Contributor: Tom Vinson

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The dishes were piled high and the kitchen smelled of wet bananas. The trash receptacle stood a foot and a half away; green smoke, revealing itself, thusly- ”Good afternoon” said the smoke, hat tipped. It was time to open a window, but the chipmunk, the one I thought I’d shooed away four hours prior, wasn’t having it.
I caught my reflection in the toaster. ”I don’t have a toaster” I said. My friend Garvy’s dad stood on my roof looking in. He smiled and waved. I waved back. Atypical, but I was having it. This is how it is .

Sometimes when you take a pee, it smells like certain things. This afternoon it smelled like the coffee I hadn’t yet drank’n.

Pre-emptive odors for a noon pee read the headline of the Yearly Shave. This is how it would be. I would not shave for a year. For it was Tight that told me that women like a man with facial hair. ”Never have a clean shaven face” he said to me. I continued to drink my beer. I poured it over Rice Sally, but then I asked for a cigarette. ”We can share one” I said. ”Have one of your own” she said back. I stood like a laughing Roman column and inquired about Rice Sally’s boyfriend, a bouncer at the bar we currently occupied; from the outside. ”It’s a funny story” she said and I told her I was in the mood to laugh. ”It’s not ha ha funny. Just sort of weird.” She told her story as we smoked our cigarettes.

Back inside, it was Brian with the tubes and the catheters and the what not up his nose. We stood in line for the bathroom. ”I don’t know what I’m doing” I said. He looked at me and said “You’re waiting for the bathroom.”

There it was just then; the chipmunk. I shooed it away from off the roof, but I felt bad. I leaned on the bathroom door and it opened and I was knocked on my side. Brian, his tubes dangling towards a hungry chipmunk that nibbled at a catheter, looked at me and said “There you are.”

The smell of the wet bananas, though. It was a distinct Harold. And yet, Connie…


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Primarily a theater writer in Asheville, North Carolina. Enjoys making something bizarre from the minute and something comprehensible from the large and terrifying.

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Author: Tom Vinson

Contributor: Cathy S. Ulrich

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Her daughter burned.
She was the youngest, Mommy’s Little Sweetheart. Her other children were nearly grown by the time the last was born, so they never knew that the youngest was her favorite: Martha, sweet Martha, the silent film star.
Oh, Mother, please. I’m not a star yet.
But they both knew she would be.
Martha in her first leading role: Not the vamp this time, but a lady, a real lady, wearing hoop skirts and all.
Martha could invite her mother to watch the filming; no one else could get away with it. Relatives, husbands, wives — all banned. Only Martha, tilting her head to one side, flashing that lovely smile: Please?
Martha’s mother sat behind the director and observed quietly. Sometimes she’d even bring cookies for the crew that would be devoured during the breaks.
Martha always came running to her mother when filming stopped.
Oh, Mother, how did I do? Was I very good?
There would always be one cookie left that the mother kept wrapped in a napkin in her purse, and that was given to the daughter, who would respond by kissing her mother on the cheek.
You’re the sweetest mother.
The sweetest mother and her daughter, beautiful Martha, who was joking about how dangerous the old-fashioned hoop skirts had been.
If a lady went to the docks and there was a gust of wind, it would lift her up, just like an umbrella, and deposit her in the ocean, Martha said. Of course, she couldn’t swim in a skirt like that, and would drown.
The mother didn’t think it could possibly be true.
It is! I read it in a book somewhere.
Smiling Martha, laughing Martha. The mother had never loved her beautiful daughter more.
There was a lit match thrown then — the mother swore later that it was a lit match, though the studio said it could have been Martha’s own cigarette, but my daughter never smoked! — and landed on the hem of Martha’s costume.
Martha at first laughing when the bottom of her skirt caught fire, trying to beat it out with her bare hands, then finally screaming as the flames engulfed her. The mother backed away as her daughter reached for her.
The leading man threw her to the ground, smothering the flames with his jacket. They were taken to the hospital together, leading man and leading lady, and the mother followed in the cameraman’s car.
She waited with the crew for word, and someone had thought to bring her cookies along, so the mother was chewing on one when the leading man was released. His hands were wrapped in gauze, and he’d been given medicine for the pain. He would finish the movie in gloves that clung to his lingering scars, and only the most observant fans noticed.
He wept: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I tried, holding those ruined hands out to the mother, who couldn’t take them.
She could only swallow her cookie and shake her head: No. No, no.

