Contributor: David Macpherson - - On the edge of the beginning, Moss Child crawled to the pickling fields for something to eat. This land was owned by the creators. The storytellers and cloth-spinners that chose to create this world, this beginning. They would not want her eating what was theirs, but Moss Child was hungry and hunger didn’t stand on polite expectations. With soft green fingers, she dug out the first jar that gravity and divine edict nestled under the earth. The jar was cast from the hide of old Gods. It was brittle and broke to the touch. She took out the second jar. It was made from black ink. Inside she found a giant ossified heart. She gnawed at that organ for two days and stopped only when she thought she might tire. She took out the third jar, made from the caul of infant stars. Inside were people, the we. She...

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Author: David Macpherson

Contributor: John Laneri - - Webster Nightingale trudged on, feeling another gust of winter wind blow against his neck. He needed sustenance – anything to warm the fibers deep within his being. The storm raging about him was a severe blast, one reminiscent of the blizzard of 1887 when the Brazos froze from bank to bank. Now, only a few years later, he, along with most of the people in Neverton, a small town on the cattle trail to Fort Worth, were indeed feeling its fury. Grumbling, he lifted his collar, determined to make his way to Aunt Jillie’s Boarding House, the finest establishment in North Texas. Near the town square, he looked up and spotted Roscoe Sayers standing in front of his newspaper office leaning against a post. Curious, he turned in Roscoe’s direction and made his way across the street. “Mighty cold morning,” he said,...

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Author: John Laneri

Contributor: Henry Lu - - Author’s note: this tale is reconstructed from a bunch of recently unearthed Han Dynasty scripts in Anhui Province, China. They are ink on woods and ink rubbing on hemp papers and are by the hand of Prince An Liu (179 BC – 122 BC).After a breakfast of millet pancakes with tofu, Prince An Liu practices calligraphy. Today he writes down his favorite Confucius motto: “I would rather subsist on a diet without meat than downsize to a dwelling without a bamboo grove.” His handwriting, though meticulous and beautiful, lacks something of his own craving. Like all his elixir concoction hitherto, it’s missing the magic of immortality. “Send it to Regent Ho,” he instructs his royal butler, “as a token of gratitude for his supply of rare herbs, metals and minerals to my alchemy lab.”The most recent shipment from the Regent...

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Author: Henry Lu

Contributor: Frank Holland - -       Mrs. Perkins asked her friend Jeanette, “Is that normal, for a man to give it a name?”       “Give what a name?”       “You know: it.”       From Mrs. Perkins' timid manner Jeanette understood what she referred to; but, to make sure, she asked, “It?”       “Yes, his-- ”  Mrs. Perkins's eyes closed modestly.  “ --manhood.” Then she reopened them.  “Do men do that -- call it by name, like it's human, like it has a life of its own?”       “Well, sometimes it does.”       “What?”       “Have a life-- ”  She hesitated.  Although still...

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Author: Frank Holland

Contributor: Lewis Gesner - - My wife and I go into 7-11 yesterday in our village near Kaouhsiung. We buy rice balls or something and sit at their stools. There is a sound of a scooter outside, then, a second engine; a woman is spraying a cloud of disinfectant from a machine down a grating outside. My wife says, in a moment the cockroaches will come out. Sure enough, first one, then another, then, many many many - crawling over the steps, and onto the window of 7-11 - a man sits outside, we see cockroaches crawl on his foot. It is terrifying - we leave before they come inside. Later in church, we hear the scooter outside again, and then the sound of the second engine... - - - Lewis Gesner is a writer and artist living in Taiwan. He publishers, exhibits and performs internationally, and is a member of Mobius artist group, from...

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Author: Lewis Gesner

Contributor: John Laneri - - The first time I visited Doc Merriman’s office was the day I took Lyle Winters in for a tooth extraction. At the time, I was living in Possum Hollow, residing in a double wide near the bayou. Lyle, as I remember, was a fishing buddy – a fellow with a real knack for making the best of most situations. The Doc was also one of the good guys, a through and through professional. Besides providing the community with dental services, he operated the only funeral parlor in the parish. Just for fun, my girl friend Betty Lou tagged along, saying she wanted to see a tooth pulled from a man’s head. The Doc went straight to work. He situated Lyle in a dental chair and reached for a shot of local anesthetic. Being hard headed, Lyle immediately sat upright in the chair and flatly refused the painkiller, preferring instead...

