Elinam Agbo
1983

Elinam Agbo - 1983

Fiction
Elinam Agbo was born in Ghana and moved to the United States when she was ten. She has since lived in Nevada, Kansas, South Carolina, and Illinois. A graduate of University of Chicago, she is… Read more »
R.M. Cooper
Border Patrol

R.M. Cooper - Border Patrol

Fiction
R.M. Cooper's writing has appeared in dozens of publications, including Adroit, Best American Experimental Writing, Cream City Review, Denver Quarterly, Fugue, Passages North, and Redivider, and has… Read more »
Dorene O’Brien
Eight Blind Dates Later

Dorene O’Brien - Eight Blind Dates Later

Fiction
“Eight Blind Dates Later” appears in Dorene O’Brien’s second fiction collection, What It Might Feel Like to Hope, which will be released by Baobab Press in 2018. O’Brien is an NEA and a… Read more »
A. Muia
Las Salinas

A. Muia - Las Salinas

Fiction
A. Muia lives in Skagit Valley, Washington. "Las Salinas" is part of a novel-in-stories set in Baja California, Mexico. Other chapters from this collection have appeared in Image Journal, where she… Read more »
Dustin M. Hoffman
Snake in a Can

Dustin M. Hoffman - Snake in a Can

Fiction
Dustin M. Hoffman is the author of the story collection One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist, winner of the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. He spent ten years painting houses in Michigan before getting his MFA… Read more »
Ross Wilcox
Symptoms

Ross Wilcox - Symptoms

Fiction
Ross Wilcox is originally from South Dakota. His stories have appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Beloit Fiction Journal, Nashville Review, Green Mountains Review, North American Review, and… Read more »
T. Lucas Earle
Trade

T. Lucas Earle - Trade

Fiction
T. Lucas Earle is a writer, filmmaker, and musician. His fiction has appeared in Electric Spec, Colored Lens, Razor Literary Magazine, and New Myths. His dark comedy, Abduction, premiered in LA Shorts… Read more »

Border Patrol

R.M. Cooper

It was the first layup we’d found in a week. A natural ditch formed behind some sagebrush, at the bottom a stash of food and clothes and water.

We do our job. We slash their jugs and watch their water sink into the sand. We strap down their food and backpacks to the flatbed and Daniels pisses on their clothes. But we leave the shoes untouched. The idea being they’ll find their stockpiles ransacked and realize their situation is hopeless. They’ll see the endless desert stretching to the north and east, and they’ll have no choice. They’ll struggle, but they’ll make it west to the highway. They’ll flag us down and an agent will pick them up and we’ll take them in.

Sometimes they’ll refill a layup after we’ve raided it. So a month later we head back. Before we reach the spot, we pass a body.

It’s north of the layup, looks a few days old. A woman. She’s wrapped in blankets and face down in the sand, her eyes closed, her mouth gaping, her hand at the blanket over her shoulder as if she’s just laid down and reached to reposition herself in the night. Her feet stretch out in the sand.

“Her feet were too big,” Ramirez says. He puts his boot to her bare foot for a reference. Her heel extends beyond his toe.

“What were those pairs we left back there?” Daniels nods towards the layup, still some six miles south. “Eights? Nines? They’d never of fit.”

“Giant motherfucking feet,” Ramirez says. “She’d never of made it.”

One by one we nod. We agree. The highway was to the west. There was nothing but desert in front of her. Her feet were too damn big.

It’s Daniels’ turn to bag. When he goes to remove the blanket her hand clings tight. He shakes, but her fingers won’t come loose. Daniels sees that we’re watching and smiles. For a second time you could trick yourself into thinking the woman’s just laid down; she isn’t ready to leave just yet.

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