Toasted Cheese

February 08, 2010 | Editor's Picks from TC 9:4

Boots's Pick * "Infidels" by Jim Harrington

The photon blast rocketed past my ear and hit the metal wall behind me. Fiery tendrils exploded from its core like fireworks on the Fourth of July. I uncovered my eyes in time to see the heel of Zorton's boot disappear down the hallway leading to the crew's quarters.

I paused when I reached the junction of the two passageways and snapped my head around the corner and back. No Zorton. I edged into the hallway and was greeted by a waving Nolander. He wore a purple and yellow tunic. His hair sprouted from his head like the branches of a willow tree. The thump, thump of a cane tapping the floor preceded him down the hall.

Baker's Pick * "Meegan Kissinger Wore White" by Amanda Viviani

In my opinion, weddings are just a pissing match for girls. You get 100 of them in one over-priced, floating-candle and gardenia-bedecked banquet hall, and the hidden agenda becomes whose five-inch heels and $90 celebrity knock-off commands the most attention. The rest of the evening is spent taking bets on which member of the Sex and the Single Girl set, sloshed with champagne and teetering around on her gold spikes, is going to fall into the decorative fountain or drip rivers of cocktail sauce down her purple silk frock.

When we aren't going to weddings, we work at them. The Old Man makes food for apple-cheeked, hand-holding young couples, wanna-be hipster brides, white-trash family barbecue nuptials and politically correct lesbian faux-ceremonies.

Ana's Pick * "One Last Storm" by Chris Yodice

The snow was relentless that year—and surprisingly consistent. The first storm came on a Friday. It lasted three days, leaving ten inches at the shallowest point and drifts that threatened to consume whole houses like ocean waves. It had been twenty-four hours since anyone in my family could see out the windows; we knew it had ended only because we were told by the woman on the radio.

She was the one we really listened to. The television weatherman appeared once every few hours; through a practiced smile, he spoke of satellites and radars and air masses. He was unaffected; he could have been talking to us from anywhere. His suits—he wore a different one for each appearance—were unwrinkled. His hair was perfect. This woman, though, seemed to stay with us the whole time. If she slept, I don't know; she must have, I suppose. But I am sure she didn't go home. And as the hours wore on, her tired voice only grew more intimate.

Posted by The Editors at 10:35 AM in Literary Journal

February 01, 2010 | Dead of Winter Winners!

Dead of Winter is our annual short horror fiction contest. This year's theme was "the hidden grave." We had many entries this year and are very pleased with our finalists.

First place: “Inside Voice” by Lana Thiel
Second place: “The Red Blanket” by Tamara Eaton
Third place: “Whitcher Cemetery” by Erica L. Ruedas
Honorable Mention: “The Other Side of Darkness” by Julia Traylor

1st, 2nd and 3rd place stories will be published in the March 2010 issue of Toasted Cheese.

Our next contest is the spring Three Cheers and a Tiger. Write a mystery in 48 hours using the given theme and word count limit. There are no entry fees for TC contests. Prizes include Amazon gift certificates and publication.

Congratulations to our winners!

Posted by The Editors at 11:50 AM in Contests

Creative Non-Fiction from TC 9:4

"Muse at Work" by Kate Gibalerio

You need to write something. Anything. Emails don't count. We've gone over this. The same for tweets, texts, and Facebook chats. Just say ciao to your cousin from Rome and log out. Peek at Google News, if you must, but limit yourself to one article about swine flu—you're on deadline. You need to write something for this evening. Get your venti latte, then sit, and start writing—anything—to share at Writers Night.

Posted by The Editors at 08:48 AM in Literary Journal

January 25, 2010 | Fiction from TC 9:4

"Stowaways" by Kimberley Idol

Catholic girls who fail their families learn to lie to their loved ones and tell the truth to strangers. My grandmother shared her secrets with cast offs and drifters who bunked at her place, pawned her knick-knacks, and forgot to let the dog out until it shit on the carpet. She lived in that kind of company because finding caretakers for aging addicts is a grueling chore. She would drink all day then drive through town in her big blue Thunderbird looking for spies or dead husbands or houses she no longer owned. If we hid the car she called the cops and blamed her minder. The cops didn't respond, but the calls made them testy.

