit. Too many nurses relied on the auto-logout function of the Pyxis, leaving their accounts wide open for the withdrawal of large quantities of controlled substances. Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Morphine, Dilaudid.
Rachel Schmidt
Seeing this woman who was always so much in control not only of her young daughter but of her husband and, Emily assumed, everyone else as well, suddenly unable to figure out the simple trick just played on her, filled Emily with a strange delight, a thrill of power such as she had never felt before. In response to her mother's continuing demand to produce the missing sock, she merely shrugged her shoulders the way she had seen the little girls in the sandbox do.
Thomas J. Hubschman
