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.

Read an excerpt.

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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.

Read the poem.

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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.

Read an excerpt.

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“Sandbar Shark”
Albuquerque Biopark, used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Joseph Levens has a way of messing with your head. What’s in a name, he asks. Where is the line between the literal and the metaphorical? What’s all this about sex and death?

Joseph’s fiction has appeared in Sou’wester numerous times, including the Spring 2012 issue.

“Gunner” begins:

My boyfriend’s name is Gunner and there is a reason for this. The sex is good, great even, but when he comes, boy and girl here have a little problem: a bullet is shot out instead of semen, at the same velocity as if fired from a rifle.

Read the story.

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“Bullet Proof”
John Linwood, used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0