University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by Kelly Talbot Leticia stood by the window, eating a bowl of oatmeal and studying the blue jays outside. As they hopped among the tree branches, they alternated between cackling harshly and singing pitch-perfect notes. Leticia wondered how many other types of birds had such a vast repertoire. Of all the birds... All the birds!… Continue reading After the Apocalypse, Day 3
by Hannah Epstein I first properly met Madeleine at a birthday party in Teresa’s backyard back in the sixth grade. Before that, we had only seen each other in passing when our teachers would have us leave the school building in neat lines for recess. When I saw her back then, before I really knew… Continue reading Madeleine
by Daniel Pié Susan’s question lingers in her unmistakable, raspy alto as I approach the portico entrance to the mortuary. My legs quake under the weight of unsaddled emotion. My hollowed-out stomach creaks, needing to be fed but allowing nothing to enter except for the occasional piece of dry toast. I slip a thumb behind… Continue reading Obituary
by Thomas Elson They took no classes together, and, after that first year, never attended the same school, but somewhere, inside the scattered years of their lives, there were yearbooks. He drives more slowly than he used to, even more slowly today, through the empty school parking lot for the first time in fifty-eight years.… Continue reading Years & Yearbooks
by Sam Burnette The church stands tall against the nothingness around it, spires sharp as they reach toward a cloudless sky. It reminds Stark of the castles in the stories his mom used to tell him. She’s dead now. Electrocuted by faulty wiring. His Uncle Hayes said she would’ve lived if her heart weren’t so… Continue reading A Sacrifice for the Rat King
by Alex Landrum Tyler looked up at the hard, blue sky. A vulture swooped with its black wings stretched into a V. The twelve-year-old boy shuddered. He couldn’t believe what had happened. His stomach knotted with fear just as his foot turned on a piece of loose gravel that caused him to skid forward, bumping… Continue reading Martin’s Last Task
by Alex Scaife I Water drained slowly into the copper pipes beneath me, with a churning sound that continued until the spinning mass of liquid had disappeared. I lay naked with damp, tangled strands falling across my face and beads of sweat clinging to my forehead. Red veins meandered through the whites of my eyes… Continue reading Mayakovsky
by Joe Baumann Fritz hid the wings for Otto’s wake. He donned the Ted Baker trench coat Otto gifted him nearly a decade before and which Fritz had given more care and attention than any other possession so that it still looked new, wearing it over his sports coat, beneath which the wings were pinned.… Continue reading Vulture
by Sean Padraic McCarthy When Julia awoke, her mother was already up, sitting at the table in the kitchen, looking out the back window upon the wood. There was a steep hill rising up from the edge of the wood, and now it wasn’t summer anymore, and all the leaves were gone from the trees,… Continue reading The Devil in the Wood
by Melissa Ridley Elmes There’s a chill in the air, that specific, cool undercurrent in the light autumn wind that heralds the changing of the seasons. Though the trees have only just begun their annual parade of fiery colors, the sense of quiet ending that comes with the final leaf tippling from the final branch,… Continue reading October Mourning
Ignatian Literary Magazine 