Issue: NiftyLit #12

Garry Shore and Greig Parker

"Think of all those composite characters in the based-on-a-true-story movies you have watched on TV, people whose tireless efforts and selfless sacrifices to right injustices have been edited out for the sake of simplifying the truth in the name of entertainment. But memories have value. They are not things to discard, distort, or destroy without regard."

Ziaul Moid Khan

"In a week, the whole village became acquainted with Ummed Ali. Kauser never felt him a burden. When the neighbors enquired of him, she simply said, 'It is perhaps God’s will that he should get his food and shelter here at our place.'"

John Grey

"Really, his burial was so unlike him. / They should have plopped him in the coffin face down. / But there are certain rituals to be followed"

Aaron Barry

"like twinkies, rhinestones can survive nuclear war. / (that’s probably not true, but a guy wearing a bedazzled ed hardy koi shirt / once told me that outside a casino, and there’s no way he would have been lying.)"

Purbasha Roy

"I am behind you and my steps crunch your / shadows. I am tired of this walk that sweats / us till our marrow."

Kate Irwin

"It was his moment to move. Carr accelerated, Harley engine revving loud over the sound  of the howling wind, hitting eighty K around the SunRype truck as a rusty Honda Civic appeared  through the blur toward him."