Contributor: William Panara

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It was sunny the day they imploded my grandfather. He was 93 years old, wrinkled like a walnut shell, and had gotten the letter saying it was time. My whole family went to see it happen. We had our cameras so we could record the event. I still watch the video every now and then, in slow motion, dragging out those few seconds like a singer holding a note.

The day before, the doctors had gone in and fitted him. Liquid explosives were placed around his pelvis, up the bridge of his spine. He showed us the stitches and said he couldn’t feel the nitroglycerin inside him, the same way a person can’t feel their kidneys or pancreas. My dad was proud and hugged him. Most people get their letter in their 80s, and he’d been able to last until 93. He’d gotten useless later than the others, retained some semblance of value in spite of his age. But like everyone else, he eventually became a burden, outdated and in the way.

My little sister played with flowers and danced in the grass. The sun shined off my grandfather’s bald head, and he went into the field where they told him to go, arms stiff at his sides. A crowd had come to see, pointing their cameras, aimed in anticipation. There was a countdown and then someone hit the button. We heard a loud bang and Grandpa’s body immediately crumbled inward, legs buckling and torso coming loose. The detonation, as if his organs had exploded, his anatomical construction in the puberty of demolition. Smoke came out of his body like he was a cannon that had been fired. He was still smiling when his head popped off and fell straight down between his feet.

I looked at my father, saw the lines in his skin. He was clapping, just like everyone else, so I clapped too.


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William Panara owns six shirts and wears them in a steady rotation. His fiction has appeared in several places, including Pulp Metal Magazine and The Prose Poem Project. He lives in Beijing, China, and writes the humor blog Topiclessbar.

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Author: William Panara

Contributor: Rohini Gupta

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The voice is a child’s voice, high and shrill, asking a question. She shifts restlessly in her dream, knowing she has dreamed this many times before but unable to hear the question.

In the morning she always wakes up confused and frustrated. She knows it is important. The urgency is growing. She must answer and she must do it soon. But how? She is so distracted that she spills milk and scatters grains of sugar.

Her husband does not notice. They are not talking these days. They barely look at each other. They live in separate worlds.

She is resigned to the silence, it is simpler than the loud arguments and that brutal word, divorce, bandied between them like a tennis ball, first in her mouth, then in his, then back again. But there is an invisible line that both are afraid to cross, and the argument ends as usual, in stony silence. They brush pass each other in the small rooms, and sleep back to back.

When the weight of the silence is too great they make love at night, but in the morning, they pretend they are alone. Sometimes she weeps silently wondering what went wrong. She cannot find a reason. She has no idea where the feeling has gone.

For a whole year life was perfect. Full of laughter and flowers, long walks hand in hand by the seashore, sharing a paper cup of street food, spicy on the tongue, and laughing at nothing, like two giggling teenagers. Dinners in small affordable restaurants, and a movie late at night, sitting close.

They set up house, a modest two rooms, but they furnished them together, every rug, bookcase and coffee table. He was always home early and she was home before him and always at the window waiting. A marriage made in heaven, her friends said enviously.

Now she has stopped taking their calls.

Now her dreams are full of anger and unheard questions.

--

When she goes into the bedroom her husband is sitting on the bed, in his underwear, looking at her. “Hasn’t this gone on long enough? We have nothing in common anymore. Shall we end it?”

The chill of that hits her. His eyes are cold and he means it. She is not ready yet to end it, so she does not reply. She lies down with her back to him.

“We never talk without arguing,” he says, “What is the point of this?”

She closes her eyes and he sighs, but does not speak again.

Sleep does not come. She thinks of the emptiness of her life. How could it become so terrible? She feels hollow, as if all the passion has been scooped out of her and she does not know how to fill up the great void at her heart. She tosses and then she falls asleep.

At once the child’s voice is there, calling.

She is not paying attention to the child. She is lost in the darkness of her dreams. She sees herself sitting on cold, bare tiles, weeping. She holds her head to keep out the harsh words, but she hears them over and over, louder each time. The door slams, hard, and keeps slamming. The sound resounds and fills her whole dream. A plate falls, white and blue, smashing on the floor, and she smashes with it, flying into a thousand scattered pieces. Bits of her hit the walls and smash on the floors and keep breaking smaller and smaller and smaller.

