Contributor: Marissa Halvorson

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Whimpers pierced the cold, dank air of the dark room. In the shadows cast by the dim light filtering through the bars, stood a woman. Dark hair tumbled down her shoulders in voluminous curls. A hood, attached to a black cloak, hid her face. She faced the room, where a man lay on his cot, whimpers caught in his damaged throat.

“Franklin Jae Lynford,” she called. Her voice rang out in the emptiness like bells echoing off the dark walls. Her rich voice held no trace of emotion.

The whimpers came to an abrupt halt, and the man uncurled himself and looked around. A thin sheen of sweat covered his face and soaked his shirt through. Bright with fever, his eyes darted from side to side. The woman stepped into the dim light.

A grimace twisted the man’s features as illness once again overtook him and he pushed himself away from her. The spasm lasted several seconds before he was able to look at her once more.

Finally, she removed her hood. Underneath, her skin glowed pale, her eyes red. A cruel smile warped her features, which would otherwise have been quite beautiful. She undid the clasp on her brooch and let her cloak fall as she stepped forward, toward the man. “Franklin Jae Lynford, you have been summoned.”

The man’s eyes widened, and he stumbled out of his cot, away from her. Her red gown swishing around her ankles as she moved, the woman laughed, a cold, cruel laugh. “You cannot run from your fate, Franklin. This is who you are.”

“Who are you?” Franklin’s voice rasped out, barely audible even in the silence of the room.

“Franklin, Franklin…you ought to know. You spent most of your life worshipping my master. Why, then, do you run from him now?”

“I have family,” Franklin gasped. “My children—they’re counting on me!”

“Be honest, Frank. Your family lost faith in you a long time ago…I believe it was after you murdered that poor woman…what was her name? If I recall correctly, Jane Kaikoura died on the night of December 24, 2001. Six years ago. Her family spent Christmas in mourning. Isn’t that right, Frank?”

Frank whimpered, deep in his throat. He covered his eyes, as if by acting like she wasn’t there, it would make her go away.

“Then, of course, you knew what would happen, so you ran. Am I right, Frank?”

Frank moaned and his fingers clutched at his face. “Stop. Please stop,” he groaned.

The woman smiled. She tossed her dark hair over her shoulder. “So, you ran, but you didn’t stop. Your murders continued all the way through the country as you traveled from place to place. I could list off every single one of your murders. How about it, Frank? Would you like to hear about your kills?”

Frank lifted his face, his eyes wide and full of unshed tears. “Please, no more. I know what I’ve done. I’ve changed, though, I swear!”

The woman threw back her head and laughed. “People don’t change, Frank. I know that better than anyone. Devlin summons you, Frank. Do you answer his summons?”

The tears in Frank’s eyes spilled over and poured down his unshaven cheeks. “No!” he cried. “You can’t take me!”

“Frank, you know what will happen if you do not answer the summons. Your life is over. You are dying. If you do not answer Devlin, you shall never have an afterlife. Devlin would be most disappointed. He might even be disappointed enough to appear here himself to…convince you.”

Frank’s face paled, rough stubble standing out against the white of his face. “I don’t want to go,” he whispered. “I don’t belong there. I’ve changed.”

The woman held out her hand and her cloak rose and draped itself over her shoulders. “The summons is not an option, Frank. Either you come, or we take you. Devlin takes you.”

Frank squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists tight. The woman watched his fists relaxed and he fell limp. “Alright.” He slumped against the wall. “Take me to hell.”


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I have been writing since I was ten and have been working towards publication of my novel. Occasionally I write short stories and flash fiction, and I'm hoping for publication of this one as my first.

