Contributor: Kristina England

- -
“We’re what?”

“We’re taking the birds to the beach,” Stacey said, rubbing sunscreen onto her shoulders, then down her arms, her fingers making slow, small loops.

Nick watched her apply the cream. It always confused him how a woman could make even sun protection look sexy. Or maybe it was just the male hormones that distorted the freeze frames in his brain.

He looked over at the nylon carrier, then back at Stacey.

“Why the heck would parakeets want to go to the beach?”

“To listen to the ocean, silly,” she said with a full smile, the strawberry-flavored lip gloss she had applied five minutes ago reflecting back at him.

“Okay, so play some nature music or something. Those birds aren't going to the beach”

She gave him the look that made any man check himself in the bathroom to make sure all his wonders were still there.

Nick looked at the birds. The problem with every relationship was that each person came with a level of quirkiness. Stacey’s crazy streak came with her birds. He’d dated OCD and paranoia. A bird woman didn’t seem as crazy. Or maybe it did.

The birds looked back at him and made no protest in regards to their current situation. They were quiet and content in their nylon carrier. Sure, they squawked at bedtime, but take them to the beach and they were just as happy as bikini-clad women.

He sighed. “Okay... It looks like the convertible roof is staying up today.”

She smiled, leaned over and kissed him. He suddenly felt a desire for Strawberry Shortcake so he kissed her back.

Ten minutes later, he lugged the birds out to the car. Stacey did three checks of their driving situation and they were off.

Betsy and Stan (the birds) were surprisingly quiet on the trip. The cars outside were more noticeable than Stacey’s feathery friends.

At the beach (a small one that only a few locals came to), Stacey set the bird carrier down on the sand. The waves rushed in and out, hissing against the rocks. The birds heads turned and let the water spray their little faces.

Nick laid down and watched them in silence. After five minutes, he turned to Stacey.

“I think those birds have enjoyed the beach more than I have in the last thirty years.”

Stacey smiled at him and lowered her sunglasses. “Nope.”

“Nope?”

“How do you feel right now?”

“Relaxed.”

“Then there you go.”

He turned back to the birds and continued to watch them, the sound of Mother Nature lapping his ears.

Maybe Betsy and Stan weren’t so bad after all, even if they squawked when Nick and Stacey made love.


- - -
Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her writing is published or forthcoming at Decades Review, Extract(s) Gargoyle, The Story Shack, and other magazines.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Kristina England

Contributor: David Macpherson

- -
I tell a bartender I hear tips is an acronym for “to insure professional service.”

The bartender, still taking orders, says, “I heard that too and I think that’s bullshit. It can’t be true, and if it is, it shouldn’t be. It’s saying I need your bar change so I’ll do my job in proper like. It’s the latest Insurance racket. You got car insurance, health insurance and now you have mixed drink insurance, with an annuity rider for cocktails and personal injury in case you get hit by a champagne cork. Really. To insure professional service. I got more pride than that. I do professional service because I am a fucking professional. It’s what I do. I’m not an actor filling time between auditions. I ain’t a novelist working on my steampunk manuscript. I tap kegs. Pour stouts, mix drinks and talk up thirsty mouths and tell bad jokes. I’ll do that if I get a tip or not. You stiff me on a tip and next time you come in, I still will smile and serve and do the whole fucking routine, I might not mean it, but you still get the song and the dance and the beer. That acronym is saying that the only way I’ll do what I am supposed to is if you bribe me. It might be offensive if it mattered. Truth is some will tip, some will not and some will order another. Sometimes I am having the best time with a customer, we’re like old friends and they leave me a quarter and a dime. And then there are others on a limited budget, counting out every penny and still tipping me twenty percent. Who can say.”

He stops. Notices a customer leaving without settling a tab. He probably just forgot, we are sure.The bartender mumbles “Watch me insure professional service” as he leaves the bar area and follows the guy out the door to politely remind him of what is expected in these moments of transaction.