For Martha’s funeral service, the mother selected a pink casket, lined with satin. The older siblings came along with their mother to the funeral home (their father had died not long after the youngest was born; of course Mother dotes on Martha, they said) to make the arrangements.
I want to see her, the mother said. I want to see my baby.
Her children tried to dissuade her, and the mortician too: You don’t want to see her like that.
But the mother was implacable.
I want to see my baby.
The mortician relented and led her into a room where the pink casket was laid out, flowers surrounding it. (So many people loved her, remarked the mother, didn’t they? And her older children agreed.)
He patted the closed lid reverently (I was a fan of her films myself, he revealed to the mother) and then left the room with the older children, so she could say goodbye in peace.
The closed pink casket gave the mother no comfort, for how could it possibly contain her youngest daughter, how could she know? Trembling, she undid the latch and opened the lid, so she could see her daughter — at peace now, her older children said, at peace — one last time. She’d had some favorite items of her daughter’s delivered to the funeral home to be buried with her, and they greeted the mother mockingly, from the otherwise empty casket.
Where is my baby? she wailed again and again until the mortician and her children came rushing to her side, pulling up short at the sight of the opened casket.
She’s not in there, she said bitterly. It’s empty.
No, said the mortician, she’s there, and pressed the mother’s hands gently into the casket, where she felt, under a layer of fabric and another of plastic, her daughter’s body.
Oh, said the mother, softly weeping, I see.
After the mortician had gone, and her older children too, she stayed like that for a while, stroking her daughter’s burned body with her unblemished hands.


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Cathy S. Ulrich knows the difference between a casket and a coffin: It's in the shape.

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Author: Cathy S. Ulrich

Contributor: Bruce Costello

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“Sir, I just can’t walk any further!” the soldier cried out, his battalion exhausted from days of movement and fighting in the mountainous Cretan terrain.
“Get up, lad,” the officer said, kicking the sole of his boot. “You’ve been marching in your sleep the last half hour. Stand up, go back to sleep and keep walking.”
After digging in on the outskirts of a town recently captured by Germans, the men sat down to devour whatever rations were left.
When the officers weren’t looking, Privates Arthur FitzPatrick and Wiremu Parata went scavenging.
Arthur and Wiremu had been brought up on neighbouring farms on the East Coast of New Zealand’s North Island, and were scallywags together at the same country school. A week before the troopship sailed, Arthur had asked Wiremu’s sister, Moana, to marry him.
Wiremu found a tin of raspberry jam poking out from under rubble. He opened it with his bayonet and handed it to Arthur. The pair of them scoffed the lot, hiding behind a burned-out lorry that stank of roasted flesh.
At 1800 hours, two British MkVI tanks advanced along the main road into the town with the New Zealanders behind. Savage house to house fighting followed with bayonet and rifle butt.
A heavy machine gun hidden behind a collapsed wall sprayed them with bullets. One took out the side of Wiremu’s head and splattered his brain over Arthur’s face.
The Kiwis fought their way through to the town square where, totally exhausted, they encountered a concentration of enemy in the southwest corner. It was dark. The major decided on a bayonet attack. “Forward!” he roared and charged, but nobody followed. German bullets tore him apart.
Something stirred inside Private Arthur FitzPatrick and he heard the voice of Wiremu’s old Uncle Henare, who’d taught the boys skills in using Maori weapons of war. A savage chant welled up inside Arthur and brandishing his rifle like a taiaha, he ran screaming towards the Germans.
Yelling and shouting like devils, the other men followed him into a barrage of bullets.