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Author: Marissa Halvorson

Contributor: Elyk S. Von Ire

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Jon’s drunk again. Swaying at the table. Willing his eyes to stay open. Hebrew swirls in the air around us with the smoke. Jon stares forward. His eyelids are anchors that tow his head down with them. He snaps it back up and looks around. Again, he stares. He nods.
The three Israelis are either too stoned or too wrapped up in their own
conversation to notice Jon’s slumping head or closing eyes.
But I’d never be able to tell for sure. I don't speak Hebrew either. Maybe they are discussing it ad nauseum.
Jon nods. His eyes closed. When he opens them, slowly, he looks at me. His eyes are glistening. He opens his mouth to speak but doesn’t. His eyes rest on the bottle of rum, it's triumphant last inch still at the bottom.
He grabs the bottle and turns the label towards him. I assume he is staring, not reading. His hand slips a little and the bottle wobbles, then rights itself.
Jon leans back in his white, plastic chair. On two legs, against the wall, he looks up through closed eyelids.
Suddenly, he snaps his head forward and stands up. Again, I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. The Israelis look at him, conversation on pause for one pregnant second, then turn back to one another with bouncy, guttural conversation.
I wonder what Jon’s thinking about.
I wonder if he's going to be whistling in bed like my dad used to, his iPod speakers on all night, music coming through the paper thin walls to my room.
Like last night.
But we were on mushrooms last night, so maybe that had something to do with it. That Irishman, I tell you. Quite an influence.
I look up from my reverie and Jon is nowhere to be seen. I’m not about to venture from my hammock, so I start to wonder what the Israelis are talking about.
I know two of them. The guys. Besides Jon we’re all in our early twenties. Gal and Eron are fresh from mandatory military service, and I met them and Jon a couple days earlier in La Cieba, just a quick ferry ride from the island.
The third Israeli is the girl I never officially met. She’s been at the hostel for awhile now, at least a couple of days. I saw her at a different hostel back in Guatemala too, so I recognize her. Attractive people, Israelis, that’s hard to deny.
Cool accents too.
Goddamn I miss Emily.
Jon has resurfaced. He peers out the door, leaning heavily on the
frame. He looks at me.
"Diving man," he says, managing to keep his eyes open almost the whole time he speaks.
I nod. Diving indeed Jon. I think to myself as he sinks back into his room.


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Elyk S. Von Ire is from Minneapolis. He is currently working on his first novel. He thinks that you are just great.

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Author: Elyk S. Von Ire

Contributor: Peter Baltensperger

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Black clouds hung from the night sky, forbidding tapestry traveling slowly through the darkness, obscuring a sickle moon that should have been floating somewhere. Sharp flashes of sheet lightning carved the horizon into ominous layers, electric javelins for the brooding night. The wolf man from the carnival in the fairgrounds sat at the edge of a forgotten pond in an ancient park, waiting for a rain that wouldn’t come, trying to dispel anxieties, nightmares. The clouds refused to yield.

Somewhere an empty train charged into a black tunnel, the engineer mesmerized by the meaningless presence of a minuscule light somewhere at a distant end. The wolf man cringed with his own troubled visions of incomprehensible endings, unfulfilled promises, scratching his mind for solutions, relief. He hadn’t come to the park to wait, even though he knew well enough that the waiting was a necessary part of a whole.

A silent marching band wound its way into the park from some inscrutable source, a troupe of clowns with invisible balloons in its wake. He could hear the flapping of their oversized shoes in the dry grass, wished he had a balloon of his own, an anchor for his confusion. The marching band began to weave tightening circles around the pond, hedging him into his solitude with its persistence. The clowns never let go.

He waded into the old pond to escape the inevitable noose, only to get sucked into the silty bottom of his own destiny. He flailed his arms to keep himself afloat, tore himself loose from the treacherous mire, howled his frustration at the invisible moon, yet all he could hear was the echo of his own voice. When he freed himself from the entrapment and floated on the churned surface to get his bearings, the band unwound itself from the pond and vanished into the darkness, leaving the balloons hovering on their strings.

As soon as they were gone, he walked out of the stale pond and shook his body to rid his thick fur of the water. He grabbed a handful of strings, to remember, and made his way back to the fairgrounds, the balloons following behind, his nightmares surrounding him like an irritating cloak. There was no point in waiting, not after the clowns. He had the balloons to get him through the night, keep his thoughts from floating away, remind him of what could have been. The night might have been different.

The bearded woman was the only one still awake, the light from her window drawing him into its spell. He could see her pacing back and forth in her trailer, plagued by her own shadows, monsters in dark corners. She let him in when he knocked on her door and he gave her one of the balloons, setting the others free to reclaim his space. She let the balloon float up to the ceiling and pulled him on her bed. He helped her dispel her monsters and she screamed her excitement into the room until his nightmares cracked and shattered to the floor.

It wasn’t until then that the lightning bolts tore the clouds apart and the rain began to gush down to the roar of thunder. The sharp drum solo on the metal roof of the trailer drowned out the moans of their passion as they found themselves in each other in a brief crack of light in the turbulent night. Then the unforgiving darkness engulfed them again, plunging them back into their shadows, obliterating what they had come to know.


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Peter Baltensperger is a Canadian writer of Swiss origin and the author of ten books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. He writes, and has been writing all his life, because he has to and loves to do it, and because it adds a significant dimension to his personal quest.

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Author: Peter Baltensperger

Contributor: Samantha Memi

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I got the call at four in the morning. “Steve, get up! We’ve got a job.” That was the last thing I wanted to hear. Some kid had got himself drowned in the river. Jed was on his way to the station. I’d have to meet him there. As sleep drifted away my first thought was Mary; I saw her running down the street towards me, felt her arms around me, her warm breath on my neck as she whispered “Who’s the most beautiful woman you know?”