"No,” she murmurs, only wanting it to stop, "Please no, no, no."

The child’s voice sounds sad, “Shall I go away, then? Shall I go?”

Suddenly she hears the words and everything comes to an abrupt, crashing stop.

“Please listen to me,” the child is saying, “Please.”

“I hear you,” she says in wonder.

The child’s voice is very soft but very clear. “Do you want me?” the child is asking wistfully, “Shall I come?”

She hears the question and it shoots through her like a physical pain.

She can see the child now - a thin girl, in a white dress, looking at her with large, dark, beautiful eyes. There are tears in those eyes to match the tears drying on her cheeks.

“Do you want me?” the girl is asking and every word rings through her like a bell, echoing in the hollows within.

She puts out a hand to touch the child’s soft smooth hair, but there is nothing there.

“Please don’t go,” she whispers, “Please, we will work things out, I don’t know how, but we will. Somehow we will make it work. I want you. I really want you. You must come. I want you.”

The sound of her own voice wakes her. She is whispering the words softly.

The dream fades. She can no longer see the girl but she feels light at heart. The question has been heard and answered. It will no longer haunt her dreams.

The room is dark and quiet. Her husband is fast asleep on the other side of the bed. She can hear his soft snoring. She wants to put her arms around him and whisper to him. No, she will not. They have waited so long. He will not believe it. It’s only wishful thinking, he will say.

Yes, it is.

She gets up, barefoot, and walks into the silent sitting room. She does not put on the lights. The glow of the street lamps from the wide windows is enough to see. She opens the window and leans out, putting her face into the cool, sea wind. Above the city, the night is extravagant with stars.

She already knows what tomorrow's pregnancy test will say. He will believe it then.

"I want you," she whispers to the stars, "We really want you."

And, for the first time in months, she smiles.


- - -
Rohini Gupta has been a writer for a long time and has published books, non-fiction and poetry. She is now writing short fiction and working on longer fiction.

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Author: Rohini Gupta

Contributor: Cheryl Anne Gardner

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It had finally hit the triple digits, and the beach looked like a garlic pizza with roasted humans on top. While I was snoozing in the sun, I had this bizarre dream of a glass lemon hanging in the air above my head as a waiter dressed in black tie towered over me reciting a menu in French. When I opened my eyes, an oily bohunk in a slinky banana hammock was standing over me. He was so greasy, he could have slipped, nipples first, into another dimension. He had a fistful of sand, which he proceeded to fling into my face. I spit some exorcism in pig-Latin at him, and he smiled, then asked me if I wanted to go dancing. I told him to "fuck off," so he left only to return five minutes later with a pina-colada that had an umbrella in it so huge that it eclipsed the sun.

I really did want to go dancing, but my feet had always been too big for high heels. I can clunk, I can funk, I can jump strapless off the shoulders of a naked barista ... but I can't glide in them enough to dance.


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Cheryl Anne Gardner prefers novellas and flash fiction to writing bios because she always seems to forget what point of view she is in. When she isn’t writing, she likes to chase marbles on a glass floor, eat lint, play with sharp objects, and make taxidermy dioramas with dead flies.

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Author: Cheryl Anne Gardner

Contributor: Quinn Tyler Jackson

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When he goes up on stage, he knows the audience is corked. They want to hear Cash; they'll tap their toes to that. They've heard it. They know it. They've already heard the Johnson Brothers' sets dozens of times before.

But every so often, he sings Brel's "Amsterdam." English or French version -- it never matters.

It's not what they wanted or expected to hear. It's about drunken sailors with a pocket full of money and a belly full of ache. It's the wrong song, to the wrong crowd.

But nobody cares because their pockets are full of money and their bellies are full of ache.

And as they wander home with their escorts in tow, they find themselves humming the wrong song to the wrong crowd. Even the street lamps shine unexpected refrains.


