The Five-Two

ALLOW ME Let me introduce you to Allergens. Let me open the door to invisible vibrancy. Was my name only that? I don’t care for it, that m...

L.A. NOCTURNE It’s 2 AM & we’re coffee-drunk in a Waffle House off the highway that cuts across Alabama like an old scar. We eat heart...

MURDER MAYBE Harold Cockring Fizzlebotts got arrested for murder. He had a sharpee lawyer, who asked Harold if he had indeed killed Grady...

RED ON SILVER It's running right out of me...running right out, beside me, onto the floor. I did nothing to him...I walked past him, t...

A SPLIT MIND IS CONVENIENT TO HIDE THE AXE Nobody will identify the glitter of the buried axe in the darkness of the split mind. Nobody ev...

For Day 29 of the Cruelest Poetry Month , Catherine Moore promotes her collection Borrowings of the Shan Van Vocht . —Gerald So Slip into...

POLICING I drop my mask, prepared to lift it up over my mouth and nose when necessary, caught by someone passing a safe distance from wher...

I DIED A THOUSAND TIMES: DEATH #4 "Mrs. Allagash is here," Violet my secretary buzzes from the outer office, I say, "Gimme ...

PICNIC Mist hung in the air; the lake glinted silver in the early light. Turner wore a suit, but the trousers were creased where his knees...

YOU TELL ME Some people need killing. You know who my object of opprobrium is: the plump-faced misogynist who moved in down the street. Be...

CARDBOARD JUSTICE Dawn greeted by corpse of seventeen-year-old girl on sidewalk, bearing signs of torture, placard on her breasts reads, ...

HABITUAL In light that interrupts winter the writer pursues foreign mysteries. This statement is not metaphor. She, the writer, has becom...

GUNSELS NEED NOT APPLY Distraught blonde bombshell seeks detective. The usual tropes. Cheating husband gone missing. Accounts emptied. Lat...

UP AND DOWN AT THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING 103 stories - 34 suicides - he slid the note into her coat pocket in the world’s 9th fastest elev...

UNFASTENING A HOOK STUD You would be the groom, cleaning the bridle conscientiously, taking the whole thing apart to wipe off the dirt and...

MARILYN MONROE After her death, a forty kilogram wax double was made. Her dress and her underwear, alone, totaled $1,500. Viktor Zharkovsk...

AUNT JEMIMA AND ME I hear my heart pumping. No car in the driveway. Door’s open. Walk right in, head for bedroom, open top drawer. "T...

I'm happy to introduce this occasional feature by interviewing of Rauan Klassnik, who was featured at The 5-2 in August 2012 , and whos...

[UNTITLED] She crept up behind you & tied yr hands behind yr back. Pulled yr pants off, & started to jerk you off. Fields of cloud...

IN A FLASH OF LIGHT His memory is frozen in a department photo—thick mustache, tall bobby's hat, tunic buttons gleaming—the camera...