Literary short stories by established and emerging writers. Excerpts: Ingrid Hill Pavilion A tent maker has just completed a job for the army, the construction of several officers' tents for field maneuvers. He is carrying brown canvas, a color just a little too rich, a little too beautiful, for the army. But dye lots are irregular. What can one do? Jennifer Anne Moses Duty Free He remembered a time when he was maybe eleven or twelve when he'd suddenly been seized by the conviction that he was going to die, and soon, too. Horatio Potter Summer Help Hiram wondered if these infestations and the twisting of weather were somehow connected to the newcomers, the sweeping in of unknown people filling the once wide-open spaces with the many things they owned--SUVs and four-door pickups, camper trailers, ATVs, motorbikes, horse trailers, trout boats, canoes--the entirety of leisure retail splendor. Christine Sneed Twelve + Twelve Someone in the alley three stories below my window was calling out to someone else, and what he was saying was not very nice. Maybe he did it because we were all stuck in an ugly, listless March, ice visible everywhere and clinging to our lawns like a dense gray scum. Matthew Salesses The Grief Ministry Pages of grief ministry research were spread out on the floor around me, near Sue Ellen's bed. I was asking God to help me be a better first responder. Noa Jones Brother Ron He was a steady man, meaty but refined, carrying his large frame with delicacy. Fish bones in pudding. Nam Le Interview by Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabalais I don't want any of my stories to be a proof of me getting a place right. That's not what the stories are about. But neither do I want to give any well-meaning reader the opportunity to be jolted out of their suspension because I didn't get the place right. Judy Troy Cactus On the third night his symptoms returned; he stopp