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Author: Quinn Tyler Jackson

Contributor: Kip Hanson

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There were thirty-seven boxes in all. Stavros had counted them. His daughter’s blocky handwriting covered the side of each one: BOOKS, PHOTOS, JEWELRY in fat, felt-tipped marker, like incomplete tic-tac-toes.
Four boxes marked ATTIC. He’d get to those later. This one said SUMMER CLOTHES. Summer clothes, winter clothes, clothes for every season, not to mention an entire box devoted to swimsuits and three to shoes. How does one teenage girl collect so much?
“Jeannie, get in here.” No answer. He could hear her out there, pacing the kitchen as she yakked on that pissing cell phone. Why wouldn’t she come help? If she wanted to move out so badly, she could damned well participate.
He'd told her to stack them in the garage, and warned against more than four to a pile. Yet here they were, stuffed into the hallway in leaning towers six and seven high. And why had she packed so early, for God's sake? They'd squeezed past them all week. For days now he'd listened to her shuffle boxes and tear away tape as she searched for some prematurely packed necessity.
There seemed to be an unspoken urgency to her move, something deeper than the need to drive a flag into the Mount Everest of her independence. It made no sense. It was only college, and not like she was moving away for good.
Stavros lifted two boxes named BOOKS, and set them down again. What was in there, bricks? Jesus, his back hurt, and it wasn’t even noon. And what the hell was that pain in his chest? When he borrowed his neighbor's pickup truck, he should have grabbed his dolly as well. If his wife was here, she would scold him for talking about hindsight. Mary was always easy with her advice. When they lost her, Stavros assumed Jeannie would stay through college, maybe longer. But then that boy started to call. What was his name? Steve? Dave?
He carried SPRING CLOTHES down the hallway, stopping for a moment to glare at his daughter. “Jeannie? A little help here?”
“Just a minute, Dad,” her voice impatient. Rude, even. She was talking to that boy again.
His neighbor’s beat up F-150 sat in the drive, already half-full. John had offered to help, but Stavros said no, explaining this was a father-daughter thing. The truth was he didn’t like the way the man stared at Jeannie’s ass when he thought no one was watching. Stavros set the box on the tailgate, wedging it between DOLLS and CDs.
His daughter stood in the doorway. "You okay?"
He grimaced. "Finer than frog hair, girl."
“Do you want me to make you a sandwich?”
Stavros shook his head. “Are you sure about all this?”
“Daddy, we’ve already been through it. I'd have to drive almost forty-five minutes in traffic.”
Stavros knew it was only twenty miles, and most of it on the Interstate. She hardly ever called him Daddy anymore.
“Besides, I'm eighteen. I can't live here forever, Dad.”
No, of course not. Just a few more years, that's all. It's not forever. “It might take two trips. Do you want to stop for pizza when we're done, at that place we used to go? What’s the name…Sullies, Stillies?”
“It’s Scully’s, Dad. And we haven't been there for years. Besides, I have to meet Becca later. Thanks anyway.” Her phone rang again.
Stavros went back inside to start on the third stack. He was a little short of breath. Maybe he'd turn that spare room into a gym, but knew she'd end up coming back, once she got a taste of dorm life. Stavros bent to lift two boxes off the stack, the top of which was marked PERSONAL. Why does she need a box named PERSONAL?
Sudden pain shot through his left arm. PERSONAL slipped, tumbling the entire stack. The contents scattered across the hallway’s tired shag: lip-gloss and hand-cream, Chapstick, a spiral-ring notebook, gauze pads, women’s razors, tape and band-aids. Stavros shied from the womanliness of it all—the spilled tampons, the gaudy blue eyeshadow. Mary would never have tolerated that color. At the edge of it, two small foil packets read HIS N’ HER PLEASURE.
He was holding one of the condom packets when Jeannie came around the corner. When she was ten years old, he’d picked up a dead hamster like that, after she forgot to feed the poor thing. It had looked like a moldy brown prune.
“What the hell is this?” He flicked the packet at her, a half-ass suburban ninja. It veered off and struck the wall with a krinkly whisper, then bounced neatly into the open top of PERSONAL.
“Why are you going through my stuff?”
“I wasn't. The box fell over.” And it wouldn't have, if you hadn’t stacked them so high, he didn’t say. Overhead, the furnace ticked. Have to change that filter before it gets cold outside. “So you’re screwing, is that it?”
Jeannie cringed. “Daddy, I’ve been seeing Mark for two months.”
His daughter looked so much like Mary at that moment. “Two whole months.” He picked up another box. “Fine. It's your life. Why don’t you clean up this mess and I’ll finish loading.”
“Daddy, are you okay?’
“Yes. I’m great. Let’s go.”
Stavros carried the rest of the boxes out in silence, letting her take care of PERSONAL. He shoved the last one in and closed the gate. It turned out to be one load after all. The pain in his arm had quieted to a dull throb. He climbed behind the wheel and honked the horn.
Jeannie climbed into the cab. “Can we still go out for pizza?”
“No, I’m going to watch the game tonight. Pre-season’s starting. You go have fun with your friends. Say hi to Becca for me. She’s a nice girl.”
Stavros started the engine and pulled out of the drive.