Getting out of bed was the hardest part. My breath stung the air into cloudy reactions. Two hours before sunup the earth held the cold. What if some crazy kid was floating down the river? Hurrying now wouldn’t help him. I needed to fix the heating.

I had forgotten to buy coffee. I couldn’t function till at least two coffees. I found a pack of ready ground in the back of the cupboard. It was unlike Mary to have overlooked it, perhaps she had kept it for an emergency like this. I smoked my last two Luckies and set off for the station.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon as I arrived. The chopper was fuelled and ready. Jed explained that Davie couldn’t come because he had been fixing his old flat-bed Buick and it needed new piston rings. He said we would manage okay between us, I wasn’t so sure. We took the cargo hoist and tongs with the idea of winching him up as neither of us could go down and hook him.

When we got there we could see why they couldn’t get a boat to him; he was stuck on a rock in the middle of a spring torrent which had washed away most of the bank and left vicious peaks sticking up from the frothy water. Bruce was there already looking mighty important standing on the bank, his car behind him with the door open and the red light flashing. Jed kept going on about how the Packers beat the Bears and how Rodgers was the greatest quarterback since Favre. But all I heard was Mary clumping down the hall dragging her old-fashioned heavy case I had told her to throw away years ago, and her words ringing in my head, “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me.” Why did she scream like that? I had never hit her. What had gone so wrong to make her believe I would do that? Why did she leave? I told her I’d find a better job. I even promised to give up drinking.

The tongs wouldn’t hook in right. I hadn’t used them much before. It was Davie who did them mostly, but with his busted piston rings I supposed he deserved a couple of hours lie-in. I just wished I had stripped my motor down. It needed it. So did I.

Then the boy got caught. I tugged him tight and the tongs swung him up into the air. Everyone on the bank was waving, except for some guy staring into the water, close enough to get wet. Bruce radioed to bring the kid in, said the loner was his dad. Jed took us directly over him and I dropped the kid at his feet. Simplified identification I reckoned. Then we shot off. Jed had to get his daughter something for her birthday. I had to kill a Jim Beam.


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Samantha Memi is a patisserie chef in London. Her recipes for a happy life can be found at http://samanthamemi.weebly.com/

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Author: Samantha Memi

Contributor: Miles Gough

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I just got back from the hospital and I’m too wired on pain killers to not want to go on about it. Don’t worry about me and the hospital, it was just five stitches on my forehead, not even a wound if you ask me. Toast Club got out of hand last night, but that is the kind of thing that happens at Toast Club. I heard that the guy from The Castle Cafe will have to wear an eye patch for a while, now that’s a wound. Maybe I should wear an eye patch, cause that shit’s cool.

Toast Club is the best after hours underground competition we cooks have done, and now, who knows if it will ever happen again. The idea is simplicity, which is usually not my thing, but this is extreme simplicity, so I’m with it.

Everyone always says that great chefs are better than anyone else, no matter what the hell they’re cooking. Some French dude just wants you to cook an omelet to see how badass you are. To our thinking, that’s too complicated for the test. If you say a great chef can make anything better, then they can make toast with butter better than your average schmuck. So me and a few real believers started Toast Club. We do it once or twice a month in the back room of Julio’s kitchen, the one with the craps game. We do it on days when dice ain't flying.

We have two contestants. They start at the same time. They are given two identical pop up toasters, four pieces of Wonder bread and an ounce of Land O Lakes butter. They have to make four pieces of toast and put on butter and the four judges figure out who is the supreme chef from the results. That’s pure. All the contestants can control is how long to toast the bread and how much butter to put on. And that’s all you need to figure out who should be swaggering big and long.

The judges are beyond reproach and yeah I am one. Can you think of anyone better qualified? C'mon. We been doing it for some time and the best chefs in town are almost always the winner. Sometimes a dark horse brings out an amazing win, like Noberto working the line at Altese, he is a genius with the butter, right amount every time. After he trounced all comers, he got himself a name and was promoted to Chef d’cuisine. This ain’t no joke if you were wondering.

This all gets us to last night. We were pretty wasted on kosher wine from this insanely elaborate bar mitzvah, so maybe we should have canceled, but the crowd was hungry for it. Of course we ran it. Miles who works at a upscale pizza joint out by the mall was one toaster and then there was Stan. God, you got to know Stan. Worked every place. Had style, but was an annoying shit. With that bad an attitude, its a wonder he doesn’t have a restaurant empire by now. He was a return combatant, had lost three times already and if I can remember, they weren’t even close. I think one time he even burned the toast, now that’s amateur.

