I’m standing in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, with the deer.The darkness and the silence and their bodiesare fragile. I know that none of these things are meant to withstand shock—of light, noise, impact—and I thinkthat maybe I am not, either. This is no accident. I’m praying for eyes […]
In the middle of the night, with the deer, by Christine Barkley Keep Reading »
We aren’t sure how much we’ve lost. We don’t know where our fingers end. The walls reach into empty space, crumbling with a gasp as they grasp at the fog. At the end of them, we feel (we might remember feeling?) our fingers slip into the still air until they might as well not exist
The Counting Ghosts, by Bernie Jean Schiebeling Keep Reading »
Death Comes to Dinner The holiday season approaches, when the living gather in their warm, fleshy social units to eat, drink, and have awkward conversations with relatives. This year, instead of letting that one particular relation pontificate about politics, conspiracies, or political conspiracies, I suggest steering the conversation to a cheerier topic: DEATH. Even if
Ask a Necromancer, by Amanda Downum Keep Reading »
I rained my grandfather’s ashes onto the dark lapping Yamuna,and in a breath they filled the space between spume and wave. A man kills a man in the absence of god. Disease kills the cellsin the absence of a knife. Time kills the body in the absence of fever. What will kill the lifeflow of
In the absence of death, by Shannan Mann Keep Reading »
I’m a drummer, a sailor, and a sufferer of eczema. I’m a boxer for the duration of a cross-Canada flight sitting beside a pleasant older woman who started the conversation with a story about the playground scraps her grandchildren had been having. I discuss my failed attempts at culinary excellence and the dangers of dull
The Call of the Void, by Tyler Hein Keep Reading »
and they said “I nor we, us, I mean the fifth one.” . . .
Pleiades, by Wesley Woolf Keep Reading »
No one thought she’d go the way she did, miredin car smoke, no death note. She lived a badlife, died a good death—as decently sadan end as any. I stretch my leg skywardwith my head to the dirt. Listen, I’m wired—a cup phone to hell. Loose string runs bone-cladthrough me. Press your ear to the arch
Oddment of the Damned, by Madison Rahner Keep Reading »