By Karen Aschenbrenner

Shifting Strategy

“The best part of chaos was its predictability. It came out of order, making sense of the non-order, cleaning the whole place up bit.”

By Stefanie Freele

The Topography of a Wake

“To avoid her husband's casket, Virginia counts her family members and places them outside in the landscape.”

By Mark Joseph Kiewlak

Ready to See

“I got up out of bed and went out into the street. There was no movement, no sound. . . . The world was frozen in place and I did not think this strange.”

By Rebecca Mueller

Musing

“I don't know what to say next, or how to describe him without sounding all literary and highbrow and artificial, but—he's the monk who writes the history of the world.”

By Levi Pendleton

Bobcats at My Door

“The door made an odd sound upon opening, as if it were not satisfied with the manner in which I opened it. I looked down and saw three bobcats looking up at me. One was quite certainly smiling . . .”

By Reihana MacDonald Robinson

Transilience

“One minute her husband was almost on the bridge, walking through spring greenery, smelling wild roses and late daffodils. As she was looking at him, he disappeared.”

By Lee Upton

~Editors' Prize Winner~

The Floating Woman

“I've felt close to you always, even after you left us. I've felt this way most in moments resembling this one, after I plow into the lake and turn over on my back and float, and dog paddle and float, thinking this is the suspension between worlds, that I'm neither here nor there.”