By Nicole Anderson Ellis “Just let it settle in,” the black-eyed technician said as he pushed the elevator button. Sid, his nametag read, though Lina was sure yesterday he’d introduced himself with something longer. Over the past two days Sid and a blur of other nametags had prompted Lina through the onboarding checklist. They’d slapped stickers with her id number on the side of warm urine samples, and vials of dark blood. She’d initialed dozens of forms after the final psych review, the …

By Salvatore Pane Tony knew he was headed for trouble when Cole texted him the name of the restaurant. Schadenfreude was located on the edge of North Minneapolis in a mostly abandoned trench between the Mississippi River and a raised strip of crumbling highway. He exited the Uber with his wife and felt mildly ashamed of the blight, like he was somehow responsible. Weeds and shaggy bushes colonized empty lots. A panhandler pumped a sign near the onramp. The neighborhood on the other side of 94 …

By Leslie Pietrzyk May 1971: the year before Donna disappears Donna and I clamor side-by-side onto the bench of the Ferris wheel gondola (probably the fanciest word I know!). I’m eagle-eying the scrawny man, making sure he latches the safety bar correctly. “Sure that’s tight?” I ask. His too-close breath smells like peppermint covering cigarettes mixed with leftover morning mouth. “Don’t worry kid.” He gives the bar a wiggle, and it stays put. Everyone knows I think too much. His feet …

By Douglas W. Milliken  The first one up and the uneasy anti-ritual of making coffee in someone else’s kitchen, barefoot and cat-stepping the cold linoleum as quietly as possible while searching drawer to drawer, cupboard to cupboard for grounds, filters, spoons, et cetera. The gentle morning chill slinking inside through fallible window screens, the slid half-open back patio door. Stacks of last night’s spaghetti-smeared dishes and collectible jam jars wine-stained red alongside stacks …

By Ebony L. Morman November 10, 1995 No. No. No. This cannot be happening. Not to me, not right now.  I sit up and hug the driver’s seat from behind. “How much longer?” Please don’t be long. Please say not that much longer.  “Not much longer, baby girl.”  Okay. Not much longer. Not much longer. Maybe if I say it enough, that’ll speed up time or get Uncle Lance to close the distance quicker. Not much longer? Five? Ten minutes? What am I even talking about? It all …

It’s raining, and the living room ceiling drips, drips, and drips because the husband passed up on that free roof inspection and maybe he was afraid of the problems it might reveal, and his father-in-law now lives in the basement, and the husband and the wife keep finding blood-blotted tissues that look like Rorschach tests in the wastebasket, and the father-in-law won’t go to the doctor no matter how much the husband and the wife beg him, and the rain gets louder and louder, and the hole in the …