Category: Short Fiction

Small Talk

by Sarah McLaughlin ’23 Why do I always end up wanting to punch myself in the face after making small talk? This new girl comes into work, and I ask her if it’s still raining because I’m leaving, and she says no, and so I stuff my raincoat into my backpack, awkwardly crouching over in […]

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The True Christmas Spirit

Kate Ward ’23   Dear Diary,  Another day in the workshop—you know, it’s exhausting being an elf. We’re given shoddy tools and forced to work year-round. Do you know how insufferable it is listening to Christmas music all year? The good part is the Big Man sometimes shares letters from the kids with us, so […]

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Invocation of the Muse

Sarah McLaughlin ’23 It’s far too late for me to be lying on my back with my guitar in my lap and thinking about Homer. Olive’s hanging out with some friends. She invited me, but I said no, to no surprise, and she told me to have a good night as she left with her […]

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Girls With Honey-Colored Hair and Owl Eyes

by Taylor Maguire ’24 I watch as my friend Lena packs up for her semester in France. She lines up her wool sweaters and corduroy jeans in a color-coordinated fashion upon her childhood bed. It is very quiet in her room.   “I’m going to die alone,” my best friend Dewey announces, breaking the silence. He […]

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Batman: The Long Halloweekend

by Aidan Lerner ’22   October 30, 10:30 p.m., Pinehurst Avenue, Providence RI 02908 Jack Ryder shuddered as he hustled down the cracked sidewalk of Pinehurst. Even by New England standards, this was one of the colder October nights in recent memory. Jack paused to push his phony glasses up the bridge of his nose […]

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Bloodline

by Toni Rendon ’24 1946   “AGH, WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME?” Helen’s howls bounced off the walls of Packard Manor, causing Howard, the head of staff, to rush to the master bedroom in concern. What happened next could only be described as unearthly. Helen, the mistress of the house, was laying on her back in bed […]

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No Snow in October 

  Photo courtesy of pixabay.com by Kate Ward ’23   It was another October; she had lost track of how many Octobers had come and gone. Her friends and her lovers came and went with it. Victoria was tired. Not just tired—exhausted, drained, defeated. She had been experimenting for years on how to turn her […]

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The Fork Ran Away, But the Spoon Came Back for Revenge

by Sarah McLaughlin ’23   It all started with one simple question: Should you eat mac and cheese with a fork or with a spoon? “A spoon, obviously,” Genevieve says. “It provides the utility for maximum scoopage.” Britney rolls her eyes. “A fork can scoop, too, idiot. And you can stab the noodles. It gives […]

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A Girl named Phoebe, a Boy named Avery, and a Man named Clyde

by Taylor Maguire ’24   The walls of the wooden cabin shuttered as if the ghost of Halloween’s past drifted through it. Everyone else inhibiting the lodge fell into a deep hushed tone out of fear that any loudly exchanged words would cause us all to be consumed by snow. The wall by the kitchen […]

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Boy

by Kate Ward ’23   The painting had been sitting across from the Greek statue for the past 50 or so years, and she had never grown tired of looking at him. His body was strong but not in the ways women liked now; he was strong like a field hand or someone with a […]

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