"Cotton-Eyed Joe" by Charles D. Phillips

I spent week after week clearing my land in west Texas. Hour piled on hour in an avalanche of brain-stunning heat, gnarled cedars, thorny mesquites, chainsaws, pickaxes, and long-handled shovels. My four-wheel-drive pickup never left first gear. Its engine growled, and then it howled with all its wheels spinning as we fought for possession of stumps welded to the dry ground.

Sunburned shoulders, crackling knees, and tortured muscles incessantly reminded me this was work for younger men or for men with bodies stripped and then rebuilt strand on hard strand by years of killing heat and unending labor. The once-sharp lines of my own body were now blurred. Decades of wielding little more than a keyboard and wrestling with nothing more substantial than recalcitrant software had taken their toll.

"Louvre Is All U Need" by Jason D. Schwartz

The rabbit's neck bulged where the fence cut in. The fur around its new double chin blushed with blood. Its ears pointed to heaven and its grey body stretched straight back in the air like dry papier-mâché that would crumple if touched.

Ari felt the grass soaking through his white cotton socks. He could taste the rabbit's creamy, rotted breath. He took a step forward. The trees whispered.

A fly landed on the rabbit's left eye. Ari watched it dip its legs into the black bead and scrub itself. When it was clean, it buzzed away, weaving through the fence's rusty rectangles.

"Midnight at the Oasis" by Melodie Starkey

It's not that Dad tries to be a loser. He just doesn't even seem to realize it. Like last summer: we went to Boston for our annual road trip. I wanted to see the aquarium and drive to Springfield to see the Basketball Hall of Fame. He took me to tour Emily Dickinson's house. Maybe there are lots of fourteen-year-old boys who would consider this the high life. It gets worse: at Emily Dickinson's house, the old lady tour guide showed us the original manuscripts of some stuff, and asked if anyone wanted to read a poem. Now I'm about 100% sure she meant, "Do you want to look at these and read them silently to yourself?" But not my dad. He picked one up and proceeded to give a dramatic public reading of it, complete with the hand turning gestures my sisters make so much fun of. The other people in the room just stared at him, including the guide lady.

I died.

Posted by The Editors at 02:13 PM in Literary Journal

January 18, 2010 | Flash Fiction from TC 9:4

"Scraps" by Ethel Rohan

The waitress brings Elizabeth a glass of water with lemon. She wants red wine. It's too early for wine. She returns to her book—The English Patient, which only adds to her longing—and waits.

He arrives at the restaurant dressed in a yellow raincoat. She checks the sky; it won't rain for hours yet. If he can look like that then she can have wine. She signals the waitress. He places his keys on the white tablecloth, and gives her that disapproving look. Her gaze jumps to his germ-laden keys, and back to him. His face is milky pale and eyes cold. She recalls him sucking her nipples, and looks away. He doesn't remove his raincoat, yellow as mustard.

"The Repairman" by Janice D. Soderling

What she said was that she'd had an unhappy childhood and I was supposed to fix it. I can't fix it, I said.

"Punctuation" by Andrew S. Taylor

Your face is always the same sentence, but the punctuation keeps changing. Around your eyes and mouth, quotation marks appear, like weather patterns of localized irony. Above the bridge of your nose, sometimes I find ellipses, and other times marks of exclamation.

Posted by The Editors at 02:09 PM in Literary Journal

January 11, 2010 | Poetry from TC 9:4

"The Bank" by C.L. Bledsoe

Dad said there was no future in farming
so he sent his sons off to bag
groceries, stock produce, flip
burgers while his brother and the bank
carved up the farmland and kept
the white meat. We knew fish
and cattle, rice fields and soybeans.

Five Poems by Paul Hostovsky

"Survivor"

The first time we kissed
you turned away, saying:
"Not on the mouth. Not yet. I'm
sorry. There are things
I haven't told you…"
I didn't understand.
But I understood enough
to gather your hands
in my hands,
to rest my cheek
against yours,
and to kiss
your cheek,
your temple, your
eyebrow, and then
only the side
of your mouth,
its corner. It was
a sort of lateral kiss,
like looking a little to one side
of something to see it better,
like with stars,
or with poems,
or like the truck that carries the glass
on its side,
because of the nature of its cargo.

"Hunger" by Rae Spencer

I confess them
These bodily hungers
All satisfied, every need met
By the luxury of my living

Posted by The Editors at 12:15 PM in Literary Journal

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