PAYING RESPECTS • by George Aitch
The homeless man at the interchange is a veteran too and that makes me uncomfortable, especially today. His unkempt beard hangs past his collar and weaves with the fraying strands of his jacket....
View ArticleMAN DOWN • by Sam Payne
When someone popped a champagne cork at the Christmas party, Carl dived under the table. No one said a word. The dairy lot laughed nervously, the butchers raised their eyebrows and carried on with...
View ArticleTHE MEMORY IS THE ENEMY • by Sue Sabia
Ivan uses the L.A. Daily News as a placemat because his wife – rest her soul – once told him it is easier to throw out a stained newspaper than to wash a stained placemat. He prefers the obituary...
View ArticleTHE ERRANT STRAND • by Amanda Barusch
Sweat crept down his back as he stepped off the rumbling bus and stood at attention with the other recruits. He’d used a cheap comb to part his hair with what he thought was military precision — on...
View ArticleHOME • by Tanner Cremeans
April 30th, 1972 I came home. It wasn’t the warm welcome that I had expected. What I expected was the abundance of romance and cheering that my father had told me about after he returned home from...
View ArticleTHE BETTER PART OF VALOR • by Tad Tuleja
He had been cut this bad once before. In the Central Highlands, a punji stick had jabbed him below the knee. It had gone in less than an inch, but the feces that the VC had smeared on it had done its...
View ArticleBOUNDARIES • by DB Cox
It’s like a jungle in the clouds and there’s this fog — like rain, except it’s not raining. Everything is wet and tangled, and the angles of vision are slightly distorted. Walking point, I can hear...
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FINAL VISIT • by Amanda Barusch
“Your father loves you. He just doesn’t know how to show it.” The screen door slammed and Dad’s boots pounded down the stairs. Mom said he wasn’t himself since the war. I never met “himself” but I...
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DECOMMISSIONED • by C.L. Holland
From a distance the statue looks like a giant marine in full tac-armour, helmet on and faceplate engaged so you can’t tell gender. There’s a rifle, looks like a Xenon Mark Two, propped against one...
View ArticleMAD MICK • by Joseph D. Milosch
“The helplessness I felt when the bombs exploded, and mustard gas crept like ground fog into our trenches is hard to describe,” my Great-Uncle Leo said as we painted his barn red. After I dropped out...
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