RIVER STYX ONLINE
FICTION
Along the River
“At the very end of a rutted track that wound from the valley into the foothills lived a man named John Bunting.”
She’s Only a Child
“The sisters were forbidden to touch it their first year because they were learning to stay inside the walls.”
Leaving God on Cuba Street
“Darkness had fallen on Cuba Street with a certainty that felt unusual and unforgiving to Ruth when she disembarked from her bus at six in the evening.”
This is a Photograph of Us
“It is 1987, and we are at a Braves game at Fulton County Stadium on July 4th. In the foreground, Dad squints through large-paned tinted eyeglasses.”
“History of the Miserable Octopus” and Three Other Shorts
“Once, an octopus—many-hearted, hive-brained, boneless, muscular as a cloud—constructed a human form out of cheap materials that he knew would fall apart after eighty years at the most. He floated down into the human body to begin his adventure.”
The Professors: A Novella
“Ours began, like all great love stories, in a critical theory class.”
Octavio’s Story
“The tour guide Octavio has a half-inch brown rectangle of decay between his two front teeth.”
Customer Service
“My grandma Borka referred to one’s other half as an esh, or more precisely iesh, because people in the part of Bulgaria closer to Russia speak in that dialect, softly. Iesh means the second thing in a pair…”
The Animal Cruelty Handbook
“As soon as you see me, net me. Keep me in a cage and jab out my eyes with a pair of golden nail scissors.”
Garden Electricity
“Hand bleeding, he grabs the broken neck of the bottle then tipsily conducts glass shards, cat hair, and spaghetti bits to a pan.”
Clever Girls
“The men filled the hall, reeking and filthy from their journey. Hard sets to their bristled jaws, fists clamped on sword hilts. Muscles bulging. Male power, male presumption.”
An Incomplete Catalog of Disappearance
“The subject of the missing painting is unidentified, though many believe it to be a self-portrait. Although the painting was never recovered, it has been known for years that the painting survived the war and it is not believed lost, but stolen.”
The Stately Old Chemistry Building
“An 1898 photograph from McClellan Hall’s earliest days shows maples, forsythias, and a grove of apple trees flourishing on the quadrangle’s lush natural carpet.”