- - -
Kip lives in sunny Phoenix, where his wife makes him watch Poltergeist while insisting clowns are not scary. You can find his work scattered about the Internet, at Foundling Review, Inkspill, Monkey Bicycle, Absinthe Revival, and a few other places, proving that a blind squirrel does occasionally find a nut.

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Author: Kip Hanson

Contributor: Conrad Ridgestone

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I gaze at my hands. I only realize now that they are shaking. I further examine them and notice the fine lines of wrinkles gone unnoticed over the years sprawled across my hands. They are old. Veins are bulging, making them look worked and worn. I can’t stop the shaking even though I will myself to stop and I have a feeling of hunger deep in my belly but food is not its wanting but it wants. Wants him back. In my arms. In my heart. Alive! My eyes cloud over with tears and they fall down my cheeks. It’s like an inane ocean beating against a rocky shore. I think I’m all cried out but all of a sudden I feel overtaken by my grief and I hear myself start to sob. Weep. Whatever the fuck you call it. I’m choking on tears now. Literally crying out his name. I can’t even hear myself start to scream and I stutter. I feel the silence. I hear it. I taste it. It’s in the air. It’s in my heart. Unbidden sorrow is rocking me into the depths of nothingness. I eat to stay alive. I take my meds. I drink water but I haven’t turned on the television since....him. I start to analyze myself now, the anger is coming soon. Isn't that a step of grief. I want it to come. I want the guilt and the pain that is devouring me gone. It does not come. I sleep on his side of the bed that night. To smell him. I take my shirt off just to have something to cry into so that I don’t wash his scent away with my tears. I remember so many nights with him at my side. I was always the one who feared death. I never thought about the fear of me being in this world without him. I never allowed myself to believe it was possible. He may have been the older one but I was the weaker one. I swallow. Hard. The anxiety creeps in and I pop another Benzo and wish for my death and his resurrection. He deserved to live. I don’t understand it and in the pit of my gut I know its wrong like someone stole something from me and I’m aghast. I know its wrong. I know it. They’ll bring him back. I know it. I don’t know who they are but they have it all wrong. It’s me. I’m the one they want. Not him. He held me when I couldn't breathe when my mother died and I couldn't stop blubbering. Who is to hold me now?
By 4am I’m in a catatonic wake. I don’t know if it’s depression setting in or the Benzos trying to force it’s hand in my sleep cycle. Lips. A flash of lips in my mind. His. At the top of my spine. His way. The way he’d kiss me to tell me everything would be all right. I finally fall asleep and I don’t dream. I finally wake what has to be 10 hours later in the afternoon and a hopeful smile makes its way across my lips. Hope. The inevitable. It sinks back in. Grief like that...that real. It couldn't have been a dream. No nightmare on Elm Street could feel that heart wrenching. I don’t wanna get up. Not again.
A knock at the door slightly arouses me from my stupor. I sulk all the way down the stairs and open the door to a blank hallway. My stomach clenches as I step out and look both ways as if I am crossing a road. The corridor is as vacated as my heart feels. I want to run. Run and never look back. And I do.Fast. Away. I stop. The sadness has followed.


- - -
Conrad Ridgestone lives in Lebanon, Kansas

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Author: Conrad Ridgestone

Contributor: Gary Hewitt

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Something wasn’t right. Charlie McCoy heard mumbling machinery in the depths of the ship. He glanced at the monitor begging for attention.

He groaned when he saw the words fuel tank cracked and isolated under protocol 4821A.

“Computer, remind me of protocol 4821A.”

“Under protocol 4821A any fuel leakage regarding the fuel tanks initiates shutdown procedure of aforementioned apparatus. The user is advised to take the craft to the nearest registered repair facility as soon as possible or to await recovery. Furthermore it is advised that…”

“Thank you computer, that’ll be all.”

