By Jullian Ambrosegreen

Dare Devil Dogs
and Cupie Dolls

"Clutching our beggared coin, we passed through the temporary gates of heaven together, mouths open to receive the sacrament of dust that rose from our own anxious steps. We were breathless, dazed by splashes of color, shrill unfamiliar music, the smell of fried onions, and adventure that beckoned, beckoned, beckoned."

By Bettina Tison Bennett

Moods of White

"She was one of those rare people who knew how to walk. She didn't feel the need to ruin it by talking, or the need to hurry up and rush to where she was going. She just walked—even with her seven-month-old fetus bouncing away on her innards—and soaked in all the sounds and smells and energy of living. I loved walking with her."

By Tom Conoboy

Wonder About Yourself

"It was only then, when he had resolved to stop, that Nathaniel Toussaint began to feel genuinely sad. He cried when the music played, he cried because it stopped. He tried to listen to the second Gnossienne but it sounded happy, and that happiness made him feel guilty. He played the third Gnossienne but its inferiority made him despair."

By Mary Estrada

Temperance
(a cautionary tale)

~Editor's Prize Winner~

"On the walk back from the mercado, you talk Misty into letting you drink your first shot out of her navel. You are influenced by the rituals of human sacrifice, the Chac Mool at Chichen Itza, but also by the idea of ritualizing her body, which has been one of the enduring pleasures of this long, strange trip."

By Zdravka Evtimova

Natalie

"She often walked along the narrow platform, sat on the bench on which dozens of guys had scrawled dirty words and others had scratched out many versions of "Ivan + Tanya = love." But Veta didn't read the dirty remarks and didn't calculate who plus who made love. Her loneliness was soft and quiet; there were ravens and sunlight in it and warm empty rails that reached the end of Bulgaria and went on to the clouds in Greece."

By Margaret Frey

By Mere Reflection

"Not even the nectar of the gods tasted sweet enough. Not the statues of the men who had come or the flirting shades of those who would come made the passage of time bearable. Immortality was the cruelest gift."

By C.S. Fuqua

Magic

~Editor's Prize Winner~

"Another person approached the box, an elderly man in a kimono who handed the attendant money, bent low, peeked in, then laughed with a certain innocence. How can anyone, Hiroko wondered, laugh so easily? The man bowed gratitude and shuffled away, giving his head an amused shake, swinging his arms more freely than before."

By Darrin McCloskey

fregata magnificens

"He can see the people on the boat waving to a cluster of people gathered along the shore; they return the gesture by waving and shouting; their voices carry along the water. He finds it amusing how people, when on the sea, always tend to look ashore, and how people along the shore always tend to look out to sea."

By Janet Paszkowski

The Whirlpool Galaxy

"I readjust my telescope and focus in tight on three young women with planetary breasts soaking under the stars in the hotel's outdoor whirlpool. I try to imagine what I would say if I wandered down to the dim courtyard and got into the whirling water with them; have you read any good books lately takes on a whole new meaning now that my reading material includes titles like The Child Custody Checklist for Men."

By Bruce Holland Rogers

Jerry

"On slow days at the water utility, which is most days, she reads. Sometimes one of her classmates will come in with a billing problem, and if she greets them by name they are likely to give her a blank look, as if they aren't sure where they know her from."

By Kay Sexton

Mother Moment

"I was having a mother moment. I'd decided that this is what the ante-natal classes were really for. Not for the few short hours of pain or Pethidine that knit the experience of birth to the common quilt of female stories, but for the years you spend remembering to breathe in, breathe out, while the world reels away from your grasp and leaves you holding the nappies, the coats, the regrets: all the detritus of reality. "

By Michael Wright

Brother Roach

"As I brushed my teeth I watched my face in the mirror. If I stretched out my jaw I could see fine white scars beneath my beard. They looked like a map of a territory I didn't recognize. I thought again about a baby. Another screamer would be good."