- - -

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: David Macpherson

Contributor: Rohini Gupta

- -
I know it’s there in the world of dreams – the hell of failed writers. It’s a dark, furtive, endless cave which reeks of stagnant despair and overripe frustration.

It’s heavily populated. Until you look at that crowd standing there in the shadows, you don’t realize how many people wanted to write. Young and old, every race and sex and color and style, the highly educated and the dropouts, the wealthy and the starving. They are all there, shoulder to shoulder bound by the same darkness.

They mill around angrily, snapping at each other, furious at being here, but yes, ashamed too. They know it is their own doing.

The only bright thing about the place is the woman who sits at the lighted desk. She is bright and shining, sparkling and gracious in white. She has a large register in front of her and she checks each name in it.

One by one the writers go before her, looking away, not daring to meet her eyes, bracing themselves to take the weight of her smile.

“So,” she says not even finishing the question.

And they mumble and stammer before her.

“Ah,” she says, “That excuse has been used 455678893 times – I did not have enough time. And this one – I will write when life gets better – 378946357 times."

She gives them a neat note, a slip of clean paper with a number on it. “Go and contemplate your sin,” she says.

They shuffle away, weary beyond belief and they mingle in small groups speaking in hushed tones.

“I really believed I would ……”

“I thought one day …..”

“I waited till I retired but ….”

And they look at each other with the sudden shock of revelation.

They dive for pens and keyboards and write furiously, their fingers moving faster than the speed of light.

Then they wake, having forgotten the dream, but with a great sense of urgency. They skip breakfast, let the phone ring itself into exhaustion, and head for the work table. Fingers burn with the friction.

The words flow.

At last they sit back, warm, fulfilled, satisfied.

I believe it really exists, the writer's hell, in dreams somewhere, in those unmapped spaces beyond this world. Too many excuses take you there.

I’ve been there. I know. I stood before that shining desk. I made my excuses, my voice sounding hollow as a gong. I felt that chill hopelessness but when I woke it was with renewed energy and a clear sense of what to do.

I must make sure I never enter that grey blankness again. Keep the keyboard so busy that dust has no time to settle.

May smoke ascend from the thunder of the keys forever.


- - -
I am a writer of poetry and non fiction and am working on longer stories, but flash fiction is its own delight. On a good day a flash fiction story almost writes itself and that is why I keep coming back to it.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

1 comment

Author: Rohini Gupta

Contributor: Rachel Rose Teferet

- -
He never should have taken those tabs of acid. In truth, he had doubted their potency, as they were a year old, and had been discovered inside a library book, long overdue.

Now, Jude is at the library, trying to pay his fine with much difficulty.

“Sir. Your fine is fifty dollars; you have handed me a picture of your dog,” says the librarian, her face green and warty. She looks like a frog.

Sure that he is being mugged, he hands over his entire wallet and whimpers. The frog hands it back with a sigh, and tells Jude to have a nice day, sir.


He runs out of the prison lined with books―how the names of ancients glower from their gilding!―until Jude is panting in the sunshine, slumped against the book return box.

“Hey Mister, are you okay?”

Jude’s head snaps up. A child dressed in pink lace and ladybug boots is about to poke Jude with a stick. Jude growls. The girl squeals and scampers back into the catacomb of books.


Jude leans against the hot metal of the return box and hoists himself up to standing. The irises nod their heads at him; frizzled brown camellias plop onto the pavement. Behind the parking-lot, a nature trail beckons, a thick wood bordered with orange poppies gleaming like small suns.


He scrambles on all fours towards the trail, away from the library, away from the honking cars humming and chugging for his death. He rests his back against a pine tree and he is dropsied.


From here, he can survey all below him, but no one can see him. He is invisible. A ghost.
He picks a poppy and pops it into his mouth. It tastes like orange candy; it transforms him into sunlight.


