Issue 55

Blistering in the wrath of 110-degree sunshine? Flummoxed by monsoon rains in Missouri, the buzz of Zika mosquitos on your Brooklyn stoop, canoes bobbing in your DC streets? Oppressed by the yammer of Talking Heads, congressional loggerheads, relatives who bite off your head when you replay the Women’s World Cup just. one. more. time.?

Take a breath. Crawl out of the oven. Shake off the squall. Douse yourself with AfterBite, and stack the paddles against your easy chair. For godssake, turn off the TV; stop streaming; lock Uncle Charlie in the kitchen with a ham sandwich and a beer.

Vestal Review has the cure for The Summertime Blues:

Open Issue 55.

Whoa. Eleven stories. Eleven—count ‘em—stories.

And what stories.

Righteous, satirical, contemplative; poetic, mysterious, tragic, hilarious. This particular viewer declares: I cried; I laughed out loud (not just an LOL). I gasped; I nodded; I scratched my head. I gnawed my gnails. Raw-brained at 3 a.m., I took a flashlight to my bedroom closet.

I keened to the heavens: Why can’t I write stuff like this?!?

Take a breath…

Ommmmmm…

Seriously, you really should read Issue 55.

Immediately.

— Susan O’Neill

Detective Story by Abigail Oswald

If You Give a Millennial a Cubicle by Feliz Moreno

After Happiness by Nancy Ludmerer

Maskmaker, Fallen on Hard Times by Jamie Cooper

Since She Could No Longer Say I love You by Minyoung Lee

Some Day My Prince Will Come and Chew Me in His Giant Maw by Helen McClory

What Belongs to Us by Marisa Crane

Momma Like a Magpie by Adam Straus

Empty Space by Patrick M. Hare

What I Thought About When You Fell Off the Mountain by Molly Lanzarotta

The Angel Who Will End Time by Tom Elliott