"Deconsecrators" by Terence Hannum Apr 5, 2024 Fiction a story from Hannum's collection Our Dead Age, a companion piece to Locrian's new album End Terrain. "Pottery Fragment, early 21st century" by Jennifer Stark Apr 4, 2024 Fiction You kill the ignition and pull on your waders, crunch the stones along the foreshore of the river. We see you looking. We see you with your hands on "Octopus Facts" by Chris Heavener Apr 3, 2024 Fiction Best practice is to tell a new recruit about the octopuses when his first assignment is already underway, the shoreline shrinking into the horizon. "The Executive Pool" by Steve Gergley Mar 29, 2024 Fiction There is an Olympic-size swimming pool in the shape of a silver dollar located on the roof of Lenny’s Manhattan office building. During lunch, "Gigantopedia" by Alexander Gradus Mar 27, 2024 Fiction Before I was born I was a minuscule thing. I remember it as plants remember the soil. I heard the world as thrums in the earth. It was still a hum "Rows of Jaw Bones and Worn Down Teeth" by C. Morgenrede Mar 21, 2024 Fiction years ago today, in the past, seven orange cones set on top of a wet tarp for a burial ceremony, a fog rolls in, rocks tumble, things become blurry, from "Founders' Day" by Arzhang Zafar Mar 20, 2024 Fiction an excerpt from Arzhang Zafar's story "Founders' Day," available now as BRUISER Zine 003 "Nothing to See Here" by Bernard Reed Mar 14, 2024 Fiction It was a glorious July day. The sun was right overhead the swimming pool. On the diving board a shrimpy little boy stood with his back bent, Two stories by Robert John Miller Mar 11, 2024 Fiction "Tips for Avoiding a Call from the Office of Risk Management as it relates to Ladder Safety" & "Real True-Life Rejections I Continue to Suffer" "March Madness" by Parker Wilson Mar 1, 2024 Fiction They stand below the rim in a group and reach their fingertips to bump the ball toward the rim or away from it, toward another rim. Gispelli "At Hirschmann Hospital" by Jan E. Stanek Feb 29, 2024 Fiction At the twice-daily service in the chapel, he always sat next to Frederick Dewitt because neither of them would kneel: he because the chapel was in "Greetings from the Milky Way" by Bethany Cutkomp Feb 23, 2024 Fiction Here’s what I know: subtle truths of the universe are not meant to be viewed with the sober eye. Only those inebriated enough are fortunate to "Hilarity" by Kyle E. Miller Feb 8, 2024 Fiction We were searching for the treasure chest / reliquary / suitcase / computer / man or woman / dragon / temple they called God’s Voicebox, rumored to "Beyond the Iron Gate is a Garden" by David Hay Feb 7, 2024 Fiction A crow’s song (if ears can fly to hear it) sinks beneath an endless rain of grey light. The bird, big balled and far too proud of itself, lands, "Seaside Condoes of the Minneola Coast" by Travis Dahlke Feb 2, 2024 Fiction While I’m carving a dick-sized hole out from the pizza box, Joan Heart closes her eyes and says the condo has weird energy. I’m not going back in Your Descent into Violent Candy Feb 2, 2024 Fiction & Criticism Alex Youngman reviews Tex Gresham's 2023 story collection "The Big Light" by Joshua Vigil Jan 25, 2024 Fiction When Phillip and Althea reached the front of the food pantry line, they were again talking about the bright lights they’d seen roving over the "Canine" by Rhys Jan 12, 2024 Fiction canine /ˈkeɪnʌɪn,ˈkanʌɪn/ adjective adjective: canine relating to or resembling a dog or dogs. “canine behavioural problems” ZOOLOGY relating to "Household Spelunker" by Abbie Doll Jan 11, 2024 Fiction Okay, yes, I admit it. I did a dive into the dog’s water dish. Don’t ask me why, I don’t have to tell you. Fine, look, always wanted to try it out, "Virtuoso" by Sean Kilpatrick & Christopher Parks Dec 8, 2023 Fiction after Clifford D. Simak This obstreperous philharmonic effrontery derogating an audience, this persiflage trained between wines — each and every "Otherwise" by Robert Stone Dec 7, 2023 Fiction A bead of moisture struggles stubbornly down the pane of hot glass. Its progress, if it is correct to think of progress in this regard, is inhibited "Our Last Day With Orange" by Shauna Friesen Dec 6, 2023 Fiction Tomorrow the god is shutting off orange. We have already lost red on account of our wickedness. Our blood runs black as crude-oil when we are