On "The Crystal Ball" by A.M. Amodeo (4703 words) ***

Pearl is a worrier, and she had good reason to do so. Her husband has a back problem. Her mom has married an old man with health problems of his own. And the best job that Pearl can manage is a shift at a convenience store, not enough to raise one daughter let alone another she'd like to have and really not enough to help support her own cash-strapped mother, who they live with. But one can dream, and that is what Pearl does. "The Crystal Ball" is part of that dream, telling of a future and a way to get there that depends, it seems, on destruction. Good fortune depends on someone else's bad. Read the story here at Fried Chicken and Coffee.

On "Fleshy Things," by Stefanie Freele (310 words) ****

I don't know what it is about reptiles, but they often come up when we get into matters of longing of the sexual variety. Maybe it's the idea that reptiles are this throwback to a supposedly early evolved species, a creature whose bones go back to a time well before any of us mammals. And yet, here we are, full-fledged mammalian creatures, and the same impulse to reproduce is strong within us, so strong that it can pull us toward things that aren't good for us. Here, we're talking a snake handler and a gal, and one of them is going to handle the other. Read the story here at Fried Chicken and Coffee.