CAR TALK BY RENEE WINTER 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 58

I was stuck in a 1959 Chevy Bel Air on a humid St Louis August afternoon while Jimmy, my mother’s long-term boyfriend and soon-to-be short-term husband, sat at the wheel lecturing my older sister and me on “the birds and bees”.

 END ZONE BY LAURA ROSE DILLON 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 58

The End Zone sign was dingy and white, with faded black letters in a pointy, slanted font. The E and the Z had extra angles coming off their corners, as if they’d just skidded into place.

WHERE THE SPIDERS GO AT NIGHT BY JOHN ALLISON 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 58

A thin black leg appeared on the edge of the bed. A second leg inched slowly over the bed’s edge, section by section, followed by a third leg, a fourth, then more, each moving inexorably toward Bobby, the top of a glistening black soccer ball-sized body blocking the moonlight from the bedroom window as a huge shadow rose on the opposite wall. The stark red hour-glass blotch on the creature’s body came into view as it inched forward.