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Posts by tag

short fiction

399 posts
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: The Anniversary

  • Cathy Mellett
  • July 3, 2023
There lay her gift, basking in the sunlight. A gray-green lizard the size of a shoe. It stood so still she thought it was fake.
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Prescriptions

  • Ruth Madievsky
  • May 22, 2023
I wore sobriety like a shirt that was too tight in the shoulders, and everyone around me knew it.
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: The Bad Kind of Puppy

  • Rita Chang-Eppig
  • April 17, 2023
That was when she realized: the ticking was coming from inside herself.
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Any Good Wife

  • Ada Zhang
  • April 10, 2023
Airong’s voice was stern, matter-of-fact. “I’m pregnant.”
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Em

  • Johanna Dong
  • April 3, 2023
For her twenty-first birthday, Kiều’s younger siblings set fire to her bed.
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Even the Moon

  • Esmé-Michelle Watkins
  • March 13, 2023
When you finished, several minutes passed before we spoke. You dipped a finger in a pool of candle wax. How could I know this was the only real secret you’d ever kept?
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Lunch Money

  • Gabrielle Rucker
  • February 20, 2023
Out here on the balcony, perched three stories above the ground, we’re in her world.
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Emergency Lifeboats: 24 (12 on Each Side)

  • Joseph Santaella Vidal
  • January 16, 2023
“What’s a six-letter word for ignoring truth,” she might say, without looking up from the puzzle.
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archive: Rumpus Original Fiction: Three Flash Fictions by Niyah Morris

  • Niyah Morris
  • January 2, 2023
The lasso was a gaping mouth that opened wide enough, we hoped, to swallow the cloud.
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archive: Rumpus Original Fiction: No Good

  • Hala Alyan
  • December 26, 2022
The sounds that she would expect here are entirely absent. There are no cries, no weeping. Just soothing, muffled tones.
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archive: Rumpus Original Fiction: Mr. Burley

  • T Kira Madden
  • November 28, 2022
My favorite was usually the smallest, the most alive.
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  • Fiction
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archive: Rumpus Original Fiction: An Other Man

  • Alejandro Varela
  • October 10, 2022
This is a carousel that never slows to a point where you can board gracefully.
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The Rumpus publishes original fiction, poetry, literary humor writing, comics, essays, book reviews, and interviews with authors and artists of all kinds. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers our readers may already know and love. We want to bring new perspectives into the conversation that will make us all look deeper.

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