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SmokeLong Quarterly

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Cheering

Story by Srdan Papic June 15, 2006

Ivana and I are sitting on the stands above the lake. We’re talking about football. She’s all upset with the way our team is playing. She’s cursing, making threats and excuses, one minute she repudiates them and the next she forgives them. I am just waiting for her to take another sip of beer and all I am cheering for are those two or three drops that will slip onto her lips, moisten them, and then the gleam of the streetlight that will flicker on those lips, too, the same as it has been on the water below our feet the whole time.

About the Author

Srdan Papic was born in 1977 in Zrenjanin, Serbia and Montenegro. He has published several books of short stories in Serbian. His fiction has appeared in The Taintmagazine, The Carve Magazine, and Carillon magazine and in The Transfusion Journal, Harvard University. He can be reached at srdanpapic@yahoo.com.

This story appeared in Issue Thirteen of SmokeLong Quarterly.
SmokeLong Quarterly Issue Thirteen
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We’re doing it again! We’re homing in on the micro: 100-word, 250-word, and 400-word stories. In March 2025 SmokeLong is hosting The March Micro Marathon, a 24-day workshop with a new writing task each day, peer review in small groups, 3 webinars, a reading and interview with Michelle Ross and the editors of 100 Word Story, and 3 competitions with cash prizes.