LAURA VAN DEN BERG’S ORIGINAL: ACROBAT The day my husband left me, I followed a trio of acrobats around the city of Paris. The whole time my husband had been talking—telling me, presumably, why he was leaving—I was watching these acrobats do backflips and handstands in synchrony, an open violin case at their feet. They…

MATT BELL’S ORIGINAL: Matt Bell’s “Kidd, Kier, Kimball” is found at Alice Blue here. + THE REMIX: WHEN OUR WORLD BECOMES A WORLD OF LEATHER Another alligator rain falls, these alligators dumped from the complicated sky, alligators plummeting to pelt our valleys as we run from awning to awning, alligators collapsing home porches and alligators…

GREGORY SHERL’S ORIGINAL: THE OREGON TRAIL IS MADE IN CHINA I keep the plastic Jesus on the dashboard of the wagon. At the Kansas River crossing I ask Him Do I ford the river or caulk my wagon, let the current take me home? The plastic Jesus is tired & I understand why: we are…

STEVEN BREYAK’S ORIGINAL: AN OVERLOOKED TRIBE IN RURAL PENNSYLVANIA Walking in the woods behind my childhood home I came across a tribe of little people. Well, they were maybe 4-foot-something on average but definitely small enough to group them in a tribe. That, and they were wearing strange clothes and pointing spears at me. They…

MOLLY GAUDRY’S ORIGINAL: HALLOWEEN SESTINA A small pirate hops in and out of a hunchback-shaped shadow on Stricker Street, beneath flickering gaslight lamps. A pumpkin full of candy hangs from the pirate’s hand. Blood-hued leaves fall to the ground and scatter in the evening breeze. The hunchback saunters to atonal notes of a violin coming…

MATTHEW SALESSES’ ORIGINAL: Matthew Salesses’ “Nicky Boy and Baby Girl Are Illustrated” is found at American Short Fiction here. + THE REMIX: THE TOP HALVES OF MOUTHS Nicky boy: Saw the police car first. His real name _________. His visions after he caught malaria in India of women shrunk to frogs, floors steeped a 60ft…

CRAIG MEDVECKY’S ORIGINAL: 2ND CONTACT I. Aliens voyage the cosmos eating microwaves for fuel and food. They live in a dark world, drifting across the void into the inferno—half in darkness half in light. Their jet engines are built right into their bodies. Like fish, they travel horizontally relative to the longest axis of their…

CHARLES DODD WHITE’S ORIGINAL: THE SWEET SORROWFUL Stoned, still good and stoned, Pendergast lost himself in the highest peak of things— celestial alignments and divinations, the verities of a fate beyond his ken. The stuff, in short, of Real Bitchslapping Truth. It came to him as he stared out at the languid trout fins, gently…

ANDY DEVINE’S ORIGINAL: PLOTS A, a, and, and, and, and, and, anything, at, aunt’s, away, backseat, brother, brother, burial, but, buy, California, cemetery, did, didn’t, dining, drove, each, else, family, family, father, father, father, for, four, from, front, got, her, him his, house, house, house, huge, hung, I, in, in, in, in, in, in, included,…

AMBER SPARKS’ ORIGINAL: THE SLEEPERS Ancient dreams cling like crumbs to the mouths of the sleepers. They mutter and twitch, chasing after phantom women, fragments of words, half-drunk goblets of wine. This is what the sleepers find outside of history: a weakness in repose for which there is no cure but dreaming. The dreams of…

JAMES TADD ADCOX’S ORIGINAL: THE RISE OF DR. FU-MANCHU Fu-Manchu has made the blunder common to all men of unusual genius. “How are you, Phil?” “You are just the one I want to meet. Didn’t you tell me once you would like to buy my gun?” “Yes. Want to sell it?” “No, I don’t; but…

ANDREW BORGSTROM’S ORIGINAL: FROM: AROUND HERE Effect Around here, they master the art of speaking to each other about another with the another present and unaware of the direction or intention of the speaking. The speech between the others turns outward as well as inward, inward from the another and outward about the another, so…