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Author: John Laneri

Contributor: JC Piech - - Her eyes try and fail to focus on the pair of spectacles that sprawl, all cracked glass and twisted metal, on the coffee table. She gives up and looks down at the beige and brown carpet instead. It needs vacuuming; she can feel little bits on the soles of her bare feet. Sticky little bits. Like they’re trying to keep her here. “Look at me, bitch,” he says, his voice hoarse from too much cussing and too much smoking.“Maybe ah wud if ah cud see!” Her voice quivers. “Jesus Christ,” he says, “d’ya always hafta fuckin’ cry at evrythang? S’only a pair o’ glasses.”“No, it ain’t jus’ a pair o’ glasses! You end up breakin’ evrythang. When’re you gonna stop havin’ your li’l boy tantrums ‘n start actin’ like a man? A real man? Like Johnny… Yeah, that’s right, ya heard me. Ah’m in love with Johnny ‘n ah’m...

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Author: JC Piech

Contributor: Craig M. Workman - -             I came in and slid the grocery bag down my thigh until the bottom tapped the linoleum. For some reason, it seemed a bit too quiet today.  Hey!  I’m home!  Anybody home? I said.  Where the hell was my dog?  Mr. Snowball always licked my hand the moment I got home, but was nowhere to be seen.  Ever since he’d been a puppy, he had always had this thing with licking the floor and chewing the chair leg.  He’d lick the computer desk and chew on the carpet.  Where the hell was he?  I suddenly remembered the need to send my online pals a reminder that I was going to be out of town for the computer gamers’ conference until Wednesday.  The back room had become my de facto study, and I kept...

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Author: Craig M. Workman

Contributor: Samantha Memi - - I was born into an ordinary family in Berlin in 1938. My father was a stick of celery, my mother, a tomato. I was a grapefruit. My father sometimes queried the origin of my birth. My mother never answered. ‘Never had a grapefruit in the family,’ he would say. She stayed silent. I went through the state education system and more by luck than talent I arrived at university to study Vegetable Bake for Amateur Cooks. I wasn't happy, I couldn't understand why anyone would want to treat vegetables so cruelly. I left during the first year. I drifted, hung around in grocery shops, got in with a bad lot of spinach. It looked like my life would turn out bad. Then I met a gorgeous Maris Piper potato, He was new but, despite that, could find his way round the supermarket shelf. We married, had a baby carrot, I was...

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Author: Samantha Memi

Contributor: Alessandro Cusimano - - Dead, I keep walking around the city, I want to drink. My face is reflected on each thing and every time I have to see it again. My watch has stopped. Le Strange, my name means something in New Orleans. Le Strange, the prince of Serendip. Le Strange, the visionary. Le Strange, an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Robbed of Every wonder and enchantment, the city dies in the silence of a false dawn. The sigh of the wind takes me to places unknown to my imagination. There where life ends, starts an adventure that whispers words that only the heart can interpret. Towards infinite dreams. A magical place where The stories of the future write the poems of the past. New Orleans sinks into the hypocrisy of the best friends and the scorn of alligators. The best friends lie, the blend of the good intentions gets...

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Author: Alessandro Cusimano

Contributor: Jerry Guarino - - “So Mr. Citadel, you don’t deny that you have committed these violations?” The tall, grey haired man wiped sweat from his brow, stuttered and replied. “No, your honor, I don’t.” The judge nodded solemnly. “Then you may step down. I am ready to pronounce my verdict.” The accused stood up next to his attorney nervously. “For twenty years of incessant public radio fundraising, for the unmitigated gall of suggesting that people donate their vehicles to save money on gasoline, for your interruption of the most important news events, for calling any program other than ‘car talk’ entertainment, for implying that saving a mosquito is more important than providing food and housing to 3rd world people, for giving equal time to the noble and the inane, for wasting the time of countless thousands on a daily...

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Author: Jerry Guarino

Contributor: Jon Wesick - - Joseph K got fired from his job standing in line at O. Henry’s Market. He wouldn’t miss the customers’ dirty looks when he pretended to pay with a check. No, he would only miss Stella, the cashier with the musical laugh and breasts like the fluffy, pet-store rabbits he’d so wanted when he was five. But that was all over now. Resolving to leave the smell of Rabbit Chow behind, K made his way home to a brownstone apartment in a shtetl on the outskirts of Iowa City. “Did you remember to pay the assassination tax?” his roommate, a cockroach named Sid, asked. “Damn!” K opened the wall safe, broke off a piece of gold plaster, and placed it in an envelope addressed to the Federal Reserve of Hope. After bribing the mailman he returned to the apartment where Sid was rehearsing his role in Streetcar. “You want lunch?”...