* * *

Back home in New Zealand, Moana was knitting two pairs of socks, one for Arthur, the other for Wiremu. Moana was a small, pretty girl with light brown hair. She constantly wore a lovely smile that was tinged with sadness. Her father had died at Passchendaele and her mother had never fully recovered.
The local postmaster was a kind man with a limp and a big whiskery face, like a garden gnome. He kept his bicycle well oiled, because he liked to travel the winding, gravel East Coast roads himself to personally deliver the telegrams around what he called “my parish.” Some days he traveled big distances.
He held Moana as she sobbed on learning that Arthur was seriously wounded and Wiremu had been killed.
A month later he delivered the news that Arthur was out of danger and could rehab at home. They both danced with joy.
Moana and Arthur married, soon after Arthur’s return, despite his wound.

* * *

Sixty years pass.

* * *

“Here, take this rifle,” Arthur had said to Moana, just before he died the previous year. “Keep it loaded, close beside you in the bed, once I‘ve gone. I won’t be around anymore to protect you and there’s funny people around these days, perverts who break into houses and do unspeakable things to women.”
It’s 2am and there are noises in the next room. With a toothless smile, Moana quietly picks up the rifle and points it at the partly open doorway. Her finger is firm on the trigger.
I’ll not hold back. I’ve nothing left to lose. Arthur’s gone. I’m over ninety years old. No reason to hold back. Nothing to fear. Not even death. I’ll meet up with Arthur again. I’ll come to you intact. No pervert’s going to get me, my darling!
She grins, and glances towards the pillow where Arthur’s bald head used to lie.
How’s that for a thought, eh, Arthur? Are you proud of me? I’ll protect it for you. Nothing to worry about.
Moana presses the rifle butt firmly into her bony shoulder. “Kia kaha, Sis!” She hears her brother’s voice. “Be strong! Kia kaha!” A picture of Wiremu flashes across her mind, his arm around Arthur’s shoulder, leaning over the railing of the departing troopship, calling down to her.
In the next room, Jason Stubbs is going through drawers. He’s sixteen years old, a big lad, doing his first burg.
Should be a piece of piss, Jason’s mates had said. Old lady, shit, she’s about 95! She’ll be deaf as anything, sure to be snoring her head off and if she does happen to wake up and see ya, well, she’s not gonna know who’s behind the balaclava is she? Ya just get ya arse outa there real quick. What are ya, a girl or somethink?
Moana fires at Jason’s crotch and he falls screaming and writhing on the bed. Then, reloading with the speed of many years practice on rats in the barn, she sends a second bullet through his head.
Within minutes, Anaru Te Whaiti, waiting with the full moon for rustlers on his sheep station in the hills behind, arrives on horseback.
“Kia kaha,” he says to Moana, hanging up the phone and wrapping a blanket around her as they begin the long wait for emergency services to travel the long road from town.
“Yes, I killed him!” Moana exclaims, gripping Anaru’s arm. “Bulls-eye! Got him! I don’t care what happens to me. I shot him and I’m glad. Arthur would be pleased, I know. Arthur was a good man. Fought for the country. Saw Wiremu get his head blown off then got so mad he turned into a ruddy hero and got himself shot! Why should some pervert rapist get what Arthur could never have after a bullet blew off his willy?”


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New Zealander Bruce Costello semi-retired from his profession in 2010, retreated from the city of Dunedin to the seaside village of Hampden, joined the Waitaki Writers’ Group and took up writing as pastime. Since then he has had fifty short stories published in literary journals and popular magazines in six countries.

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Author: Bruce Costello

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Technology is wonderful, especially in medicine, Elmo told Opal, the day their son Brett called to tell them the good news. The doctor had told Brett and Debbie their first child would be a boy, according to the machine in the doctor's office.

Elmer never trusted machines other than the machines he used on the farm and Opal didn't either but they were happy to hear about their first grandchild.

"It's wonderful news," Opal told Brett over the phone. "Your father and I will have two cups of cocoa tonight. It's as cold as you probably remember growing up in North Dakota. I know that teaching at the university means you and Debbie must live in Florida but your father and I miss you."

Six months later, Brett called again to say the same machine in the Doctor's office now showed their grandson would be a dwarf. Brett and Debbie had seen the baby on the screen. But this was the first baby they had ever seen on a machine like that so they had to take the doctor's word that the boy would be a dwarf. All they could see was a tiny shape pulsating in the midst of a blur.

"Mom," Brett said, "Debbie and I don't now if we want a dwarf for a son."

Opal was stunned by the news about a dwarf grandchild and began to cry before handing the phone to her husband.