cut. "Bittersweet" by Joshua Vigil Dec 1, 2023 Fiction It was that time of year when the Japanese bittersweet strangled the elms that drowned Lorraine’s yard. During the summer months, she’d dock my rent "Warpig" by Anthony Neil Smith Nov 27, 2023 Fiction Warpig don’t care what you think of his mullet. People here in Minnesota call it “hockey hair” but Warpig never gave one shit about hockey except "Eve's Inner Witness is Not a Monster" by Dipti Anand Nov 17, 2023 Fiction On a winter night stitched together with dark clouds shrouding like funeral fabric, Eve shudders under a sizzling gas heater, intercepting the "The Stupid Railroad" by Addison Zeller Nov 15, 2023 Fiction I could complain, but it’s usually light work—not always, but usually: really, if we sat down, it’d be completely bearable, but we stand on this "Vicus Cracti" by Some Fool Nov 14, 2023 Fiction excerpt from The Latten Legend, Liber I "White Mercedes/Faith Healer" by Sy Holmes Nov 10, 2023 Fiction The white Mercedes was in the driveway, under the Catalpa trees. It was a muggy spring night, and the seed pods had been blown down all over "Shit We Don't Need" by SH Woodgeard Nov 8, 2023 Fiction Ginger brings us things. Things we don’t want. Things we don’t need. Carburetor parts. Costume jewelry. Bratz dolls. In the dim morning hours, Two stories by Sean Ennis Nov 2, 2023 Fiction "You Don't Own Me" & "The Old Rats" "First World Problems" by Jon Doughboy Nov 1, 2023 Fiction To every one of my complaints, usually about the noise of her son slamming Pogs on the coffee table or our shoddy brake pads shrieking to be changed "The Tamp Trader" by Felicia Change Oct 27, 2023 Fiction Ultra was in dire need of a tampon, the cramps a warning sign, a silent siren. Contracting and releasing with each breath. She longed to curl up in "In the Outlet Mall" by Jon Tuttle Oct 25, 2023 Fiction In the outlet mall Natalie bought two blazers, one black and one navy. The navy she wore for the first open house of her first ever listing: a "The Perfect Lawn" by James Callan Oct 19, 2023 Fiction The lawn was beyond mowing, perhaps beyond saving, a disgrace and affront to the trim and tidy expectation of a respectable community. It grew in "Superimposition" by Rebecca Gransden Oct 18, 2023 Fiction I drove through the drive thru five times because I fell asleep at the wheel and dreamed I was being indecisive on a roundabout. In the dream the "Kathy draws a line" by Will Bindloss Sep 26, 2023 Fiction Today Kathy came to me with a problem and I asked her to draw a graph. The problem we can get to later. Let’s start with the graph I made her draw. "Manscape" by Jon Doughboy Sep 20, 2023 Fiction I go to my manscaper, a Somali named Pedro who cashed out his landscaping company in Málaga after he killed a man in Ceuta over a straight flush Three micros by Addison Zeller Sep 19, 2023 Fiction The birds gave up singing: now they write short stories. In trees, in bushes, on power lines the sentences run from tersely direct to syntactically "Two Micros: First Shift, Second Shift" by Jess Gallerie Sep 14, 2023 Fiction On day three of a sacred routine, Mae dabs four globs of WD-40 on their forehead, nose, and chin, and thinks: THIS IS ME NOW. They scrub into a "Lightning" by Jackson Rezen Sep 8, 2023 Fiction Clouds rolled in. The pressure dropped leaving a heaviness in the air. John could feel the electricity tingling the damp hairs along his arms. It "Where I Fold in Half" by Erin Smith Sep 8, 2023 Fiction I watch the ash drift to the ground and imagine myself buried, naked and hairless, in a volcanic plume. Bald body curled up and covered in sulfurous "Sweet Talk" by Ron Riekki Aug 29, 2023 Fiction “Wait, so you’ve all done heroin?” Nods all around. We’re in Ferndale. No ferns, no dale, far as I can see, but I can’t see far out the window, "How I Broke the Quiz" by by Daniel I. Clark Aug 24, 2023 Fiction shared by @Jemnai to /getoutofjailfree on 72.3rd/4.59 I’m your typical Farm brat: low ambition, middling intellect, but plenty of patience (or call "Errata" by Noah Rymer Aug 23, 2023 Fiction It teemed like a black mass of beetles, constantly swarming in place. It was roughly the average size of a human female, so just half a foot shorter "A Eulogy for the Secretary of the Cleveland Chapter of the Violet Myers Fan Club's Cock" by Jon Doughboy