by Tom Sheehan Hardly with a hop, skip and jump did Frank Parkinson come home from Tobruk, Egypt, North Africa, madness, and World War II in general.

by Mitchell Grabois This is not a job I ever expected to have, but I couldn’t keep farming, not enough land, machines too old.

by Mary Ann McGuigan My mother had convinced herself—and us—that the landlord would never go through with it.

by Horacio Quiroga Her honeymoon, when it came, induced in her the seed of dread.

by Russell Hemmell Ca’ Dario stands in front of us, sombre, sleek and precious, often avoided and always dreaded.

by Samuel Cole I touch his shoulder, wishing to touch everything else. Now. Here. Out in the open.

by Claire Hopple Smith’s sister convinced him to move in with her and her husband. They weren’t able to have kids and he could tell even over the phone that she relished the chance to mother him.

by Stephanie Hutton The boiler’s death rattle shook the walls just as snow started to sprinkle over the moorlands.

by Michael Fryd He was startled when he looked up to center his tie and saw nothing: no face, hair, chest, hands, shirt, tie—no George.

by Catherine Deiley Mid-October wrapped its orange arms around southeast Pennsylvania, and the sweaty hallways of Oley Valley High School, where Cassidy Angstadt waded through the start of her freshman year.

by Deirdre Fagan I read it in the paper, the news about the 87-year-old man who went to bed with a bump on his head and never awoke again.

by M. Nazar Syed I looked down and saw my hands clenched tighter than they’d ever clenched before. A bead of sweat formed on my temple.

by Steve Myers When I was eleven and in the sixth grade I got into trouble because O. Henry was bad at arithmetic.