

(Fade In):
EXT: PARK BENCH — MORNING
It is grey. Lightly misting. YOU, an attractive young woman, are wearing maroon leggings. Jacket that crops tight above your waist. Hair up. Sunglasses on your head. Putting ...
Illuminated by Andrew Skola
Fiction, LAR Online

This was back when I was dating Ziggy, when I didn’t know any better, about anything. He had this leather jacket—vintage, according to him, and handmade from the most venerable bull on his grandfather’s ...
Mystery Men by Katie Cortese
Fiction, LAR Online

At 5:05 PM, Martha grabs her purse and heads to the exit. Matt Chomsky is staring through the sliding glass doors to the patio, where very occasionally, when it isn’t too windy, Martha’s co-workers will sit at the ...
C Bad Drivers by Kim Magowan
Fiction, LAR Online

The movie is post-apocalyptic. A desolate army outpost sits in the shadow of a giant, rusted-out Ferris Wheel in a barren wasteland.
“No one would ride on that,” my mother leans over and whispers in my ear. ...
Concessions by Elizabeth Stix
Fiction, LAR Online

After our mother died, Gemma, my brother’s girlfriend, moved in. Her situation at home was even more fucked than ours, so I agreed to it, though it’s not like I could really refuse. Mostly, I couldn’t hear the two ...
Temporary Organ by Lauren Slaughter
Fiction, LAR Online

There are three groups of people—the living, the dead, and those at sea.
-attributed to Anacharsis, c. 6th century B.C.
My landlady, Magda, was a ventriloquist. She threw her voice with eerie precision from ...
The Living, The Dead, and Those at Sea by Cary Holladay
Fiction, LAR Online

The air wasn’t working too well, all the windows were open. I wiped down the bar counter. My wrist was bare, but I checked it for the time anyway. There was a clock across the room, but it inaccurately displayed a ...
Seeking the Good of Others
Fiction, LAR Online

In what remained of the marketplace in the small town of Torata, Peru, the Red Cross rescue workers gathered for briefing. Among the rubble left by the earthquake were watermelons with smashed skulls and yelps of color ...
Torata by Zoe Marie Bel
Fiction, LAR Online

Final Judge: Carlos Allende
These Poor Mothers by Vera Chan
They look like my daughter. Sixteen or seventeen, blonde hair that touches their shoul ders, pale faces. The newspaper runs their photographs in black ...