Jude whistles, coaxing the shining sun inside of his cranium. He shrugs off his backpack and inspects its contents. The water from the canteen is gulped and rivulets trickle down his chin, carving clean pathways through sweat. The sandwich is masticated. The bread tastes like sawdust, and the peanut butter cements his mouth when he runs out of saliva. He forces the dry pulp down his throat, then licks his fingers clean. Continuing to rummage, he comes across a blank notebook.


Ah! He remembers, now. His thesis is due tomorrow―tomorrow!―and he decided that taking acid while sitting in the library, inhaling musty books, would be productive. Especially since he has not started his thesis. At all.


It is supposed to be a creative work of fiction, at least one-hundred pages long. Jude’s fingers fidget with the virgin notebook. He flips through it and is blinded by the whiteness, the blood-red margins.


Yes. He will write his magnum opus―not where the dead are entombed alphabetically―no! He shall write en plein air; his words will be thick impasto.


His tremulous fingers turn his backpack upside-down: cigarettes, condoms, Jack Daniel's, a walkman, fall out. Jude gives the bag an extra shake. A lone pencil follows, its eraser chewed, its sides pockmarked. Now to start writing.


He flips to the first page. The wind breathes, rustling his hair and clothes. The pages ripple like water. His pencil seems to take a breath, like a diver preparing to submerge.

The pencil dips, is pressed to the white waves. The tip breaks. There is a moment of silence.

Jude frantically searches through his possessions, but finds no extra pen or pencil. He considers stabbing himself with the pencil stub to write his thesis in blood, but the thought makes him shudder.


“See here,” he mutters to his walkman, to his smooshed condoms. “See here,” he repeats. He has nothing more to say.


He leans back against the pine, which cradles him in papery arms. It whispers: See how it is, my acolyte. For every book, there is a dead tree. The mills run red with amber blood. The library is a slaughterhouse!


“A perversion!” Jude shouts, his voice reverberating. Elderly patrons of the library eye him warily before shuffling inside.

It’s all so clear now! The notebook falls from Jude’s nerveless fingers. What to do with this book—this corpse? Jude holds his head and weeps. He gropes through his belongings and unites cigarettes and lighter. He puts two, three cigarettes between his lips. He is a chimney; he is being turned into ashes. All is woe, woe!


Jude wishes he had three hands with which to smoke his three cigarettes. What if he had ten hands, ten feet? He could dance in a circle of cigarettes, puffing to oblivion. Like a god, with so many hands.

Jude caresses the notebook like a mourner caressing the embalmed. There should be a proper burial.


Jude shoves his belongings away with his feet to reveal bare earth. He lays the notebook reverently at the foot of the tree, then takes the smoldering cigarettes out of his mouth to light the pyre.

The notebook burns, smelling of tobacco and singed hair. Jude takes off his shoes and dances.

When the pine needles catch, Jude does not notice. His plastic walkman oozes; the smell is acrid. The condoms go up in green flares. It is only when Jude is surrounded by fire, he thinks that maybe he is (not) hallucinating.

It is too late.

Cars are caught in the spreading conflagration, gas tanks explode. The world is fire.

Firetrucks come, sentient, blaring. Sisyphean. The library is burning, and Jude’s ghost smirks. The books―oh falsehood! oh prevarication!―burn. The smoke swirls into the sky. Jude follows the pillar up and is subsumed into the sun, shining like an orange candy poppy winking in the sky.