The contest started with the pomp and circumstance of Lucas doing his MC routine. He did the stupid first rule of toast club, is don’t talk about toast club. For real, first rule of toast club, is that no one should stay that stupid fucking line anymore. But give it up to Lucas, he worked the crowd and we were ready. The toasting began and Miles was calm, doing a neat trick of warming the butter knife on the side of the toaster. Stan looked in his element, which kind of worried me, because he was never a relaxed dude. The toast popped and the buttering began. My favorite part, this is where the finesse happens. And then the presenting of the toast.

We bit into the offerings and Miles’s was good. This tasted like a fine piece of breakfast. I gave it high marks. Then I moved to Stan’s plate and holy shit that was fantastic. In all the times of Toast Club, this was the best goddamned piece of toast I ever ate. We had to give it up to Stan, though it pissed me off to do it.

Lucas ran over to Stan and raised his hand in victory. Stan had tried to move away but Lucas was too fast. Then Lucas’s eyes got all big. He took his hand back and looked at it and then smelled it. “Son of a bitch,” he said, “this guy spiked his butter. He has bacon fat on his finger.”

Can you believe it? He had come in with a finger full of bacon fat and when he was spreading the butter, he had put a little of it on each piece of toast. You know that no cook can resist bacon, so of course we were goners for it. That was a dirty trick and me and the other judges jumped the no good shit.

One thing for Stan, he can tussle in a fight. And he is smart enough to bring some back-up. He and his buddies brought their knives and it got nasty. Eventually, we made a lesson of him, but not without injuries. No one disrespects the sanctity of Toast Club.

At the ER, me and Lucas and a couple others were talking that maybe this was a sign to end Toast Club. If one asshole can play us that way, maybe we didn’t have the best contest devised. Next week, we’re going to debut Chip Club. Who ever can open the best bag of potato chips and pour the finest beer, wins. You should come, it’s going to be spectacular.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Jon Wesick

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“Your death is the only thing you own,” the old woman began.

She was fat, so fat she took up the whole couch. Layers of flab coated her arms so they were as thick as a normal person’s legs. The blue skirt she wore was big enough to shelter a whole troop of Boy Scouts from the rain and her white blouse was stained from greasy fingers. The house stank of rotten food no doubt from the bones of several chicken roasts on the table. She would have eaten the whole world if only she could have found a way to make it hold still.

Neither I nor the others sitting on the dirty carpet in front of her wanted to be there, not Joe nor Dave nor Ray nor Lisa. We had only one thing in common. We were fifteen years old, the age our elders told us we had to complete this rite of passage.

Technically no one has to undertake the Runge Kutta initiation. I could have been like Randy Sullivan who endured whispers of “Randy the Pansy” and having his locker stuffed with dog crap all through high school. Indeed my harassment already started by none other than Principal Walters all big belly and skinny legs of him. The other week he walked right past Missy Oliver and Frank Dolan, who were practically giving each other hand jobs, to yank my arm off Wendy Rogers’ shoulder. It was clear that to have anything like a normal life I’d need to submit to the stupid ritual – the week-long fast, white robes, and gift of food to the witch sitting on the couch.

The old woman placed a pinch of powdered incense on a burning charcoal and waved her hands while reciting some gibberish in a language none of us understood. This went on for some time. How long I’m not sure since I was pretty light headed from fasting. At some point Ray giggled until Dave elbowed him in the ribs and told him to shut up. While the old woman sang, I pictured the meal I’d have as soon as this was done. A cheeseburger would be nice as would a big plate of spaghetti. Hell, even a grilled cheese sandwich would do just fine.

Finally the old woman’s eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped forward. When she straightened up, she seemed to be in some kind of trance.

“Who will be the first to accept your gift, your gift and your duty?” Her voice sounded different like a Russian in a bad movie.

Mouth in a smirk Ray moved forward and knelt before the woman.

“At fifty-four years old you will die of a sudden heart attack. You will feel no pain.”

Ray shook his head and returned to his place. Dave was next.

“In less than a year a robber will shoot you in the head and you will choke on your own vomit in the hospital.”

The old woman was on a roll. She told Joe he’d come down with dementia and die confused and alone while Lisa would have her throat slit after being gang raped by a bunch of meth-crazed bikers.

My turn. I moved close enough to count the black hairs on the old witch’s upper lip.

“An artistic death. Your body will be racked with cancer and you will not be sure if the disease or treatments is worse. You will die lying in your own filth.”

While the old woman chanted her final mumbo jumbo, I pictured myself bald and puking with a full colostomy bag swinging from my belly. After the ceremony was done, Lisa, Joe, Dave, Ray, and I gathered on the front porch. Everyone but Ray looked like they’d swallowed live sea urchins.

