Edison's Oyster

By John Waddy Bullion

Thomas Edison was not fond of allowing his work to cross over into his domestic life, except for the time he beckoned his second wife, Mina, to come sit beside him at his workbench, where he helped her hook electrodes up to an oyster and deliver low-voltage shocks into the creature until its shell opened, disgorging a gleaming, white, opaque pearl the same size and circumference of the ball bearings the perennially sleep-deprived Edison was fond of cupping in his hands whenever he felt himself succumbing to exhaustion, so that he could instead drift into the twilight state of consciousness where he believed genius and inspiration were the most accessible, the same ball bearings that would would drop from his palms as he teetered on the precipice of deep, dumbfounded sleep, clatter noisily to the floor, and shock him awake.

John Waddy Bullion’s writing has appeared in BULL, HAD, X-R-A-Y, the Texas Review, Hunger Mountain, and Vol 1. Brooklyn, among other fine places, and his debut collection of short stories, This World Will Never Run Out of Strangers, is forthcoming from Cowboy Jamboree Press in November 2025.

Art by Lisa McLemore, an artist, poet, and photographer living in Washington DC.

Before We Even Light the Candles

By Andrew Cothren

Panic grips the birthday magician's face as the rope of scarves coming from his mouth shows no sign of stopping; the children scream.

Andrew Cothren is a Chicago-based writer whose work has appeared in Redivider, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Yalobusha Review, fields, and The Atlas Review.

Art by Andrew Cothren.

Jour de Repos

By Katie Shireen Assef

She calls the same hospital that sometimes dials her in to interpret for tourists with pink eye or bronchitis or allergic reactions to the mustard in everything, only this isn’t urgent care, but imaging, she’s been having headaches that wake her in the night and, once, in line at the fromagerie, a dizzy spell so bad she had to lean against the display case for support, the little wheels of camembert looming up through the glass, and when the voice on the phone announces that for the test her doctor had ordered—just to rule a few things out—there is currently a wait list of four to six weeks, without thinking she repeats the words back in English, then stops and laughs and apologizes loudly in French, and the voice raps out “We will call you, madame,” over the clacking of keys, and the voice sucks air into its teeth, and the voice hangs up (or the line disconnects) before she can interpret this, too, to herself.

Katie Shireen Assef reads, writes, and translates from French and Italian on a floral print sofa in Marseille, France.

Art by Katie Shireen Assef.