- - -
Rachel Rose Teferet used to be a painter; now, she paints with words, and thinks a story is worth a thousand pictures. Her stories have been published by The Rusty Nail Magazine, Uncharted Frontier Magazine, and Cuento Magazine, and more. Her website is lettersandfeathers.wordpress.com, and her twitter handle is @art4earthlings.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

3 Comments

Author: Rachel Rose Teferet

Contributor: Kai Raine

- -
“What do you think the cover should look like?”
“I leave that up to you. I love your pictures no matter what you do.”
“Aw, you and your flattery. How’s the office?”
“Boring as hell. But, you know, it’s a job. Would you believe, Felix got on my case again about my presentation? He went on and on about how it’s useless to have a PowerPoint presentation at all if I’m not going to put any words on it.”
“Wait, was this the one for the ad pitch? With the beach and ocean pictures to create the atmosphere that you were pitching?”
“Yes. Can you believe his nerve?”
“Shit. Your boss didn’t agree with him, did he?”
“Nah, she was more than cool with it. I’m giving the presentation to the higher ups in Friday.”
“That’s great!”
“Yes, it is! How’s the flying?”
“Oh, you know…routine. But in my line of work, routine is good. I’m half worried that I’ll have to land in the Hudson one day, and won’t do it half as well as the other guy.”
“Yeah, I’d take boring office drama over boring routine any day. Even if your office is a cockpit.”
“Your cubicle is bigger.”
“Totally.”
“So, back to the cover-”
“Argh, seriously, I’ll love it no matter what you draw. I’d even love it if you drew a skeleton, though that might be a little bit tonally dissonant from the actual story.”
“I’m kinda debating between a cool, swashbuckling prince versus dragon type cover, or a medieval landscape with the castle and moat and everything.”
“I think the dragon might be a little more attention grabbing, if it’s that.”
“Because of the glasses and puppy dog tail?”
“Yep.”
“I was thinking for the landscape that there could be this little distant grappling on the castle drawbridge between the pelicans and the guards. Then show the marmoset paddling across the moat on the other side, fighting off the crocodile with the paddle. And then just a hint of the dragon in the corner of the sky.”
“Oh, go with that one. That one sounds way awesome.”
“Are you sure? I thought it might be a bit busy.”
“Well, you know, don’t kill yourself over it. If it’s too time consuming-”
“No, of course not! When have I ever been too busy to illustrate for you?”
“That time that your…friend ran away to Thailand. And that other time that your ferrets broke the wall and you had to patch it up yourself because your neighbor wouldn’t shut up about it and the repairman couldn’t come around for three days.”
“Fine, I get your point-”
“There was also that time when you were working three jobs and taking night classes-”
“Hey, you didn’t even ask me to illustrate then. If you’d asked, I’d have done it.”
“Yeah, and promptly dropped dead of malnutrition.”
“Speaking of malnutrition, how’s your brother?”
“The doctors say he’s fine. He was on IV for twenty-four hours, then got sent home with strict orders to eat better. Mom’s making a fuss about how if he had a girlfriend, it never would have happened.”
“He hasn’t told her yet, then?”
“Hey, I haven’t ever had the guts to tell her I was dating anyone, even when they were more…conventional sorts of people.”
“Fair enough. I’m pretty sure your mother thinks we’re dating.”
“Ugh, please don’t bring that up. Speaking of which, your father thinks the same.”
“He does not.”
“He does. I got a long email about what an irresponsible partner I was that time you got hospitalized in Berlin.”
“What the- Oh, crud. I’m sorry. I’ll talk to him.”
“Don’t worry, I told him to kindly go stick it where the sun don’t shine.”
“You did not.”
“I so did.”
“I think I love you.”
“Ditto. You know, much as I enjoy these conversations of ours, I’ve got to be at work in five hours.”
“Right, sorry. Exciting day battling witches tomorrow?”
“More like the demonic forces that be.”
“Sounds fun. Make sure you’ve got your light sabre on hand.”
“Oh, I will. Don’t mess up tomorrow and send yourself to the angels.”
“Haven’t messed up yet.”
“Keep it that way. Same time on Thursday?”
“Definitely. Bye!”
The line went dead.


- - -
I am a graduate student finishing a novel and fighting bureaucracy. My work has appeared in the anthology Denizens of Darkness and the periodical Suddenly Lost in Words.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Kai Raine

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
When Barney Murphy married Blanche O'Brien, he told her almost every day from the wedding on that she was apricots and peaches, an orchard that was his alone to wander, plucking fruit as he saw fit, all of it ripe and juicy, something he would savor for the rest of his life. Blanche, a shy woman, really liked the way Barney could talk. He made nonsense sensible, she told her parents. Blanche was a very happy wife.