Elmo commiserated with his son as much as he could. But Elmo too was at a loss for words. Finally he mentioned to Brett, a professor with a doctorate in French art, that it was lucky doctors didn't have one of those machines before Toulouse Lautrec had been born.

Lautrec, of course, had been a dwarf and his work and his life had both been influenced greatly by his short stature. Elmo couldn't remember for certain but there may have been some deformity involved as well. That kind of thing can happen with a dwarf.

Brett's doctoral dissertation had been on the work of Lautrec. Elmo remembered seeing prints of Lautrec's work around the house and pictures and drawings of the artist as well. He found both interesting and disturbing.

Nevertheless, Elmo, a farmer in North Dakota for almost 50 years, had come to love the work of Toulouse Lautrec, having seen so much of it in books and slides when Brett was writing his dissertation. His son hadn't married Debbie yet and he had come home to finish the paper for his doctoral degree.

After finishing his conversation with Brett, Elmo hung up the phone and sighed. Then he sat down at the kitchen table and scratched his head while Opal poured two cups of strong coffee. It had been kept warm on the stove since early morning.

Finally Elmo said, "Opal, who knows what kind of boy that grandson of ours would have been. He'd have been a dwarf, yes, but Lautrec was a dwarf, and he did wonderful work. I don't know if anyone ever asked him if he would have been happier not to have lived. I know our grandson wouldn't have been able to ride any of the horses but we could have bought him a pony."


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

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Author: Donal Mahoney

Contributor: Eric Suhem

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“Bill, what I like about you is your predictability, I always know what I’m going to get from you, and that’s hamburgers” said Bill Pleck’s neighbor nemesis Gene, peering over the fence as Bill barbecued hamburgers in the back yard on a summer’s evening.

Suddenly Bill Pleck tore off his barbecue apron and threw it down in disgust, stomping on it emphatically. Next, he poured lighter fluid on the apron, torched it, and reached into a shopping bag, removing a chef’s apron, on which was lettered ‘Mr. Enzyme’. “An enzyme is a chemical catalyst, an agent of change, and that’s what I will be! My new name is Mr. Enzyme, no matter what people say, even you!” he declared, gesturing toward Gene, whose eyes were glued to a pair of binoculars, focusing on the briquettes in the barbecue.

“I’m not pleased by this change in apron habits.” said Gene.

Mr. Enzyme approached his wife Barbara with his new plan for change. They both agreed that their lives up to this point had been unsatisfyingly predictable. Feeling ready for something new, Barbara agreed to a new identity as Mrs. Enzyme. They each talked of redefining their past. “I’ve decided that I’ve had a mysterious past in smoke-filled Mahjong dens,” said Mrs. Enzyme, staring wistfully into the distance.

“And I’ve had a past as a proprietor of a seedy motel on the outskirts of Los Angeles!” said Mr. Enzyme.

Their next action was to remodel one half of their house into a pink castle in the image of her childhood doll house, and modify the other half into a dark oak wood old British men’s club motif that he preferred. (“As part of our redefinition, we’ll also mix the two styles together, so as not to be restricted by gender roles!” said the Enzymes) As the workmen started demolishing one of the rooms of the house to convert it into a garish purple and pink puppet theater, and part of the green pastel kitchen was wrecked to make room for vigorous espresso-toned living quarters, neighbor Gene approached the house, chunks of concrete tumbling down around him. “Look Enzyme, or whatever you’re calling yourself now, there’s a building code!” said Gene, who was a rising player in the Homeowner’s Association.

“We’re within code, Gene,” said Mr. Enzyme, showing him the paperwork. As Gene stalked away, Mr. Enzyme called, “See you this weekend at the neighborhood pot luck!”

On the evening of the pot luck, Mr. Enzyme proudly brought forward the chicken wings from his barbecue, displayed appealingly on a platter. Gene moved forward, challenging Mr. Enzyme's pot luck offering. “What’s your game, Enzyme? I usually bring the chicken wings to this shindig, you usually cook hamburgers.”

“This is a part of our redefinition, Gene,” said Mrs. Enzyme, standing by her husband, letting her natural gravitas weigh in on the situation.