“Awe, you don’t believe that old witch. Do you?” Ray lifted his robe, dropped his pants, and pressed his butt cheeks to the old woman’s picture window. “Now, who wants to go to Artie’s and get a burger?”

Lisa, Joe, and Dave made lame excuses and left. I should have gone home like the rest of them. After all, my parents had plans for me now that I knew my fate. There was supposed to be a party with my mom’s friends and dad’s business partners. I could almost imagine the parents bragging about their kids and the long-winded lectures about hard work, responsibility, and the good grades needed to get into some MBA program. The thought of making small talk with all those hypocrites who wanted to know what I thought of the ceremony (but really didn’t) made me want to puke. Yeah, I should have gone home but didn’t. My parents’ plans could wait.


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Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, instigator of the San Diego Poetry Un-Slam, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published more than fifty short stories in journals such as Space and Time, Zahir, Tales of the Talisman, Blazing Adventures, and Metal Scratches. He has also published over two hundred fifty poems.

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Author: Jon Wesick

Contributor: Malika Manai

- -
"They think me a dancer of sorts.
My movement through time and space inspired them to new beliefs.
I awake, after a short century-timed period of rest. I lounge as I acknowledge the new reality and review my territory. The changes they made will not detract me from performing.
Keep moving my feet on the black wooden boards; keep my poise straight and my head high. The short days I live lazily and the long starry nights I adore. To me the elegance of the night belongs; to me, the dark shadows and their poetry.
My back aches from the sudden movements I need to make to test my equilibrium. I remember how sometimes I start to feel lead-heavy by the end of the performance and the rest I need to take prolongs under the hours of the sun. But I can never give it up.
The night smells of fear as I prepare my dance.
My head, inclined to the left, still rests blissfully, my eyes closed as I consider carefully the choreography and envision the opening scenes.
The bluest blue of my eyes blinks in the awakening moments. Under the darkest sky, my ears twitch as they hear the tiniest moth flap her wings a thousand steps away.
Remembrance becomes even more vivid as I recall how, admiring my agility and my strength, some had named even gods after me.
But simplicity defines me. I have but a wish, but one thought – I live by the cruelest of laws – I only want to survive.
Time has had its dues paid by them, but not me. My perpetual travel can’t cease, my perpetual needs do not falter.
The striped shades, of dark gray and black on my fur, ripple like velvet under the gentle wind. I’ve wiped clean my whiskers and now they tingle with anticipation.
My mask falls, my entirety revealed to the light of the moon, in the man-made citadel I will survive still.
Hear me roar, humans, and watch as the dance begins."


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"I've enjoyed writing since I was about ten. Growing up, I got to fly around the world, aboard a well known Arabian airline. I love SF and Fantasy literature and movies, and spend my free time learning how to become a professional writer."

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Author: Malika Manai

Contributor: Jackie Macintosh

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“This’ll do, there’s no-none about. Slow down but don’t bother stopping. Serves the little bugger right”

The shabby, rusty old Ford pulled into the lay-by, the rear nearside door swung open, and a brown object was hastily tossed into the hedgerow. The car gathered speed as the door was slammed shut from the inside, and it sped off into the night.

A small brown dog, ragged and unkempt with feet two sizes too big for his body, leapt to his feet and started to race after the car. He ran, barking, for a couple of miles before realising that there was no further scent trail or sound to follow. He slowed to a trot, his feet sore from the tarmac and the unaccustomed exercise. His stomach groaned even more than usual. He lapped eagerly from a roadside puddle and stood, whimpering and scared.

He heard the sound of an approaching vehicle and his ears pricked eagerly, but it rushed past, alarmingly close. He retreated to the verge bushes and curled up, tucking his nose under his tail and slept.

He awoke with the dawn, stood up and stretched his aching limbs and looked about. The lane beside him was little used now that a bypass had opened. However, it was still a fast road and he was nervous after the previous evening’s close encounter. He sniffed along the verge hoping to find something to ease the ache in his stomach. He was eventually rewarded with a couple of soggy chips which he tore from a polystyrene box. They had a sharp, unpleasant tang but he was past caring; it was food. He licked out some crumbs from a triangular carton which had a magical fish scent still lingering on the cellophane.

He spent that day and the following one mooching along the lane sniffing for cast out leftovers but finding little. Several cars swept past and he soon learnt to cower into the hedgerow but, even so, was often subjected to a prolonged blast from a horn and the occasional shout. That was normal; in his short life he was used to being shouted at.

On the fourth day, his energy levels waning, he was lucky enough to find the squashed remains of a young rabbit. It had been mostly picked clean by crows but provided some sustenance for his frail frame.