From the sixth month on during her first pregnancy, Blanche would ask Barney every day to pat her watermelon. When it finally burst, a boy popped out, and then a girl right after the boy, and then another boy right after the girl. Blanche had given birth to triplets within minutes of each other, lovely infants, all three of them plump and crowned with hair that ran in rivulets of curls.

Six additional children, born one at a time over the next 12 years, were just as beautiful. Even the neighbors were amazed at the fecundity of the couple. Some ladies on the block thought Barney should take up bowling.

"I've certainly got my hands full," Blanche would tell her lady friends but she still seemed happy. Barney remained unperturbed. He earned terrific money as a defense attorney, a vocation to which his rhetorical skills had called him. He tried to find a partner to share the workload but no one could talk the way Barney could. The bigger the crime the more the criminal would pay to hire Barney.

Life was very good for the productive couple. Their nine children studied hard in school and graduated from college. Unlike the trend today, they all married early and settled down. Blanche was even happier once the last child had married and moved out of the house. It would be another honeymoon with just her and Barney home alone. And it seemed that way until the eve of their Golden Wedding Anniversary. That was the night Barney told her, after a nice dinner at a Russian restaurant, that she--his Blanche--was no longer apricots and peaches. More like prunes and raisins.

"Nine children," Blanche said, "can take a toll on a woman."

"I know, I know!" Barney said, "I'm not blaming you. But this is life. And I'm short one orchard."

Barney pointed out that he had plans to prospect for another orchard. He wanted fresh fruit again, ripe and succulent. For days Blanche was stricken. She couldn't believe Barney would go looking for another woman--or maybe women. But as her mother told her when they were courting, Barney was never meant to be a priest. Still, she had no reason to believe that in 50 years of marriage Barney had ever been unfaithful. Still, the kids had kept her busy and Barney often worked late into the night--or so he said.

In her youth, Blanche, in addition to being apricots and peaches in the eyes of Barney, had also been in the Olympics twice. She had won five gold and silver medals as an archer, a feat Barney over the years had proudly mentioned many times to any neighbor who would still listen. Frankly, everyone on the block was tired of hearing about Blanche's medals. But thinking it might help keep Barney as her husband, Blanche went looking for and found her ancient bow and arrow in the attic. That night she told Barney she was going to practice for the Senior Olympics.

The Senior Olympics was something Barney had long wanted Blanche to compete in. He wanted her to win more medals. The price of gold and silver had skyrocketed and he figured another stack of medals would be another insurance policy for retirement. Barney even decided to help Blanche train for the competition, taking time off from work to do so. He set up targets in their big back yard and brought the arrows back to her after she had shot them.

With Blanche practicing every day, Barney was kept very busy. He was so busy, in fact, that Blanche didn't think he had time to look for any new orchards. In addition, she had begun to regain her old expertise. In fact, she thought it was unlikely any other woman in the over-70 group would be able to beat her. "Bullseye Blanche," as they used to call her, was back in business.

A month later, however, something happened. The story in the paper and the reporters on TV said it was an accident, a tragedy, one arrow out of hundreds gone astray, a large, loving family heartbroken.

And the nine kids, all with big families of their own by now, believed it was an accident. Blanche in tears had told them at the time how the arrow had gone awry, had gone right through Barney's left eye and settled in his brain.

"He dropped like a tree at logging time," she said.

There was nothing the first responders could do. Barney was pronounced dead at the hospital. All the neighbors turned out for the funeral and took turns bringing Blanche a hot meal every night for weeks. And then the story seemed to die. Blanche wore black for months and months.

