Keyhole 3 - Available Now
Contents
Shellie Zacharia |
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Stitch - excerpt
Stitch, by Shellie Zacharia
In fourth grade, Ruthie Fowler got hit in the head with a baseball bat out on the PE field. Smack, just like that. She was too close to the batter, or maybe she was bent low, the crouching catcher. Poor Ruthie Fowler, who must have howled, and the players must have howled, and Brian Delaney, the batter, must have hung his head in shame and run off to hide under the banyan tree out in right field.
But I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I was inside my classroom, most likely figuring numbers, learning to memorize five times five, five times six, my voice with the others, little multiplying birds, peep, peep, twenty-five and thirty. And so I didn’t know the score of the game and I didn’t know Ruthie Fowler was rushed to the hospital or that Brian Delaney cried and Coach Wilson counted blessings and prayers...
Full Story: 1,610 words
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Blake Butler |
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Chris Farley
Nancy Spungen
Sharon Tate
Tupac Shakur
Andy Kaufman
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Dennis Mahagin |
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Pop Song
Jacks with Creeley
The Flip Side of Palmistry
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Tim Keppel |
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Interview
Pilgrimage - excerpt
Pilgrimage, by Tim Keppel
I wasn’t sure why I invited Blake Vandermere down to visit. Or rather, why I allowed him to invite himself. Julieta and I barely even knew the guy, having met him only once through my cousin Sonny on a trip to Philadelphia. Plus, nobody came to visit us in Colombia. The ones who had the money were too afraid and the ones who wanted to come had no money. Blake was the exception. He had the money and he prided himself on being fearless.
I wrote back saying we’d planned a trip over New Year’s to San Marcos Island; he was welcome to come along. Why did I do it? Maybe because in the eight years I’d been down here, teaching at an under-funded public university, the only person who’d come to visit me was my cousin Sonny. In fact, it was Sonny who was supposed to be visiting us that Christmas, not Blake.
Only Sonny was dead.
I was still on shaky ground. I couldn’t think of the future or remember the past, or listen to Miles Davis because all those things reminded me of Sonny. But I figured that maybe Blake was going through the same thing. He and I were the two people closest to Sonny at the end.
“Invite him,” Julieta said. “Maybe it’ll do you good.” ...
Full Story: 8,809 words
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Rosanne Griffeth |
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The Wrath of God
The Chihuahua Cure
Sinners
Lilly of the Holler - excerpt
Lilly of the Holler, by Rosanne Griffeth
A red-tail hawk had marked her. The claw-shaped birthmark on her neck, under her earlobe, flushed when she got mad. Truth be told, redheaded Lilly was a live wire. The mark showed red more often than not.
Some liked to tell the tale of her great grandmother who was found in a hawk’s nest and raised by the Finney family up on Sol Messer Mountain. Some said the mark came from there. And some said her mother saw a hawk take a hen out of the yard not three feet from her when she was carrying.
They laughed about the time Creed Jasper took a bet he could steal a kiss from Lilly. Creed ate a June bug for five cents once on a dare, not being the brightest of boys. He never could resist a bet.
Creed sidled up to Lilly after church one Sunday but before he could peck her on the cheek, Lilly reared back like a wild horse and punched him in the nose. He lay in the dust bleeding and whimpering, “It weren’t nothin’! Tweren’t nothin’!”
Lilly stood with her hands on her hips—scorn on her face. She stomped off, green eyes flashing and birthmark flaming.
Full Story: 723 words
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Elizabeth Ellen |
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Emergency Landings - excerpt
Emergency Landings, by Elizabeth Ellen
Last time I picked up the kid I asked him when he’d last been to the doctor and he told me he had an appointment Tuesday and asked did I want to take him. I said, sure. I didn’t have anything else to do Tuesday. Even if I did, I would have changed my plans. He can’t miss an appointment. They only see him once every three months as it is, which isn’t nearly enough if you ask me. Of course, no one ever does; no one ever did. Not even when we were married. Everything was always so secretive, “patient confidentiality” bullshit. I didn’t hear a diagnosis for three years. But you can sort of figure this stuff out on your own, if you want. After the second hospitalization I bought one of those big, fat psychiatric encyclopedias, the kind that costs around sixty dollars and breaks your back. It told me pretty much all I needed to know. More.
He told me nine thirty and it’s nine twenty-four. I’m always early. It bugs the shit out of me when people are late. I can’t stand waiting. But he’s ready. Probably been waiting by the door half an hour. He wants to get this shit over and done with. I know that’s what he’s thinking. He always thinks like this. He throws his backpack in first and plants his feet on either side. The backpack’s tattered and worn and the Question Reality pin I gave him years back, back when he was eighteen and I was twenty-five, is rusted and barely legible, but he’s still slinging it over his shoulder. I’ve never known him to go anywhere without it. He says he likes to be prepared. This is why he sleeps fully clothed. Just in case. You never know when something might happen, he says. He wasn’t always like this. In the beginning we slept nude.