That night, however, menacing blue-black clouds gathered and the winds increased to become a gale which brought in the storm. Terrified by the unknown rumbling enemy and the streaks of yellow light flashing across the dark sky, he tried to find shelter in the undergrowth but the rain soaked through and his matted, wispy fur gave him little protection from the cold. He lay curled up all night and throughout the next day; a bundle of misery and despair, his will to live gone. He could fight no more.

+ + + +

“Has Grandma made us a chocolate cake?”

Eddie looked across at his daughter in the passenger seat. He detected some enthusiasm and anticipation in her voice, which was a rarity nowadays.

“Yes,” he replied, “she knows how much you like them.”

“It won’t be the same without Mummy or Abbie to share it.”

“No, it won’t but Grandma will want you to enjoy it for them as well.”

Eddie gripped the wheel, his knuckles were white and he took several deep breaths to help maintain his composure. For months he had had to contain his own grief to help Susie – well both of them – come to terms with the consequences of a hit and run driver. They only had each other now; the days had been and still were long, lonely and dark. They wept together, held each other for comfort and struggled in the gaping void left by the loss of his wife and daughter; Susie’s mother, her twin and not forgetting their dog, Coffee.

Eddie reached across and squeezed Susie’s hand. She was so brave; he knew how she felt uneasy in the car now but a change of scene would do them both good.

He reached into his jacket pocket and passed her his mobile.

“Have a go at Angry Birds,” he said, “see if you can beat my score.”

He pushed play on his IPod and drove on.

“Dad, I’m hungry. Are we there yet?”

“No, open the glove compartment; there is a drink and some sweets in there, but put away my phone first.”

Susie munched contentedly and even fed her Father an occasional Harribo.

“Dad, I need a pee.”

“Oh Susie, we’ve just passed the services. I should have stopped. Never mind, I’ll come off at the next exit and we’ll stop in a quiet lay-by. Can you hold on?”

+ + + +



Near to death, the dog was awoken by the rattle of tyres on gravel as a car swung unexpectedly to a halt. The doors opened and footsteps crunched towards him. The man turned away and stood for a few moments facing the hedge but the small girl came towards him and crouched down. He lifted his head slightly and whimpered quietly.

“Daddy, Daddy, come here. I’ve found something.”

Zipping up his trousers, Eddie turned and went across to Susie. She stood pointing into the overhanging branches and tangled wayside grass. He peered in and just made out the partly covered form of the puppy.

“He’s alive Daddy, I heard him cry.”

She reached forward.

“Get back, he may bite. Let me see.”

Eddie bent down to assess the animal.

“He’s very weak, he may not live.”

“Please help, Daddy, please. He’s alone and scared. Don’t let him die too.”

It was a plea from the heart.

“Get the car rug,” he said.

Eddie spread out the rug and gently lifted the unresisting animal onto it and wrapped him up. He could see no obvious injuries.

“He must be hungry. Do you think that he would like my chocolate milk shake?”

Eddie fashioned a saucer out of a discarded polythene bag and placed some milk by the dog’s nose. A dry tongue tested the offering cautiously then greedily lapped up the rest.

“That’s enough for now; let’s get him into the car.”

“On my lap, Daddy, he’s so cold,” said Susie, scrambling back into her seat.

Eddie put the bundled dog on his daughter’s lap and got back in himself.

“We’ll need to find a vet quickly,” he said, pushing speed dial for his parents and passing the phone to Susie. “Tell Grandma or Granddad what’s happened and ask them to make an emergency appointment.”

They drove on, Susie cradling the dog and stroking his head gently. He looked up at her from mournful brown eyes, quiet and accepting.

“I’m going to call him Rolo because he likes chocolate and he will be my best friend.” She said determinedly.

Eddie had no doubt that she was right. He listened as Susie chatted animatedly about what they would need to buy for Rolo to help him recover. The list was extensive and grew as she excitedly envisaged their future: she started with essentials such as food, bedding and a lead, then progressed to various toys and treats which she thought he might like. Her world had a new focal point.

They neared his parents’ house, their journey almost over, but the road to recovery had just crested a major hill and was starting to look like an easier ride for all three of them. Eddie sighed with relief: for the first time in months he, too, had something to look forward to.


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I live in Bere Regis, Dorset and have been with our local writing group since it was formed last autumn. I am 60 years of age and enjoy this new challenge.

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Author: Jackie Macintosh

Contributor: Hollis Whitlock

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An old man is sitting next to a fire, with a cup of steaming tea, staring into the blue eyes of a young woman. Her gaze entrances him in streaming tears for an hour, reminiscing on romantic strolls, warm nights and lustful passion, but winter's chill is whistling in gusts of crystallized white and blackening the smoldering red embers into wafting clouds of gray smoke. Even the tea has cooled to a distasteful bitterness.