Aug 9, 2023 Fiction As secretary for the Cleveland Chapter of the Violet Myers Fan Club, I obviously wasn’t first choice for Violet’s Brazzers exclusive series “Violet Two Stories by Steve Gergley Aug 3, 2023 Fiction I was browsing Amazon for some new bed sheets when I discovered a six-disc box set of Blu-rays chronicling the biggest bloopers and blunders from "Just Keep Swimming" by Hana Carolina Aug 1, 2023 Fiction The first time I almost died, I was too young to remember. The second time I almost died was also the first time I went into the water. I barged "Your World and I" by Patrick Sweeney Jul 31, 2023 Fiction There was an allegedly imaginary Errol Morris documentary, actually my favorite of his, that introduced the extra-terrestrials among us. The "Harbingers of the Apocalypse" by Mathew Serback Jul 26, 2023 Fiction I am the leader of the people scaling the self-checkout vestibules. We chant about our right to steal from the chain grocery store that does not "Volunteer" by Jesse Hilson Jul 21, 2023 Fiction The guy is living and walking around with his head separated. It’s on a table. The decapitated head looks bad. Really bad. You have to massage it. Three poems by Steve Orth Jul 20, 2023 Fiction I am me, a small woodland creature, sniffing bark to see if the berries are ripe. I wear a beautiful furry pelt, even though I don’t need to wear Three stories by Ada Pelonia Jul 19, 2023 Fiction Inside the exhibit, a butterfly’s opalescent wings flitter around the paintings before settling on the Corinthian order–styled frame. Below is an "The Swimming Pool" by Kim Farleigh Jul 11, 2023 Fiction The swimming pool complex resembled a penitentiary: four high walls with an opening just wide enough to allow one person through at a time. The "The Journal of Mary Gurney" by Nathan Perrin Jul 7, 2023 Fiction Michelle smiled as she was shown into the library archives. “What are you studyin’?” asked the librarian. “Mary Gurney,” Michelle sat at a table by "The Loser" by Jessie Lifton Jul 4, 2023 Fiction I am giving up on hope. In my ears there’s beating. I haven’t spoken to another human being in two weeks. My skin is bleached pale blue. The DINGO THE END SCOUT IN: "Recital" by Z.H. Gill Jul 3, 2023 Fiction My last name is Books. Never liked it. There was once a band called The Books. I’ve never heard their music, though. Bogus is a Books, too, my Fiction: "Debate Team" by Ev Young Jun 28, 2023 Fiction This is addressed to the Judge of a college debate tournament, on behalf of the Affirmative, under the assumption of fiat. Plan: the United States Fiction: "Chicken Soup for the Reformed Death-Cultist's Soul" by Jesse Hilson Jun 21, 2023 Fiction In college Noah Turbot fell in with a death cult that did all its recruiting through the mail. He paid them $30 to get the latest news about the end "The Campland Guide to Pack Fitting: 8 Easy Steps" by Kent Kosack Jun 6, 2023 Fiction On Saturday mornings Elise watches the customers swamp Campland, pouring off Route 17, into the parking lot, out of their cars, and into the store, "Installations: The Delivery" by Terence Hannum Jun 5, 2023 Fiction from an ongoing series, previous pieces published in Vice, Queen Mob’s TeaHouse Tall Loblolly pines tower above the streets of Homeland, their Fiction: "Peanut Butter Milkshake" by Matt Lee May 31, 2023 Fiction From outside, the gallery’s innocuous facade made the building appear abandoned. Brown butcher paper pasted over the windows blocked anyone from Fiction: "i've got the worry" by Tony Rauch May 17, 2023 Fiction “You’ve got the worry,” the nurse looks down on me with a grim expression. “I’ve got the worry?” I repeat, but just to myself. “I’ve got the worry,” Fiction: "Paul, Standing by at Standing Rock" by Matt Gillick May 11, 2023 Fiction Tribesmen of brown, white, black, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Apache, and other persuasions meet the bulldozers and foaming hounds of Standing Rock, North Fiction: "Strangely Colorado" by John Yohe May 8, 2023 Fiction Power out for the whole town of Strangely, Colorado tonight as happens tho thankfully not this last winter during the two weeks of below zero when Citizen Sleeper: Notes Toward a New Cyberpunk May 5, 2023 Fiction & Criticism a book critic's perspective on this indie game's important contribution to a played-out