Charlie scanned the list of nearest repair stations. He cursed when he found the one hit. He pressed contact and waited for a response.

“Hi, welcome to Barry’s auto cruiser rescue. Stranded in space? Repairs needed? Well worry not, Barry’s team of experts will fix any problems or you can have your credits back.”

Charlie pressed skip intro and scrolled down to prices and gasped. His faulty fuel tank would cost over five thousand credits. He tapped in the flight plan and lay down in cryogenics. He reckoned he’d be out for three months.

He frowned when he awoke and saw fuel reserves were down to ten percent. He raised Barry on his comms screen and waited for a dishevelled Barry Haynes to respond. He looked like a willow fountain stumbling in a storm.

“Hi. I’m sorry to inform you that due to unforeseen circumstances our repair facility moved to quadrant eleven. We advise our customers to contact Communique Express who will dispatch assistance within two years. Thank you for your time.”

Charlie crashed back into his chair. He closed his eyes. He wasn’t anywhere near tired.


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Gary Hewitt enjoys writing quirky stories and lives in a small village in Kent, England. He has had several works published including sites such as Morpheus Tales, MBrane and indeed Linguistic Erosion.

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Author: Gary Hewitt

Contributor: Kristina England

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Diane leaned into the counter, stared at her reflection in the microwave. She rolled a plastic cap along her palm.

The cat pounced into the room. She was always a pouncer. So light of foot, so happy. Diane smiled half heartedly as the feline rubbed against her leg.

She walked over to the back door, opened it, peered out at the trees. A tumbler skirted the yard, then flew inward and landed on the porch about five feet from her.

The pigeon poked its head around.

Diane immediately felt the cat’s eyes narrow. She put her body in the door as a stopper. The cat stuffed her face in the back of Diane’s knee and began to nudge her repeatedly.

Domesticated. That was the tumbler. Her cat - not as domesticated as she would have liked. But the same could be said about Diane.

Of course, more unique was the tumbler’s ability to tumble backwards in flight.

Diane slid a piece of hair behind her ear. She hadn’t showered in days. She pushed the cat back with her leg and closed the door. The tumbler took off but did not perform for her in its departure.

She knew what it was like to tumble backwards. But for her, tumbling was not fancy, it was not desirable. Tumbling always meant a fall, a bruise. And every tumble took another person with her.

Diane wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve and walked upstairs.

She had tumbled backwards all her life. Every time someone tried to push her forward, she propelled herself in the opposite direction. She was resistant to anything that disrupted routine. So her boss had told her. So her mother had told her. So her therapist had told her. Years and years of people telling her what she felt, yet could not get under control.

Now, after years of tumbling, after years of rolling away, there was no one left to tumble towards. Friends, family, coworkers, had all stopped watching her flight, had all stopped waiting for her pattern to change.

Diane stripped off her clothes, sank into the bathtub. The water, cold from sitting, pickled her skin. She pushed her head underwater, opened her eyes, looking for signs of air.


- - -
Kristina England resides in Worcester, MA. Her writing has been published in Haggard and Halloo, Haibun Today, OVS, Pound of Flash, Streetcake, and other magazines.

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Author: Kristina England

Contributor: Madeline Dyer

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Time goes ever so slowly when you're on your own. When there're no clocks or radios. When you're trapped in perfect daylight forever. You don't even know whether time itself still exists. It, like so many other things, could've just been forgotten, lost, hidden away.

Pure white daylight. It's everywhere. Permanently haunting me. I run. It runs. I hide. It hides. It is me and I am it. Time is my only companion.

But time heals, right? That's one of the sayings that I remember... One of the sayings that's very much still alive within the pristine, clean abyss that is my world.

They say that with time I'll have forgotten what it was like to be human. They say that I'll be content with this: the life of a Time-Walker.

They lie. They all lie. I will lie.

It sounded exciting, at first. They told me all these tales of awe and bravery. They made it sound so good. I wanted to be a Time-Walker. I really did. I trusted them.

A few years of solitude... Dabbling in timelines... Protecting those you love... Sounds perfect, right?

Never trust a Time-Walker. It's the job no one wants. Being trapped here: the 'perfect' paradise. No one can harm you. No one can upset you. You're purely alone with your own thoughts. Torture, right?