He treks along a path, across a field, through knee deep snow toward a pile of wood stacked next to a fence. Exhaling vapor fogs through frosty swirls of blinding white in the darkening dusk of grayness.

Memory guides to the entrance of a vacant stable where cavalry once flourished. The haunting war ingrained in the subconscious, shifts subtly between dimensions in an overlapping transformation of vivid apparitions.

The shelter becomes an outpost upon the onslaught of invasion. Cleared pathways resemble a maze of trenches. Fortified fences of barbed wire suffice as barriers from charging soldiers. Rumbling vibrations from above spew a haze of exhaust, darker than the blackening skyline, toward the woodland meadow by the lake.

Imagery of gliding sensually on the ice above the frigid waters, with love in arm evokes mournful regret. Shattering thin ice plunges dreams into a dark icy abyss. Terror searches frantically for enchanted blue eyes, but a thunderous crash resonating from the forest's glen awakens the old man to the plight of another.

In a tearful rush, the removal of a glove, to turn a key, pierces painfully into numbing fingertips. Club like boots sweep soft powder from around the base of the entrance. Creaking heaves, on the rusted hinges of the door, reveal a vehicle. The bucket can hold seven days of fuel. Usually, forethought makes four trips. Today, there can only be one.

The glow plug counts from ten to one like the final gasps for air between the thin layer of ice and water. An axe, flashlight and medical kit, lying in the passenger seat, reminds of the failed rescue. Sputtering and wheezing becomes a rumbling cough, leaving the faint hope of salvation. Smoke rises from afar through the thick haze, above the barren trees that gleam with crystallized ice.

A familiar voice seems to be calling, through the internal storm, in a tone so familiar that further hallucinations of love form ghostly pale images in the falling sky. The stark whiteness drained of life looks helpless, as tears peer from above with no means to aid. Desperation cries into the forest's echo, hoping help is listening, but only a bluster replies.

The need to redeem the failure inspired years of medical training in an institution where retribution remained studious to the practice of medicine. Waiting in depression after graduation for the opportunity to make amends finally happened during the global intrusion.

Stationed at an outpost, working methodically through all hours of the day and night, earned numerous medallions for heroic bravery in battle, but none of this mended the heart that bled from within. The wound would not coagulate and continued to linger long after the loss.

Each waking hour, torment reenacted the event, hoping a miracle would resuscitate the motionless face of love. Gratitude and thanks were in abundance from the mortals who lingered in the spirit world for days on end before becoming animate.

Now lost in an enveloping camouflage, magnetic guidance directs through the darkening blizzard along plowed pathways to the vanishing plea for help. Two beams illuminate the dire circumstances of the catastrophe, as dark ashes speckle drifting streams of crystals in a fluorescent spotlight of the sun's fading light.

The pathway ends in a jolting halt, transgressing morals to the strife of a life at war. Trapped in a standoff behind enemy lines, the bucket methodically digs a trench closer to redemption, until a marching line of hedging stands fortified like a frozen barrier without conscience or remorse.

Surrounded in a whirlwind of blackening white, determination steps from the comforts of the enclosure, into an oncoming squall of hail. With blade on shoulder and red cross in hand, a yellow beam reflects a halo of hope for the helpless waiting to parish in the barren wastelands.

Trudging onward into the forth dimension, via mental regression to a day more vivid than the present, brings sight in the blinding darkness of the night's storm. Guided by the vision of saving another, self-sacrifice strives onward through the onslaught of nature's cruelty believing that atonement will rectify the previous failure.

Engrossed in the hallucination of a time prior to the present, objects in the current space become unseen barriers that entangle in sharp tearing punctures. The reality of pain warps the timeframe to a latter date of war. Fighting for redemption, hoping that life still lingers in the fading cries for help, slashing blows cut the barbs that bind.

In the distance surrounding the lake, beauty lies on a pond of melting ice entrapped in a circle of flames. Invigorated with a youthful insurgence, from an adrenaline rush evoked by the sight of love lingering between life and death, perseverance surges toward the hallucination determined to change the past.

With tears dripping from the tips of branches, beside the warmth of the smoldering wreckage, the old man walks cautiously onto the slippery surface toward the young woman who is sprawled partially above and beneath the ice. Blood leaks in a fine stream from a laceration on the forehead to a crimson pool, swirling gracefully along a thin fracture in the ice toward salvation.

A murmur of consciousness rustles from red lips in an inaudible indication of delirium induced from the chilling of icy waters, wretched winds and ghostly shadows of barren branches twisting in firelight. Without concern or fear of plunging into the abyss, anguish glides gracefully along the luring trail of life giving fluid to the bare palms of a love so intense that all fear for self-being vanishes into the surrounding flames.