As the evening progressed, the neighbors showed an overwhelming preference for the Enzymes’ chicken wings, leaving Gene’s wings untouched. “We can be anybody we want to be, Gene,” said the Enzymes, munching on potato salad. “It’s a perspective on reality, a choice you can make.”

“But you can’t run away from who you really are. You’re Bill and Barbara Pleck, you cook hamburgers!” insisted Gene.

“Or maybe we’re beings in constant change, not everybody’s the same,” said the Enzymes.

Gene stared at them for a long time, but had nothing to say. He picked up his chicken wings and went home, as the Enzymes slowly morphed into green lizard aliens, their protruding tentacles inspecting the coleslaw.


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Eric Suhem lives in the orange hallway.

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Author: Eric Suhem

Contributor: Bruce Costello

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She was bearded, shabby, alone, and struggling to pick up one of her walking sticks from the carpet. The minister, young and bald, broke off his conversation with a group of relatives, picked up the stick with a cheery hello and asked if Edward, the deceased, had been a friend of hers. The old lady replied but the minister did not catch what she said.
The mourners had gathered for afternoon tea – or, as funeral directors say among themselves, ‘the after match function.’ Adults were mingling. Children were sitting or running about and being growled at. There was lots of noise, and heaps of food, including asparagus rolls and pikelets with raspberry jam and whipped cream on top.
The minister pulled up a chair, plonked himself down beside the old lady, beamed and repeated his question.
“Edward was a great old chap, wasn’t he? How did you come to know him?”
“I’d like to sit outside,” the old lady commanded, peering up at the minister, looking very directly into his eyes.
The minister hesitated, then let her lead him through the crowd of mourners to the Funeral Parlour’s outside courtyard featuring cobbled paths and a tranquil lily pond with goldfish and frogs.
It was a warm autumn day. The two sat side by side in silence until the old lady began to speak. Her voice, though cracked with age, was full of life, unlike her body.
“Edward was just a tiny boy when I used to know him. He was about seven or eight then, that was sixty or seventy years ago, and I’ve not seen him since. His older brother Arnold was my fiancé. Arnold and I were very much in love. We had wonderful times before the war. We’d go by train, Arnold and I and all his family, there were five boys in all, to Hampden, where they had a holiday home. Arnold was the oldest one and Edward was very much the youngest, like an afterthought.” She chortled. “Little Edward liked me a lot. Arnold said I was the older sister that Edward had never had. But I reckon Edward had a crush on me. Such a dear little chap he was, way back then.” Her voice trailed off. “Way back then, way back then.”
She fell silent. A fat young sparrow landed on a fence nearby and began squawking for his mother.
“He looks big enough to be feeding himself,” she chuckled.
The minister smiled, ran a hand across his bald head, and waited.
“That blighter Hitler decided to take on the world,” snorted the old lady. “So Arnold joined the Air Force and went overseas. My own mother and father both passed away around that time. Mother with a heart attack and father a few weeks later of something or other. Arnold’s parents very kindly took me in to live with them. They had four sons serving overseas then. I think I was a comfort, and I helped to look after little Edward, too. Arnold was in Bomber Command, and a Squadron Leader by the time he was twenty-three.”
“Uhuh,” nodded the minister. “Uhuh.”
“Arnold was shot down over Hamburg by a Junkers 88 night fighter flown by Staffelfϋhrer Graf Hans von Stahlmeister between 0230 and 0250 hours on May the twenty-third, 1943.”
“Eh? I didn’t quite catch that,” the minister said, with wrinkled brow, and puckered lips.
“You look constipated, dear,” observed the old lady. “Are you eating enough bran?”
The sparrow’s mother flew in with a fat worm for her big baby.
“That’s made his day,” laughed the old lady.
The minister nodded, looking around towards the entrance gate.
“After Arnold was killed, I couldn’t stay with his family anymore. They wanted me to but I just couldn’t. I found lodgings on the other side of town and kept well away, which was naughty of me. Little Edward must’ve missed me something awful. I felt very bad about that. I married another Air Force chap, a flying instructor. I never loved him, though, and soon I hated him. He left me after a couple of years and I didn’t marry again.”
“And you’d completely lost touch with Arnold’s family, and your little Edward?” prompted the minister.
The old lady nodded.
“So you have been listening,” she said.
“Indeed. Indeed.”
She began swishing with her stick at the leaves on the cobblestones.
“I have this friend Patricia who does computer classes at the Senior Citizens club. She invited me along and much to my surprise, I picked it up easily, even Facebook and researching on Google. I looked up things, like war records. About a fortnight ago, when the rest of the class was at afternoon tea, I found Edward on Facebook. He remembered me immediately. We arranged to meet up last week.”
“Heavens above!” exclaimed the minister. “Just last week! After so long!”
“On the day we were to meet, I saw his death notice in the newspaper. I don’t often buy the paper. It gets expensive when you’re on the pension, and food is so dear these days, and electricity’s going up all the time. I was really looking forward to seeing Edward and catching up on his life and talking about old times." Her eyes sparkled through tears.
“I still love Arnold. And little Edward. And I know we’ll all meet up again.”
She began to sing. ”Don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.”
The young minister looked towards heaven, eyes closed, and lips moving. His bald head glistened in the afternoon sun.
“The war might have ended a long time ago,” he announced, “but for a lot of folk, like your good self, its impact continues.”
“Could’ve been worse,” replied the old lady, with a chortle, tapping her stick on the minister’s knee. “At least we beat the bloody buggers.”