Nevertheless, not everyone was satisfied that things had happened exactly as reported. At closing time in a local pub frequented by friends, every now and then, maybe once a week or so, the same drunken neighbor would declare for all to hear: "The cops can't ask old Barney what happened that day. We've heard what Blanche has to say. But Barney can't say a word."

Maybe Barney's death was an accident. One arrow out of hundreds can go astray. Blanche refused to talk about it anymore and would begin to bawl if anyone mentioned Barney's name. She also refused to compete in the Senior Olympics even though her skills had continued to improve right up until the arrow caught Barney's eye. The kids all agreed Barney would have wanted her to compete. But Blanche said no--that to do so would be like putting an arrow in Barney's other eye and there was no need for that now.


- - -
Mostly a writer of poetry, Donal Mahoney has found that narrative poems that don't work out sometimes can be converted into fiction. This piece started as a poem and was converted into fiction. Do other writers do the same?

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Donal Mahoney

Contributor: Caitlin Brodie

- -
They tell you to worship the sun. Worship him for his light and fire and heat. Worship his brightness, even as it claws at your eyes and you beg to look away. They give him ten thousand gods, and as an afterthought they give a name to the darkness, call him Death, and tell you to never speak his name.
Speak my name. Don’t be afraid.
God of darkness, God of disease, God of blindness, God of night. I existed long before you. I will exist long after you. I remember with my hollow eyes the beginning of it all. I walked this rock you call home, embraced it all, loved it all, fell asleep with the sun on my back and when I woke, I was named Evil.
You people blame me for shadows, blame me for the bad things that live in my heart. But you can’t have shadows without light. Show me a good man, a kind man, and I will show you the shadows inside him. Light and Dark. These things were created equal. I am no murderer. He is no god. These things I know, yet here I am. Alone.
You see me coming, you run for cover. Head towards the light, find that pretty brightness at the end of the tunnel, hear the voices of your family on the other side. That is death, friends. I am the darkness, I am rest, and yet you run from me and into his sick, bright arms and I am not to be trusted.
At the end of all things, your precious sun will burn. Unable to control his rage, he will release himself, and all his light and fire and heat will destroy everything you’ve ever known until all that’s left is silence. Until all that’s left is me. And yet I am the one you fear.
I am the cold hand on your fevered forehead. I am the warm embrace of clouds on every black winter night. I am relief, I am sleep, I am that which gives all your light and brightness meaning.
In the end, your sun will burn apart and fall into my embrace, just as everything does. I will be there at the end, holding you as everything I love is turned to dust, and as always I will be alone.
My name is not Death, or Satan, or Stranger. My name is not Black or Night or Evil.
My name is End, and I will never die.


- - -
Caitlin Brodie recently graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in Fiction Writing. She is currently working on her first novel.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Caitlin Brodie

Contributor: Lindsey McLeod

- -
Saudade is a unique Galician-Portuguese word that has no immediate translation in English; it describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves.

I have been waiting for what seems like days. Tick tick. You have been gone for an indefinable amount of time, and left me with her. I know she hates me - that much has been made perfectly clear. I'm not exactly keen on her either. She resents the bond we have together, the closeness, the daily walks to the local swingpark which thankfully so far you have not invited her to come on after that first disastrous attempt. Tick. She is my enemy for your affection, the strange body sleeping in your bed, taking up space in the already too-small flat. Tick tick.

It is not that she has forced me into the kitchen, where I huddle now under the table next to the radiator, listening to the irregular old clock hung crookedly on the wall. I could sit in the living room on the soft couch if I wished, although I would have to endure her mutterings and pointed glares. I could even go and curl up on your bed, in the space that smells of you and safety, if I felt brave enough to risk her wrath. Tick. I was, after all, here first. She knows that. She cannot get rid of me. She can only try to outlive me. I was never particularly bulky, but now, looking down at my scrawny body, I see how much I have been changed by the past few months. I've heard you arguing with her late at night. She screams at you about the cost of my medical bills, about my occasional accidents. Tick tick. Your voice is always steady, quiet. She threatens to leave you. She never does. She smashes objects around the house. She never replaces them. I can't help but cringe when she speaks to me, and somehow that seems to make her hate me even more.

