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!)
After just a short while in Germany, Lalita had become well-acquainted with fear in its infinite variety. She had felt the first twitches of fear in the aircraft as it hovered over the foggy airport, when the ice blonde air hostess had glared at Deepu for stuffing the airline's purple sponge earphones inside the Styrofoam cup of tasteless coffee. And stepping down from the airplane onto German soil had given fear enough time to probe the fleshy underside of her mind with its delicate spider-tentacles.
Kavita Dorai
The White Lies of Ivan the 24-Handed
Ivan didn't need the gift to know what would happen to him. If a magician or a sorcerer, as they called it, were caught in any crime, the penalty was to cut off the source of his magic. If he had spoken incantations, they would take his tongue. If he had seen into a glass ball, they would take his eyes. The penalty for Ivan was obvious.
Asher Black
Mia can't bring herself to talk to the men, who all seem too old or overly quirky. She takes in from afar the various details: rattan fedora, tie-dyed fanny pack, guitar strapped on backward like a Game of Thrones sword. She chats instead with the women, meeting two particularly fun ones: a software engineer and a redheaded social worker. All three of them here for the first time. They compare divorces and bitterness levels and laugh and decide they're no good at mingling or flirting. Talk turns to kids as it always does, and Mia learns Lourdes is childless but Bethany has three daughters.
Jennifer Bannan
Vivian had spent a good part of her desk time the past few months, back in Pittsburgh at the pain clinic where she worked, snooping social media for clues. In her line of work, the phone was always ringing and there was a constant onslaught of emails needing answering, but she came in early and stayed when the door locked for lunch. There weren't many Mirror Creek or nearby Dunns on Facebook. The detective she'd hired said plainly that the kind of people she was from didn't have Instagram pages or LinkedIn accounts. Some of them wouldn't even have birth certificates.
Lorette C. Luzajic
To Whom Much Is Given
(Spotlight Runner-Up!)
"That won't look good on an application to college," said your parents.
Scott Solomon
He looked through the rack of white coats to find the one with the words Ezekiel Washington, MD, embroidered on it. I am Eze, he thought. The only time he went to Nigeria, he had introduced himself to someone saying, "My name is Ezekiel, but my wife calls me Eze, you know, like I am her "King" in Igbo." The man smiled as if saying, "And that is how it should be." And Ezekiel, in this foreign land, thought he had found a friend.
Iyesatta Massaquoi Emeli
Three days after her surgery, Lily was discharged. The surgeon told her everything looked great, she was healing nicely, and to come back in a week so he could take another look at it. He gave her instructions about ice packs for swelling and meds, and he patiently answered questions from her mom, which often began as questions and ended as opinions about how Lily should arrange her life going forward.
Vic Sizemore
At the Lake Elizabeth stop, Peck crossed the street and took a narrow path down a small hill to the water taxi's concrete platform. The sun had set, and a stiff wind was blowing. On the horizon, a band of pink and violet light shone through the ribbons of black clouds, and a night jar flew past with an abrupt whistle of its wing. He could barely see the hills and trees on the opposite shore, but lights from buildings shone overhead, reflected in broken pieces on the wind-chopped water's surface.
Brad Gottschalk