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New Zealander Bruce Costello retired in 2010 and began writing to avoid housework. Since then, he’s had 49 stories accepted by mainstream magazines and literary journals in six countries. He still does housework.”

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Author: Bruce Costello

Contributor: Jim Buck

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This is the last version. I commit it to light. This version, unlike any that preceded it, will be definitive. It may not be as scholarly, or flow as instantly as those other versions. The writer may use fewer words, which will allow room for pseudo semantics, when before, he just wrote and wrote, as though he knew everything and said nothing. This might not mean anything to anyone. This version may be criticized for being perfunctory, or for lacking sagaciousness; it may lack a hell of a lot of things. This version may be criticized for wasting the time of the critic. The critic may be right, his time may be wasted, but I hardly held a gun to his head and demanded he read it. If I had a gun, I would’ve held it to the head of the critic, but not to demand he read it. What does he want from me, anyway?
The teacher may decline from adding it to the syllabus. This could split parents both ways, but generally, the teacher will be applauded for burning this book.
The politician may have a copy hid under the luxurious mattress of his super king sized edge to edge sleeping palace 5000; he may read it by candlelight, with God beaming down on him; he may masturbate to it in the stall, with God beaming down on him; and though he may never concede to having read at least the dirty bits, he will force a bill through the Houses that ensures it never enters any of the schools in the western world, or the little heads of all the children that hibernate within.
This version might highlight just how sick a creature the politician has become, and it might ignite enough hatred in the assassin to take the man out of existence.
There have been many versions, but there’s only one version from now on. Maybe this isn’t the version that your kid read when he was bothered with reading, when you were thinking he was doing his needlework, or playing on his Station. Rather, he was plotting a litany of possible evils, and taking enough non-invasive hip drugs to enable him to deal with you and your misconceptions of what he was, and what he did to get through his childhood unscathed.
I don’t know which version’s my favourite, I don’t know if I have a favourite, or whether I care enough to decide; I know that you shouldn’t care either. I wonder why I wrote it, and I wonder if I’ll ever write anything else like it again.
I tell myself I should sober up. I hand out copies on street corners to anyone who wants to pay me for the pleasure of reading at least the title. Maybe I can do something with the money, like decorate my room, or eat better, or take up smoking for a week. Maybe I should slip it in between copies of an Edward Klein and a Janet Evanovich, and hope that someone might get all the way home with it and, instead of trolling or quick scoping, write some meaningless shit of their own, because they know they can do better.
I wanted to include everyone, but knew that kind of thing was impossible; some people would definitely have to be left out. Even the arc wasn’t all inclusive. There were those who drowned while others sipped pink lemonade and gazed over the bulwark at their sounding fists.
Choosing who went in became a chore. Indeed, there were more people I would have rather left out than invited in. But then, the people I would have rather left out were more interesting than the ones included. They had more chutzpah. They were dangerous, prepared to kill. They alarmed and rattled their good neighbour. Everything deteriorated into a kind of perversion when they were around, a demoralization of nerves. They knocked on the door so loudly, it became impossible to exclude the ones you loved to hate.
And I learnt that you can’t please everyone anyhow. It was better to be the wolf than it was to be the pig. You feel a sense of deliverance, of the river finally opening out into the ocean when you’re allowed to determine another’s fate. There ahead, the world. And cruelty, in the eyes of some, is the captain. Let there be no regrets, no cherry-cheeked suspicions that this was no more than men of straw blowing over the fields of Nebraska. Perfection was for pigs and their keepers. I was the keeper of wolves, and this was their story.