I hear your footsteps on the porch, and the slow click of your key in the lock. Tick. Everything you do has an edge of solid reassurance. There are no words to explain how much you mean to me, how my heart swells up with joy to know that you are in my presence again, a barrier of protection against the enemy and the rest of the world. You exchange a few words with the devil, then I hear your boots, heavy and somehow more real than anything else in this house, in this world, thumping across the floor towards the kitchen. I scramble out from under the table as eagerly as my old bones can manage. Ticktickticktick. When you push the door open I throw myself at you with all the energy I can muster. You laugh, bending down to my height and gather me in your arms. "Easy there," you say, chuckling. "I've only been at work for a few hours. Did you miss me that much?"

It may seem like just a few hours to you, but locked in this house all day under the eye of the enemy, listening to the clock, my finite time rushes away unbearably slowfast. I bury my head in your shoulder and try to force down the lump in my throat. Tick tick. The feeling is beautiful and terrible at the same time. It makes me shiver. To be reunited with something you missed so much, longed for so badly, is overwhelming. I can't deny that every time you leave, I wonder if you will come back to protect me or to gather your things and leave. Tick.

The enemy pushes open the kitchen door. She gives me a distasteful look but refrains from saying anything. "What do you want to do about dinner?"

You grin down at me as your hand gently strokes my hair. "Let's just order in tonight. That new Chinese place looked good."

She grimaces behind you, and the blame in her eyes is directed solely at me. Tick.

"Fine," she snarls, and slams the door.

A brief look of contrition flashes over your face, but it is quickly replaced by a rueful smile. I look up at you, apologetic for my existence.

She bangs back into the room. Tick tick. "She's not your goddamn mother, you know."

Ti-

You don't look at her. You look at me.

-ck.

"I know," you say. But your arms tightening around me tell a different story.


- - -
I won the Cazart Short Story prize in February 2012; recently I was longlisted in the Fish Publishing 2013 Short Story competition. Three of my flash fiction stories are available as a download on the Ether Books mobile app.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Lindsey McLeod

Contributor: Steven Winters

- -
The sound of conveyer belts and the news, shown on dusty 90’s television screens, dominate the empty baggage claim as she stares toward the escalator which leads from the main terminal. Even as the broadcast tells its usual tales of death and debauchery, it matters little to her.

She waits there in an ivory dress, the one she wore the day he first met her all those years ago. A small, tear drop sapphire rests several inches above her chest; the first gift he ever gave her, “It accents your beautiful eyes.” All that matters to her is that he is coming home from the war front, and she wants to meet him the same way they first met. The rain that patters outside even has a romantic ambiance as she can see them walking through it together, clasping hands in a downpour as happened on their wedding day. Even though they have no children, promises of his return intimate that he would like to start a family.

Ten minutes after his scheduled arrival, still no sign of him as she waits at the baggage claim. It must be a slight delay. Half an hour later, people come and go, but still he has not arrived. After an hour she looks at the old screens, a flight has crashed in the Atlantic, and a tear traces her face. The newly reunited families who greet each other so affectionately only see a girl who waits alone.


- - -
Steven Winters is an undergraduate student working towards a dual degree in Creative Writing and Microbial Biology at Auburn University. When he is not studying, he can be found outside enjoying the the elements.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Steven Winters

Contributor: Chris Sharp

- -
She had to make herself move at some point. For over a half hour, her stillness matched her stolid living-room furniture. At last she stood with the oxygen brought on by one of her deepest sighs. At two in the morning, she wondered how her former husband was getting around and moving about in his own house.

“Geraldine?” said Serge, her new husband, a minute after she returned to the bedroom and slipped back into the bed.

“What?”