genre Fiction: "So..." by Jake Williams May 4, 2023 Fiction So I just got out the shower and I’m in my bathrobe and the neighbours have walked right in and they’re dragging this old lady through my hallway. Fiction: "Chicken Plucker 9000" by Alex Antiuk May 3, 2023 Fiction I was born a “free range” chicken. I lived an easy life, until one day I had to move, get a job and get an apartment. I looked all over, StreetEasy, Fiction: "An Occurrence at L'Auberge Casino Resort - Lake Charles" Apr 27, 2023 Fiction We’re warming up in the back, and Junior’s holding mitts for me. I’m not just hitting them. I’m driving through them. I feel loose and dangerous. Fiction: "The Foretold Event and Its Features in Full Relief" by Elliot Swain Apr 24, 2023 Fiction Three rather homely young nurses are gnawing with their molars on peanut brittle in the children’s temporary-sick-barn in the evening. It is hard to Fiction: "Do Not Publish This" by George Oliver Apr 20, 2023 Fiction It started to fall apart as soon as he started writing it. Writing it episodically, from every Central London coffee shop that would have him. He Fiction: "I Think It's Important to Stab Something Every Day" by Gerard Butler Jr. Apr 17, 2023 Fiction I do, I think everyone should have a ballistic gel dummy in every room of their house with a butcher knife attached to it by a bungee cord. Just Fiction: "How Many People Will Die in IKEA Tonight" by Tim Frank Apr 13, 2023 Fiction Shoppers raided IKEA at night because their homes lacked the freshness of Scandinavian forests. With their rusted broken bedsprings and wallpaper Fiction: "Campland is a Store is a System is a Sphincter is the World" by Kent Kosack Mar 31, 2023 Fiction Here is Terry, mid-dangle, mid-life. Camplanders call this “The Saturday Dangle.” The precise moment at the end of a twelve-hour shift at Campland Fiction: "Yalobusha County Idyll" by Sean Ennis Mar 23, 2023 Fiction It’s that time of year where I cut myself with the knives I got for Christmas. By accident. As gifts. It’s early baseball season. I hear Fiction: "An Evening in the Summer" by Anna Louise Steig Mar 20, 2023 Fiction Out from the corner of my lazy sagging eye, I am watching in silence as a man below is stalking his prey. He is slinking down the desolate sidewalk Fiction: "Epiphenomenon" by J. Billings Mar 17, 2023 Fiction I’m on the way back to my hotel in downtown Philadelphia and I notice him immediately as he turns out of a dirty corner bar on the other side of the Fiction: "You're Gonna Buy My Old Wooden Table" by Gerard Butler Jr. Feb 15, 2023 Fiction This is an old wooden table. Round. Old. Made of wood. Deserving of respect. Reverence, even. And for you to claim that it doesn’t “match” your Fiction: "The Rabbi, His Dominatrix and Me" by Emma Burger Feb 10, 2023 Fiction How does it go again? A rabbi walks into a sex dungeon. He finds a shiksa that looks just like me, held together by leather and lace. When he wraps Fiction: "(P) and (Q) by Dr. Darbus Richards" by Matt Gillick Feb 6, 2023 Fiction Remember to mind your (p)’s and (q)’s: an elementary saying that no one seems to know much about. There are several disputes regarding the saying’s Fiction: "Academic" by Arzhang Zafar Feb 3, 2023 Fiction My flesh wilts. I laugh. I have given up keeping time, but now am reminded of its passage by my own decay. The cruelty of inevitability engorges my Fiction by Corey Qureshi Jan 25, 2023 Fiction The start of a week in late June. The shirt’s plain, loose, and white, unimportant enough to risk the filth of cleaning a building. Dropped ceiling Notes on Dhalgren by Bill Jan 24, 2023 Fiction & Criticism Bill gives us some notes on his recent reading of Samuel R. Delany's seminal, divisive novel DHALGREN. Fiction: "How High the Moon" by David Hay Jan 23, 2023 Fiction 5 His plane landed in Manchester. He loved the feeling of those first moments when the wheels met the ground and the slight jolt it gave you, as if Fiction: "Bloodletting on E. 43rd Street" by Kat Giordano Jan 19, 2023 Fiction i don’t think i’ll ever stop writing that story of us at the party. you know. the one where i kick my boots off in the mudroom off your kitchen and Fiction: "The Rain Made Nudity Impossible" by David Kuhnlein Jan 16, 2023 Fiction I wanted to stay friendly enough to get called on the phone and, from time