Full Story: 2,210 words
And the War Raged On |
Brian Brown |
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Fire in the Wiregrass
Looking for the Boy Who Never
Grew Up
Paddling Toward Red Bluff |
Monica Kilian |
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Mrs. Chatterjee's Mangos - excerpt
Mrs. Chatterjee's Mangos, by Monica Kilian
One evening in early spring, after her husband had fallen asleep in front of the television, Padma Chatterjee decided she wanted to grow mangos.
She shook her husband’s shoulder. "Mr. Chatterjee,”—she liked to address him formally whenever she wanted his full attention—“there's something I need to tell you."
Her husband grunted, fighting back a snore that threatened to claw him back into sleep.
"I've decided to plant a mango tree,” she said.
Horatio Chatterjee squeezed the sleep from his eyes. "What for?"
"I miss having one in the garden, like I did at home. I know it’s difficult to grow mangos here in Colorado, but why not try? Then we can have mango chutney again.”
Her husband wasn’t partial to mangos. They were either too soft or too hard, too sweet or too tart, and he hated the way their stringy flesh got stuck in his teeth. "What's wrong with peach chutney?"
His wife jutted out her chin. "I can’t stand peach chutney. I'm sick of peaches. They and their furry skin—it’s disgusting!" Her voice grew shriller with every word, until she was practically shouting at him...
Full Story: 3,975 words
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Joshua Diamond |
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Pumpernickel - excerpt
Pumpernickel, by Joshua Diamond
“Plant your feet shoulder-width apart. Bend the knees slightly. A little more. That’s it. Then just swing the bat like there’s no tomorrow.
“No, not like that. Here, let me show you.” She took the bat from me, and our hands touched for just a moment, mine clammy with sweat. I imagined her dropping the sweaty handle in disgust, but she didn’t. “Like this, are you watching?” Her stance was awkward. The bat rested limply on her left shoulder. Her legs locked straight, knees almost inverted, she leaned back to support the weight of the Louisville Slugger. She twisted her torso and raised the barrel slightly off her shoulder. “Bang!” she shouted and swung out in front of her in a slow, clumsy arc that fell with a thud to the ground. She looked down through her straight black bangs at the head of the bat, buried in the dirt.
Full Story: 6,507 words
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Contributor Bios
BRIAN BROWN has recently published or has poetry forthcoming in Quercus Review, Kudzu, Roanoke Review, Santa Clara Review, and Inkwell, among others. He formerly worked as a historian with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources but now helps out on his family's seventy-five-year-old farm. He's presently developing a photographic archive of Georgia in the Great Depression.
BLAKE BUTLER is the editor of Lamination Colony. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fence, Unsaid, Ninth Letter, Willow Springs, etc. He lives in Atlanta and blogs at:
http://blakebutler.blogspot.com.
JOSHUA DIAMOND lives in Akron, OH and studies English, Creative Writing, and Sociology at Kent State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Allegheny Review, Brink Magazine, Cause & Effect, and Taiga. He was recently awarded third prize in the 2008 Wick Poetry Center Undergraduate Scholarship Competition, and he is the fiction editor of Plain Spoke, the quarterly literary journal of Amsterdam Press.
ELIZABETH ELLEN is the author of Before You She Was a Pit Bull (Future Tense) and Sixteen Miles Outside of Phoenix (Rose Metal Press). She is the deputy editor of Hobart and lives in Ann Arbor.
ROSANNE GRIFFETH's work has been published or accepted by Cautionary Tale, Static Movement, The Dead Mule, Dew on the Kudzu, Feministe and Hillbilly Savants. Her story, “Cat Fur Jelly,” was nominated for the 2006 Million Writer's Award. She lives on the verge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with her herd of goats and spends most of her time writing and documenting Appalachian culture. This is her first print publication. She is the blogger behind The Smokey Mountain Breakdown.
TIM KEPPEL's stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, The Literary Review, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere. The Spanish translation of his collection, Earthquake Watch, was recently published by Alfaguara. Keppel grew up in North Carolina and has been a taxi driver in New York, a peace group volunteer in Nicaragua, and a social worker in Philadelphia. He now teaches at the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia.
Monica Kilian’s fiction has appeared in Café Irreal, Pindeldyboz, Margin, QWF, The Rose & Thorn, and others. She has recently moved from Australia to Colorado, where she lives with her husband, son, and two cats. She is currently working on a women's fiction novel.
http://www.monicakilian.net
DENNIS MAHAGIN is a poet from the Pacific Northwest. His work appears widely, both on the Web and in print. A first collection of his poetry, entitled Grand Mal, is forthcoming in 2009 from San Francisco-based Suspect Thoughts Press.
SHELLIE ZACHARIA has published stories in Hobart, Opium, Backwards City Review, Potomac Review, Inkwell, Washington Square, The Pinch, and elsewhere. She teaches in Gainesville, Florida.
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