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To me writing is an exit door from the day-to-day of ‘keeping a roof over my head’. It is even better than playing GTA5. I live in one of England's forgotten fishing towns, its heritage now resides in a museum, and we all dream of leaving.

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Author: Jim Buck

Contributor: Dan Slaten

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Tim looked at the message one last time before clicking send. He’d read and reread the words so many times that they no longer made sense, but he still wanted to give it one more look before sending it to CrazyHotCoolGirl29. You could never be too careful or too thorough in matters of the heart, even when those matters were as trivial as an introductory message on an internet dating site.

Deciding he was as satisfied by the message as he was ever going to be, Tim clicked “send.”

Minutes later, Tim heard a girl laughing hysterically one table over. “Karen, you have to check this out,” said the girl. “Look at this message I just got from TimTime2000. Check out his profile – and his pictures. What a loser!”

“You sound really interesting,” said the girl Tim assumed must be Karen. She seemed to be mimicking the deep voice of an imaginary, generic man as she read Tim’s words from just a few feet away. “Like you I am a big baseball fan . . .”

The message he’d just sent out, the one he’d written and rewritten more times than he cared to think about, was nothing more than a joke to Karen and CrazyHotCoolGirl29. Tim wanted to reach into the internet and somehow retrieve the message, delete it, and eliminate its very existence from the face of the Earth and all corresponding digital realms in which it might exist. Of course, that wasn’t possible. Deleting his dating profile right now wouldn’t do him any immediate good either, although it might spare him from being the butt of more jokes in other restaurants around town.

Worse still, Tim was finished eating, and Karen and CrazyHotCoolGirl29 were sitting at a table between him and the exit. If he got up from his booth they would see him, and they would laugh some more at his expense. It would be a lot like all of his high school dating experiences from a pre-internet world.

Tim spotted his waitress and waved her over. “I’d like to order dessert,” he said. “Preferably something so large I might never finish it.”


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Dan Slaten writes short stories and poetry in small notebooks and on sticky notes.

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Author: Dan Slaten

Contributor: RD Wood

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There is a man who leaves for work each day, or so his wife and children think. He lost his job as a salesman at the insurance company on October 19th 1987 and has sat in the park ever since. The most painful hour of his day is the one before the park opens when he must wait in line with men he considers inelegant and gruff, ‘uncouth’ if he knew the word. His wife sometimes comments that his clothes never seem to grow old but he does not tell her that this is because he folds them away and does not work, that he sits all but naked in the park all day, always at the same place, which is a five minute walk from his old office and between the forgotten general who sits atop his horse with sword drawn and the poet with a frown and a book opened out.

After several years of this routine while on a school excursion with her youngest daughter his wife sees him and seemingly mistakes him for just another homeless man, though a fairly clean one, and hurries by with her head down ignoring the coins in his paper cup. The man just looks away.

They continue to live with this lie until the repossession company comes looking for them one afternoon. In her stress at the thought of being declared bankrupt and without her husband having heard of her extravagant shopping sprees, the wife is finally caught fucking the milkman the next day, as she had carefully done for years, by her youngest daughter who notices a resemblance to this naked man. The daughter tells the father, and relieved, he leaves them, free to get on with life and not compelled to pay child support.

He becomes a host on a cable show and bit by bit, day by day reveals all, reveals the sordid details of his double life. Everyone is disgusted by his demeanour on air. Yet, somehow this self-loathing performance works and he is a runaway success.