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Author: Jon Wesick

Contributor: DJ Barber - - It was a bleak and somber trek back to the old farm. Brisson Hanoran took the Old Swamp Road as far as Kilkenny's Mill. The troubles had begun right there. A small ripple in the courses of time--a singularity, they said.Brisson had no talent in the art of mathematics--left even simple cyphers like making change at market, figuring bushels to pounds, and such as that, to his younger brother, Paddy, who had no mind for the mundane world that comforted Brisson; just dreams and wonders and mathematics--physics, his favorite.This fold in the time-space--or was it space-time? See, that was Brisson's problem. This ripple, er, singularity--was what Paddy called it. Well, this thing! It just came one day--was there like a speck of mold on the bathtub tile. But its presence was just like that speck on the...

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Author: DJ Barber

Contributor: Michelle Ann King - - It all began with a Speak and Spell toy, which to Lisa's five year old eyes was the single greatest thing imaginable. It was red and shiny and glorious, but unfortunately, it wasn't hers. It was her older sister's, and Becky hadn't been keen to share her precious possession with her over-eager, sticky-fingered sibling. So Lisa waited for her turn until her patience ran out, which took about five minutes. Then she simply took it, played with it, and broke it. And then felt bad about it. Talk about setting a pattern. Lisa fished Oliver's toenail clippings out of the bathroom bin and pressed the ragged crescents into the plasticine figure she'd moulded into something resembling his likeness. For her sister's version, she added some of the long blonde hairs that luckily still clung to a jacket that she'd...

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Author: Michelle Ann King

Contributor: Jack N. Waddell - - The little man made of clay stared lifelessly from his box toward Zhu Xaoshin. ``Ambulatus!’’ The word, once so strange, rolled easily from his tongue. Xaoshin waved his wand just so and gave it a flick at the end. His fingers buzzed and his wand flared with magic, motes of light and a cyan beam which struck the clay homunculus. The little clay man wiggled his toes and then his fingers. He sat up and looked Xaoshin in the eyes. Xaoshin inspected the clay figure carefully as it stood. Did its leg just shudder as it stepped forward? Were its movements balanced on the right side and its left? The form itself was perfect, of course. The homunculus would not have come to him otherwise. ``Dance,’’ Xaoshin said, and the little clay man danced to music Xaoshin could not hear. ``Jump,’’ Xaoshin said,...

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Author: Jack N. Waddell

Contributor: Edward T. Keller - - The king sits on his throne, facing us, lost in thought, his chin resting on his fist.A messenger runs to him from the left. Percy. He has two arrows stuck into his back. PERCY: My liege, my liege! With a start the king leaves his reverie and eyes Percy inquiringly. KING: Speak, gallant Percy PERCY: The mongo, the mongo... KING: Wah? Woh? PERCY: The mongo, the mongo... KING: Wooh? Weeh? PERCY: The Mongols are coming! KING: The Mongols?! PERCY: Ja, das mongolen shvine! KING: What do they want? PERCY: Er, I didn't ask them. KING: Well go and ask them, you silly person Percy leaves. The king returns to brooding. Percy returns. He has now seven arrows in his back. PERCY: My liege, my liege! KING: Mein liebe, mein liebe! PERCY: No time for that your majesty - the Mongols want to be paid tribute. KING: Really? PERCY:...

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Author: Edward T. Keller

Contributor: Eric Suhem - - Calista drove down to the mini-mall to have her nails done. Her car was at a stoplight when she started crying uncontrollably. The tears were flowing as she was just able to maneuver the Toyota into the mini-mall parking lot. She sat in the car, outside the pink stucco nail shop, clenching the steering wheel, and weeping. A large yellow duck, holding up a sign for a ‘$1.95 Car Wash SUPER DEAL’ in the oppressive heat, saw her and walked over from the intersection to see if she was all right. He gently tapped on the car window with his orange plastic beak, sweating and itching in the duck costume. Upon seeing the duck, Calista let out a scream and wailed, overcome by new waves of sadness, pounding the steering wheel with her fists. During the humid day, the duck had been ‘molting’, as the glue holding its...

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Author: Eric Suhem

Contributor: Tony Rauch - - I find myself floating through the sky, sitting in a strange mechanical device. It looks like an old, brass canoe – but with the front and back gradually tapering to curl up at the ends, with long canvas wings and delicate mechanical gears controlling it – fragile gears, rods, and thin levers at my side projecting from the curving floor. I don’t know how to control this thing. I’m afraid to even touch anything, so I look around in wonder as I drift through soft white clouds, floating gradually on a slow, gentle breeze. It’s as if everything in the sky that was once old is now new again, for I see palatial mansions appearing through the clouds. Some are up close and some are scattered in the misty distance. It looks as if the mansions are built on the clouds. Large weeping willows surround their yards. The houses...

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Author: Tony Rauch