Jessica Afshar’s “The Lake” is startling with its series of absences: a drowning child, a distraught mother, a missing father, and a Dive Rescue Specialist on an absurd search of his own. The sentences are often abrupt and startling, but asks readers to consider the connections between death and survival.
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“Ullswater – Lake District” Emma Barr, used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Christine Hamm’s “answers” raise more questions than answers. Who is she talking to? What is being asked? Why are the thumbs sewn together? Still, it leaves you asking questions about our own connections. The language is blunt and even a little curt, but with a tinge of desperation for any sort of meaning in our lives.
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“Notebook”
Rudolf Vicek, used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The best humor often comes from horrifying ironies. In Lauren Foss Goodman’s “Frank and the Shark,” Frank is not just an old man who doesn’t understand cell phones, as that would be too easy. Instead, she intertwines Frank’s fate with the shark – two solitary creatures on display, stranded, left to their own devices, and just barely hanging on to their remaining connections.
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“Sandbar Shark”
Albuquerque Biopark, used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
“Teeth are practically the gateway to the soul,” says Natalie Carson, one of the two thieves who stole dentures for the sake of their artwork. Much of what makes “This Precarious Hive: Denture House at MOMA” such a fantastically disturbing story is Shena McAuliffe’s ability to connect the living and the dead through something as familiar and abject as our own teeth.
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“Denture Shop Window”
Eric Parker, used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
