Issue Fifty, January 2014

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Ash Wednesday, Jacob Euteneuer
“I helped you up from the couch and into your hiking boots — the ones we bought when we first moved to the mountains. The ones you said you needed because they rose up past your ankles and you thought they would prevent snake bites. I always told you that it wouldn’t be a snake that got you, and it turned out I was right.”

Fox and Tiger, Charlie Harmon
“Some time later, Fox heard a couple of high, piping voices and stepped into a large clearing that looked like it had been hit by a tornado. Straw was scattered everywhere, and a pig in overalls was using a push-broom to sweep it into piles.”

He Was, After All, a Gopher, Andra Skaalrud
“The world knew a secret, a secret no human could know, which made it all the more tantalizing to Gopher, who ached for so many things, but nothing more than the secret.”

Are You Man Or Aquatic Ectotherm?, h. l. nelson
“When the slits open on my neck, at first it doesn’t feel any different than taking a normal breath, like I’ve been breathing this way my whole life. I’m standing in my bathroom after a shower, inhaling the escaped tub-steam, toweling my hair, and thinking about the argument my girlfriend Lindsey and I just had.”

Why’s Wally, Mark A. Rayner
“He went to his closet and was mildly horrified to see that it was stuffed with striped shirts, red and white bobble hats, and an assortment of jeans. How had his life come to this?”

Cover art: The Blind Toast, Pedro Abreu

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