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RD Wood lives in Melbourne. He has had work published in Southerly, Jacket2 and Best Australian Poems 2013. At present he is working on a chapbook of concrete nature poems.

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Author: RD Wood

Contributor: Ava Wilson

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“You think he’ll be mad, Chris?”
“Course he will. We didn’t mean to be late though. Couldn’t be helped.”
“Yeah, he’s upset alright. Just washed the Caddy this morning, now it’s raining,” said Carl.
Chris pushed his matted hair off his forehead. Carl hunched further down behind a thorny rosebush.
“Why do you think he parked on this side of the street and not the driveway?”
“Don’t know,” said Chris.
“He whipped us something fierce last time we were late, the Caddy wasn’t even wet that night.”
“Yeah. I know numb nuts, I was there, too.”
“Think he loves that old car more than us, Chris?”
“Yep. Now shut your pie hole so we can sneak in.”
Chris looked from side to side. His clothes drenched, shoes squishing rain.
“If we stay low,” said Chris, “we can dodge the streetlights and sneak by the neighbor lady. She doesn’t like rain, so she might not be looking out this time.”
“Chris?”
“Hush up and come on.”
“Chris,” said Carl.
Carl smacked a puddle hard with his right hand. Mud splashed.
“Hey, what did you go and do that for?”
“I’m not ready, Chris. Can’t move yet. My legs won’t move. Think they’re nervous.”
Carl’s hand trembled in the mud puddle, his eyes as big and wet as the Caddy’s headlights.
“You have to be ready, Carl, or it’ll be worse. You know it will.”
Carl lowered his eyes. Touched his arm where the day-old cigar burn stung.
“Yeah, I know. Let’s go. Still don’t know why he parked there.”
“It doesn’t matter where he parked,” said Chris,. “All that matters is we haul ass in there somehow.”
“What if he already checked our room? Then what?”
“We say we were in the basement, you know, playing that hiding game like we do. Besides, we’re not real late. He just got in. I figure he’s in the kitchen talking to Ma. Eating shepherd’s pie or something. We can slip in the side door, he doesn’t pay attention to the side door.”
“What if he looked down there first?”
“Down where first?”
“The dang basement.”
“He didn’t. And— and I just said he’s talking, and eating pie, and— and not minding the side door remember? Weren’t you listening squirt? You never listen. Now pipe down, and stop asking questions. We have to go.”
Chris inched forward, crouched like a cricket. Carl followed close behind.
“You never listen, Chris. Told you we shouldn’t have gone across town, I told you.”
Carl smacked his forehead two times.
“Stop doing that. And now you got mud on your forehead. Good job Carl, if he catches us he’ll really know now.”
“How are we supposed to sneak in these wet clothes? Think nobody will notice we look like a couple-a seals?”
“There are dry clothes in the basement, genius.”
“But, but won’t Mom notice we changed? Chris, won’t she?”
“She never notices anything about us. Especially when he’s home.”
“But…”
Oh, just shut-up, Carl and come on. It’s getting later and later. You’re cutting our chances to zero, Carl, zero.’”
“Wish we could turn into that old Caddy, Chris. Wish we could. He’d love us then, you know?”
“What would you want that for? You see how he does Ma right after he says he loves her, don’t you? Not so good I think,” said Chris.
“But he’s nice to that old car. Maybe, maybe we could all turn into it. You, me… Ma. He takes real good care of it. Washes it every time the sun comes out, Chris. Every. Time. And he whistles when he does it, he whistles. When it snows, he covers it. And you see that smile while he cleans the inside, see how he is after it’s all shined up?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen it. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t know the old man had teeth or a sense of humor.”
“That’s why, Chris. Why I wish we could turn into the old Caddy. It gets treated real nice like. He’d never put a burn on that.”
“Alright, I get it, squirt. But we’ve got to get going now.


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Ava Wilson is currently acquiring her BFA in Creative Writing for Entertainment at Full Sail University. She is also a published author and illustrator of the children’s book entitled, Crunky McBunky, a published poet and playwright, her plays include, For the Love of Friends, and Feathery Heights. Ava is a professional spoken-word artist, and actor of stage and film under her stage name, Nailah Blu.

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Author: Ava Wilson