And time goes ever so slowly when you're on your own. And your brain whirs; you come up with the most amazing ideas, inventions, stories. You feel the need to shout. You do. But no one hears. No one but time. Because time is always there. Time waits. Time remembers. Time laughs.

And, by the end of it, I'll be just like them. I'll get out of this prison, and I'll find another human. I'll tell her how wonderful it is to be a Time-Walker. I'll persuade her. I'll mind-trick her. Just like they did to me. Anything to get out of this job.

Anything to be cast away. Anything to escape time itself. Time is dangerous. Time sucks away your energy, leaving you old, wizened, worn out.

Everyone's a Time-Walker, and everyone thinks that their 'go' will be different. It never is. Not when humans are slaves to the world of time.

Not when time still exists. Not when time is forever watching you. Not when time consumes you.


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Madeline Dyer lives on a farm in Devon, England, and has a strong love for mythology and folklore; this in particular inspired her to start writing fantasy. She is currently working on her fourth young adult fantasy novel.

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Author: Madeline Dyer

Contributor: Madeline Dyer

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Stars are beautiful things. They just sit up there all day, sparkling and twinkling, watching us. Thousands of them, like little angels, guarding the earth.

Powerful. Mesmerising. Beautiful. Just like you.

And their colours! Pure beauty. I gaze for hours at them. And their energy! The power just drips from them, slowly, slowly disappearing until everything's gone. Until they ceased to exist, and you begin to question your own memory...

That's something I've been doing a lot. I've seen the way people look at me. The way their eyes scan me. They think I'm mad. Even the dogs think I'm mad. Maybe I am... who knows? Who can be sure of anything in this world?

Stars are the only friends I have, now that you've disappeared. Disappeared...

You promised that we'd always be together. Remember that night in Avonally? That moonlit walk by the beach... our hands interlinked... your dark eyes watching mine. The stars were guarding us then and we both realised it. You pointed up to them, didn't you? I still remember your silky, rich voice: “They'll always protect us.”

Protect. What a strange verb. Stars don't protect us. What are they? Dying suns? Lucky omens? Anchors in the night?

They disappear, eventually. Nothing's certain. Least of all stars. Yes, they sparkle. Yes, they cast the most brilliant light on people. But they burn up. They always burn up. Orange. Red. Gold. And if they don't? They run. They flee. They hide. Just like you.

What's the saying? You know... the one that Elena was always chanting... 'The strongest ones stay...' Sometimes, young children are the wisest. Sometimes, I wonder if she knew. Sometimes, I think she must have. Every now and again, I look at her. I notice the wild sparks in her eyes. I see the way her hair falls in a veil around her cherub face... like she's hiding your secrets, protecting you...

But that's stupid, right? She couldn't have known. No one could. Not even the witches in the darkest coven could've known what you were up to, what you were involved with. You were the poster child around here. You were the one who was telling us all that we had to fight... that we had to fight the change. That we had to fight the shifters when they came.

You were the one who unlocked your magic first. I was there that night. I still remember the look of sheer awe on your face when you channelled the stars' power. Your face had lit up. You'd looked even more powerful that night than ever before... standing there on that beach, your arms reaching for the stars, the milky aura embracing you... That was the man I fell in love with.

The red gleam in your eyes still haunts me. You still haunt me.

I tried to find you once. I thought that what we had was special. I thought that you still wanted me. I guess that I'm the fool. I was your girlfriend, yet I never even knew you. I just knew the 'you' that you wanted me to. The image you projected, it was strong, charismatic, powerful. Nothing like the real you...

Elena still tells me that I'm being harsh, too hasty... after all, we don't know what actually happened to you... you're like the stars: a mystery. An mystery that will always be out of reach. But I've got my feeling. My gut feeling. My instinct. And, I'm always right, aren't I?

The stars are all I have left of you. Each brilliant point of light evokes the strongest of memories every time I look upon them. I can't tear my eyes away from them for hours. They're so captivating. I lose myself to them. I'm consumed by them. But stars fade. Memories fade. Goodness fades. I'm spat out.

And the stars burnout.


- - -
Madeline Dyer lives on a farm in the southwest of England, and has a strong love for mythology and folklore; this in particular inspired her to start writing fantasy. She is currently working on her fourth young adult fantasy novel.

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Author: Madeline Dyer