Time regresses to the day of remorse when love was taken to another realm. Blue eyes peer upward, with a feverish sweat of running rouge droplets, pleading for life. The old man kneels before the young woman and clasps both hands in prayer, begging for the chance to resurrect love. Years of devotion to the craft of healing grant his life long wish and resuscitate life. The old man finds peace and lies down to rest.


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Hollis Whitlock is an insane writer, hoping to one day live out his idiotic thoughts.

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Author: Hollis Whitlock

Contributor: Jacob Christensen

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The ominous jingle of the bell hanging off of the ramen-vendor door was the last sound Kyo was able to catch. There was a violent downpour swallowing up Tokyo for the past week and a half. Inches of rain began to pile up on the nightly weather forecasts during the news. It was the kind of perpetual rain that seemed to defy logic and challenged nature itself. Some would even say it was a storm that only gods could conjure up. To Kyo, however, this storm was a sight for his sore eyes. Kyo was always fond of the rain, even as a child. He would casually arouse himself from his bed to rub his stiff eyelids and throw his legs over the side of his bed where his toes would fall just short of touching the hard, cold wood flooring. The first sense that would come to him would be the sound coming from outside his stuffy room. The crescendo of raindrops pelting his window panes caused Kyo's heart to pump warm blood furiously through his veins as if his body were preparing itself for battle. To Kyo, the sound of rain was his own personal drums of war. It was a symphony that was beautiful and bitter sweet; the kind of song that not everyone could appreciate and cherish, but to the people who did, it was the sound of indulgence.

Young Kyo would jolt like a lightning bolt out of his bed and begin to sprint through his small, cramped apartment where he lived with his single mother. She would call out to him worriedly as he began to dart out into the rain; unabashed by his mother's warnings of catching pneumonia. His mother's screeching pleas were completed blanketed by the sound of the storm while Kyo descended the apartment complex's stale, concrete stairs. To him, nothing else in this world mattered but precipitation. It was as if they were the tears that rained from the clouds like mourners of some monumental death, solemnly shepherding a casket to its final resting place. As far back as he could remember, Kyo would run out into the deserted street which resembled a chaotic lake and he would tilt his head as far back as he could. He would then open his mouth wide to accept the tears from the swollen, black clouds. This was something he felt akin to his soul, something he had to do and something that required his being to be completely synchronized with earth.

Kyo reminisced about these days long past before the jingling of the shop's bells pulled him slowly out of the blanket of nostalgia. There was a bone-chilling cold that instantly greeted him at the open door and Kyo tugged his collar tightly around his neck to insulate his precious body heat. He then slipped his hand into one of the many pockets of his ragged leather jacket. His hand swam in there until it finally caught hold of his most prized possession; a small, silver lighter engraved with the number, '0'. Kyo didn’t have the faintest clue where this eccentric lighter wound up into his possession, but he felt that the question was unnecessary so long as he was able to use it.

He then fished for his Lucky Seven cigarettes and pulled one out which was sort of bent from being thrown around into his jeans. He pursed his lips tightly and placed the end of the cigarette gently between them. He then pulled the lighter closer and lit the cigarette while using his other hand to conceal the flame from the humid and harsh wind outside. He took a long puff, heavily inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs like a vacuum. Kyo put the shiny lighter and package of cigarettes back into his jacket. He exhaled the smoke through his nostrils which flared like the smokestacks of a steam locomotive. He then prepared himself and ventured outside.

Rain pelted his jacket and the sound left his ears deafened. Trying to hear anything else was out of the question. The rain wanted to receive all attention of his undivided attention and was aggressively forcing all other noises out. That's when the voices began to start. Kyo heard them although he thought it was his imagination at first. But no, this was not his imagination; this was something he had grown accustomed to. They started echoing in his head, barely audible at first. They were subtle and faceless, but steadily they rose in volume until they were blaring throughout his skull, each unique and distinct voice reverberating around the insides of Kyo's skull. He felt as if his brain would be pummeled to mush from the sheer intensity of these voices each time this happened. However, this was something he had accepted; a necessary curse for the responsibility and privilege of Kyo's power. He winced; his eyebrows pulled close like two worms trying to sniff the other out and began his journey into the black abyss that used to be Tokyo. For as long as Kyo could remember, he was able to hear people's voices in his head when it rained...


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I enjoy adjective pornography as I have an unyielding hunger to create an atmospheric presence in my writing. I am an amateur at best but I am a hopeful wielder of fiction and prose. I hope to leave something behind; a memoir or rather, a defining moment whether that be fictional or not to show who I was through the process of painting what I saw. Thank you for your time!

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Author: Jacob Christensen