Tiny Nightmares

to its spot in the corner, and by the next morning, when he returned, the perches and wires were covered in a verdigris of frost. As he approached, the parakeets stood at attention. Try as he might, he had never been able to extend their vocabulary beyond a few basic words: birdseed, not-now, pretty-bird, night-night. Yet now, so quietly he would not have heard them if the air conditioner had not clicked off, the first bird said, “I do not know where I am.” And the second said, “I deserve another chance.” And “The wind here is so bitter and it never stops,” said the albino. The man felt as if someone had emptied a breath onto the nape of his neck. A marshy smell rose from his armpits. He had always enjoyed riddles, even insoluble ones, but there were riddles and then there were riddles. He instructed himself to move the cage back to the corner. Do it. Do it. But the cold of the copper bit his fingers to the skeleton. He flinched. He backed away. Without thinking, because he had said it so many times before, he asked, “Who’s a pretty bird?” The parakeets eyed him with a daunting directness. “Is someone there? Will you speak up? Let us out. Come closer. I can almost hear you. Come closer. Come closer. Let us out.” Between the bars of the cage everything was green and yellow like the grass at daybreak, or blue and violet like the last brush of the evening, or fat and white like the sun pinned in the sky, until he reached for the latch and the darkness rushed in.

Permissions Acknowledgments

“Harold” first appeared in Gigantic. Copyright © 2013 by Selena Gambrell Anderson. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Parakeets.” Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Brockmeier. Reprinted by permission of the author.

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“Doggy-Dog World” first appeared in Paper Darts. Copyright © 2016 by Hilary Leichter. Reprinted by permission of the author.

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“Cedar Grove Rose” first appeared in The Halloween Review. Copyright © 2019 by Canisia Lubrin. Reprinted by permission of the author.

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“#MOTHERMAYHEM.” Copyright © 2020 by Jei D. Marcade. Reprinted by permission of the author.

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About the Editors

© Adalena Kavanagh

LINCOLN MICHEL is the author of Upright Beasts, a collection of genre-bending stories from Coffee House Press. His work appears in The Paris Review, The New York Times, Strange Horizons, Granta, The Guardian, the Pushcart Prize anthology, and elsewhere. With Nadxieli Nieto, he is the editor of Tiny Crimes and Gigantic Worlds. He teaches fiction writing at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College. You can find him