“I thought you were going to read.”

“I was.”

“I thought I heard you talking.”

“I was reading aloud to give myself some company. Now I want to go back to sleep, Serge. Okay?”

In the middle of the night, Geraldine had made the habit of leaving Serge in bed so she could read in the living room and “make my eyes sleepy.”

“Otherwise I’ll be lying in bed for hours keeping my eyes shut like a little kid,” she had told him.

She would always keep the dreams that woke her up at a careful distance from Serge. In recent weeks, she made her late-night visits to the living room more frequently so the time when she phoned her former husband would get lost in the routine.

“I had a dream just now that you were handling my ears,” she had said to Brandon, the young man whom she married when she was only twenty. “My two ears seemed to be made of clay, and you wanted to remake them with your fingers, for some reason.”

Once again – for the seventh time in just two months – Brandon told her he just experienced the same dream she described. “Exactly the same dream,” he told her. “I was waiting for you to call in my own little space here.”

“I know it has something to do with the twins, Brandon.”

In the middle of their two-year marriage, Geraldine suffered a miscarriage of twins, which she remembered as an event so disruptive it divided her years into the old times and the new times. But the new times were so different she could no longer see herself living in them, nor could she see Brandon living with her there.

“They say ghosts linger with us because of unresolved issues,” she said.

“But are these dreams the ghosts of the twins, or of the old Geraldine and the old Brandon?”

She didn’t feel like answering that. “These dreams come to me in the form of a half-life,” she told him.

“I know I acted badly toward you, Geraldine. I know you needed to talk with me those nights after we lost the babies. But I just wanted to get some sleep so I could survive at work.”

“Did you hear what I just said to you, Brandon?”

She felt stunned that he was so oblivious, even though she used to tell him about a “half-life” taking over when all physical things ended, when the twins might still grow into some kind of wonderful people.

“I know how you feel, Geraldine.”

“How can you know how I feel?”

“In my dream I felt myself touching your ears and saying, “I miss you. I miss you.’”

“That’s not what I miss.”

“Geraldine, please listen to me.” His voice lowered to such a soft pitch it reminded her about his own wife and kid who were probably sleeping in another room out of the way. “In my dream I was trying to make you younger.”

“What’s so nice about that?”

“I mean to say, to make you the Geraldine I once married.”

“What’s wrong with the Geraldine I am now?”

“Truly I’m not the same Brandon I was then, and you’re not the same Geraldine. In a way, maybe we both became two imposters.”

“Maybe just one imposter.”

“Please, Geraldine, these dreams are so freaking me out.”

At other times, she might have kept the line of thought going, but this night she decided to get off the phone.

“Goodnight, Brandon.”

Then she just sat there.

With Brandon’s abrupt new description about a pair of imposters, the word “two” was still getting to her. It started with the miscarriage. She was bleeding for nearly two weeks, practically never moving in her bed with her fears locked in yet shedding much more blood in the last two days. On the last night she wore two new black shadows under her eyes. Then she felt herself bleeding so heavily she rushed from her bed into the bathroom.

She told Brandon when she came out: “I just miscarried.”

In the hospital, as she felt throughout the sedation that scraping and that cleaning in the D&C procedure, she closed her eyes tightly. At the time, she thought shutting her eyes against the forced reality pressing on her might somehow salvage the two little things that had fallen into the toilet.

After that, everything seemed to be coming at her in pairs.

Even when she drove up to any intersection, she mainly thought about two things crossing in front of her.

When she had at last slipped back into bed with her new husband of only two months, she closed her eyes to make everything as black as possible. Then two little lights popped up on the black screen.


- - -
Chris Sharp has numbers of flash-fiction short stories in Linguistic Erosion, Yesteryear Fiction, Weirdyear, and Daily Love as well as longer fiction listed by Google under “Short stories by Chris Sharp.” His book “Dangerous Learning” is being distributed by Barnes & Noble.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Chris Sharp