Jeremy Ray

You wouldn’t know Josh and Luke had profound Tinder chats. They stare out at the fancy servers. The fancy meals. The fancy water features. Anywhere but each other.​ Had either asked, the other would have confessed they found their date painfully beautiful. They’d have had many magical dates, married, lived out a beautiful romance. ​ […]

Trista assumed the package was another gift sent for her daughter’s 24th birthday, one Trista would have to return with a note informing the sender of her daughter’s death. But the box was addressed to her in her daughter’s handwriting. Trista didn’t open it. As long as it was sealed, her daughter still lived. On

Mo wished to be beautiful like his muse siblings. He came from a long line of great ideas. Artists battled to take his siblings home; not Mo. He was short, squat, fanged, and covered in barnacles, but he knew he was the idea of a century. Door to door, he went, pitching himself. An old

Jenny draws the curtains so a thin line of light pierces the darkness. You trip, and you’ll turn to ash, Aldous always warned. Would that be so bad, silly old vampire? she’d kid. He’d smile, watching her hands play with the light as humans do with a flame. She never missed a morning in her 300

Old Mrs. Grimwald spied on old Mrs. Bloom, toiling away in her yard: how arrogantly her sworn enemy preened her garden. Mrs. Grimwald “harrumphed” down the ladder; she’d be damned if Mrs. Bloom won Year’s Best Garden a fifth year in a row. This was Mrs. Grimwald’s year. And it would have been. See, Mrs.

It had been a particularly bountiful crop season that year, for all the families. How that sun had shown on the golden grain. “We won’t go hungry this year,” Mama said. The locusts came soon after, turning daylight into darkness. I can still hear the flutter of their million wings, and feel the prick and

They found Blue Boy. No matter where he hid, they always did, eventually. ​ They beat him deeper hues of blue and walked away. But he got to his feet and said: “I’m beyond bullies, always will be.” ​ Every day they beat him, and every day he stood and said, “I’m beyond bullies, always

Greta never feared walking home. On her sunset strolls, she’d greet Amos, the burly homeless man, and give him five dollars. Then off she’d walk, alone. But tonight Greta runs. She stayed at work after hours, and now footsteps in the dark have caught up to her. Just as the masked man grabs her, Amos

Birds stop trilling as the elephants near the sun-bleached bones. The savannah seems to silence itself for its gentle giants. ​ With their trunks, they delicately lift the bones of their beloved matriarch. With their trunks, they trace the jaw and teeth of the mouth they used to greet. With their trunks, they soothe her

Tears cloud Trista’s eyes. So many people sing “Happy Birthday” to her daughter for her 24th birthday. Gracie rests her head on her mom’s shoulder and Trista hears her as a five-year-old again. “The angels take me away on my 24th birthday.” Gracie still believes she’ll die. Has she told any of her singing friends?