to time, fucked. Having feelings only takes a bit of practice. And, for Fiction: "Angel" by JA Koster Jan 5, 2023 Fiction The half-naked girl is sitting on the edge of the curb, smoking. She’s right ahead of me, which is great because it gives me something to aim for. I Audiobook: "The Goat Man" by Todd Cage Dec 12, 2022 Fiction An experimental piece of audio-fiction by Baltimore's Todd Cage in collaboration with Flynn DiGuardia Fiction: "Dots" by Alex Antiuk Dec 1, 2022 Fiction I knew at any moment during lunch I could be pushed by the wind, or slip getting back up, and that would be that. I actually didn’t mind the "The BRUISER Staff and All Their Special Sticks" by Z.H. Gill (LA Loser) Nov 21, 2022 Fiction BRUISER M. makes a graphic for the poem “Resurrected Concrete” by Z.H. Gill. BRUISER M. posts the poem “Resurrected Concrete” by Z.H. Gill, along Fiction: "Uncle Simms" by Sy Holmes Nov 17, 2022 Fiction My Uncle Simms lives alone out in the country. My Uncle Simms doesn’t drink, but he smokes. Uncle Simms went to correspondence bible college. I "What Godot Forgot" by Erwin Dink Nov 14, 2022 Fiction Show, sitting on a low fly, hurts trying to gone off his ground, ditch hurt at it with both. ESTRAGON panting Moment peers up, you know. Tries hard Fiction: "St. Thomas Memory Care Facility" by Sean Ogilvy Nov 11, 2022 Fiction The bridge of Walter’s nose is terminally scarred and bleeding from where his glasses have cut him after walking into his door each morning. Every Fiction: "Nomadic" by George Oliver Nov 2, 2022 Fiction The world changed that day. Isolation became insulation; ruin became disrepair. At least in terms of Gertrude Tarrow’s understanding of it. Her Fiction: "I became a different person" by Tony Rauch Oct 31, 2022 Fiction I know people who go through changes (some brought on by external forces, some by accident, some by design, some gradual, some that stick, others Fiction: "some more reasons why denby trashed your place" by Tony Rauch Oct 26, 2022 Fiction The blue sky. The wind swirling in the leaves A platypus in the yard. A mysterious looking platypus A girl who moves away A girl he sees from time Fiction: "Sprinkles" by Alex Antiuk Oct 21, 2022 Fiction “What do-ya-do while you wait?” Jimmy asked. He was chewing with his mouth open, on a day old garlic knot the chef said he could have. Jimmy had Fiction: "A Haunting Manifestation of Musicals Composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber" by James Callan Oct 17, 2022 Fiction The old lady who lives in the mansion has 1,000 cats. How many litter boxes she has, no one knows but herself and the ten hundred felines who use Fiction: "The Bad Cowboy" by Michael R. Colangelo Oct 10, 2022 Fiction The interior of the mall lawyer’s office is barren and cold and dark. Plain beige walls with strips of painter’s tape left on the door frames. Susan Prose: "Waiting Room" by Frank A. Esparros Oct 3, 2022 Fiction So this is where you start, ass planted in a blue plastic chair and eyes squinting into a room bathed in fluorescent light, terrible, and the worst Fiction: "The Pit" by Elyn Turne Sep 20, 2022 Fiction There’s no spiral and no staircase, and for those who are sentenced to work on this project there’s no way out. Such as myself. I’ve grown nostalgic Fiction: "The Shape of a Parked Car at Lunch" by Elliot Swain Sep 15, 2022 Fiction But I have to feed the meter! Yet this email chain has gone subcutaneous. “Don’t scratch it,” Walinda barks as she ambles past the plaster wall of Fiction: "The Quarterly" by Tim Paggi Sep 13, 2022 Fiction Out of respect to the departed, we refrained from cheering when the quarterly results arrived, yet waves of pride rippled throughout our division’s Fiction: "Jump Rope" by Jonathan Tuttle Sep 2, 2022 Fiction One end of a jump rope is tied to a sidewalk barrier outside the hotel doors, and the other end is tied to another jump rope, which in turn is tied Fiction: "Mold" by Jonathan Tuttle Aug 31, 2022 Fiction Each night a mold developed around her retainer, blooming from the gap between the plastic halves. She awoke to dime-sized patches of green fur Fiction: "Construction" by Jonathan Tuttle Aug 29, 2022 Fiction A new bridge, deep in the county, would complete the beltway. The crew arrived a few hours after sunset to remove the forms from the second pair of