Rumpus Original Fiction: Of Separation
But in that same instant, as she turned, his smile froze.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction
Rumpus Original Fiction: What Happens to Girls
There is pleasure in his eyes that is not just good acting.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Wild Animals
I searched in its beady eyes and tried to find a motherly warmth.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Biswell and Hope Get a Dog, A Story in Three Epiphanies
He barks at Coco. Coco barks back.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Biswell and Hope and the Job, A Story in Five Epiphanies
I’d love to prove that I can sell windows.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Biswell and Hope, the Surprise Pregnancy, Conception
“You’re a bomb,” Biswell says to Hope.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: First Love
We met in a dorm hallway, half past midnight.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Clockwork
Turn the corner, let the darkness swallow you, and you’re in the stacks.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: The Howard County Rapture
It was a Friday morning at 9:34 a.m. when the Rapture occurred.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: The Witch House
What was I now? A witness? A victim? A mother? A suspect?
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: The Mother We Share
This is what happens when I listen. I react.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Ojalá
There is an irony that sometimes rings Mona like a bell.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Biswell and Hope, Christmas: A Story in Four Epiphanies
She can really throw herself into a stoning.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Mr. Burley
My favorite was usually the smallest, the most alive.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Where to Find Him
It felt like the sun beating down on closed eyelids.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: The Christmas Party
I laugh. My laugh, this thing that sounds better on somebody else.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Two Flash Fictions by Andrea Passwater
Could scars be daughters? The hands don’t understand why I am asking this.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: On the Last Day, the Ancestors Came
If this were the end, May needed to see.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Shelter in Place
I tell Kurinda I’d lie flat on the floor under a pile of jackets.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Em
For her twenty-first birthday, Kiều’s younger siblings set fire to her bed.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Someone Will Come and Get Us
It always feels like I’m making a mistake on purpose.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Gauri Kalyanam
Her heartbeat is a history folded into a vessel.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: The Softest Part
We sleep and we pretend to sleep. We wait for the day to turn into night.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Sabbath
There’s something about stillness that always comes just before the miracles.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Sardines
The house, for the first time this weekend, is quiet.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Habitat
The airless bubble expanding over their yard now included him. He could hardly breathe.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Forty-Six
Waiting to turn forty-six is like standing in the unrelenting sunshine.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Three Flash Fictions by Niyah Morris
The lasso was a gaping mouth that opened wide enough, we hoped, to swallow the cloud.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: A World in a Box
Saturday is a desert in a motel.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Infatuation
Until it is awkward. Until it is disturbing. Until she cracks.
...more