Fiction
It began with a cough. It came from the next room, formerly their daughter’s but now the “guest” room, though they rarely had guests.
Elizabeth Hendricks' "Counting Crows" won First Place in the 2025 Wisconsin People & Ideas Fiction Contest. Illustrations by Sheila Drefahl
I go by Hortense. At group, last names don’t come up. It’s not officially anonymous, but there is a sense of confidentiality. Unspoken, but understood.
Her decision to live on the porch happens accidentally but not unintentionally in June when the pink star magnolia in the front yard finally blooms. Every year she waits for the blossoms as big as her palm that smell like anise and oranges.
Saukfield in late August gives up the ghost of summer with abrupt abandon. End of day temperatures drop with sudden coolness like an American Spirit extinguished in a leaf-clogged swimming pool. Not much of a swimming pool...
It was the first day of seed collecting at Weber Marsh, and Andy was at the barn early to intercept any overeager volunteers. He had already crossed this mid-September day off his desk calendar; only eight more Saturdays to go, after this one.
For about a month now, my best friend Amanda has been exchanging one hundred texts a day with a man she met at a dinner party.
When I started this final exam reflection/exit essay (which I wonder if you’re even reading) I dialed up the Brahms Alto Rhapsody you played early this semester which you said was so beautiful it made some suicidal writer change his mind, so I gav
Hers is the last vehicle in the funeral home parking lot. Carol makes sure of that before she straps the brass urn with her husband’s ashes into the passenger seat of their pickup truck and sets off for their summer house on Lake Superior.
Willie swung his hammer and missed, smacking his thumb. He mashed his lips together, trying not to swear. He considered the monastery on the hill, and the serenity of the valley where he knelt on top of a storage shed.
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