Recommended Reading From Online Magazines

No long, drawn-out intro today. Just five tickets (that’s right, Eddie, not two) to paradise. Enjoy.

– He starts slurping on the big toe of the right foot; the left foot finished. She feels his tongue, a big, wet slippery eel, wrap around and tug; lick, lap, like her toe’s a snow cone. She thinks about this. A snow cone would be refreshing in this heat. Take her mind off the slobbering man kneeling below her. – Jules Archer in PANK

– Penny had a thing for bus drivers. Each morning as she dropped her quarters into the metal box, hearing that click-slide, her heart flittered soft, then hard. She loved their strongly spread feet, their hands circling the life-sized steering wheel. These were men she trusted. – G.L. Grey in Bluestem Magazine

– First it was one game winner takes all and then it became two out of three. Next he said even the world series is best four of seven. He keeps track in his little yellow spiral notebook but I only get to see the cover. I find it hard to believe that I’m always, well mostly always winning, and yet, after all these years I haven’t been declared the better gin player. – Paul Beckman in The Scruffy Dog Review

– Thirty minutes just to prepare Mrs. McAllister for her weekly shower. Ten to help her out of the bed and out of her housedress, ten more to help her down the hallway to the bathroom, and a final ten to get her situated on her shower seat. Today was the day to bathe her and Winsome could find no way of getting out of it. – Amina Gautier in Torch

– I can smell it. Only faintly since they’re pumped full of plastic, but there’s the unmistakable smell of a body. Of death. Behind the bodies, the walls are white. One of those non-rooms used for everything from symphonies to makeshift morgue. It’s empty except for me and this older girl. Which is good. I hope I look passably normal, but I feel weird and bloated. My hands, my guts, my thoughts. I should leave, but I don’t. – Celena Hill in Conte