Away with some of it

Contributor: Tony Rauch

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I run up to our house. There are some strangers on the lawn and my father is handing them some of our belongings. “What’s going on here?” I huff out of breath, “Why‘re you givin’ ‘em our dining room chairs and grandfather clock?”

My dad looks down to me, “The entire village has to pitch in, not just us, honey,” he holds one end of the long ornate wooden clock and helps walk it down to a waiting horse drawn wagon on the road, “We lost at something and so we have to give some things up, that’s all sweetie,” he shuffles his feet to position himself as the strangers load the chairs into the long wooden wagon, “We can get by with out ‘em,” he helps to shove the heavy clock onto a blanket in the wagon. There are some other objects in the wagon - an end table, a cupboard, a butter churn – but none of them were ours. Another wagon shakes by full of other people’s belongings and passes to clomp its way out of town. Several men sit on the furniture in that wagon. The horses are galloping as if they are in a hurry to get out of here. “Maybe next time,” one of them calls.

“What did we lose at?” I ask in confusion.

The strangers climb aboard the wagon and lurch forward.

“A contest, dear. Just a contest. . . A thing we have from time to time,” he watches the wagon pull ahead and wobble on down the road and out of town, not letting on as to what exactly the contest was that the town lost. He has a strange leather glove on one hand, a big fat one, and bends to pick up a long piece of rounded wood from the grass at the side of the road. It looks like a smooth spoke from a wagon wheel, only a little longer.

My mom walks down to us, “Dang contests,” she spits in annoyance and shakes her head, her arms sternly on her hips.

“Hey, don’t feel too bad,” my dad chuckles. “We’ll get ‘em next time,” he looks down at me, then over to my mother and smirks, “How do you think I got this house.”


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Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.
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Skateboarding 101

Contributor: Don A. Gerred

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The horizon grew dark. Across the intersection of an empty access road, in front of a lifeless shopping center, barren trees of late autumn formed a wall of black shadows against the fading colors of an early sunset. Streetlights buzzed, signaling their intent to flicker to life.

All was quiet. No engine noise, no music, no voices; silence except for an occasional chirp from a bird with no plans for winter migration.

The horse-shoe shaped shopping center faced an enormous parking lot filled with cars precisely parked between yellow lines. Abandoned, the smashed, deserted vehicles disintegrated in the parking spaces. The burned-out shell of a late 80’s Honda Accord landed upside-down; roof on the sidewalk, wheels in the air. The beaten and battered hulk blocked access to a lane of neatly nested shopping carts.

The stores were dark except where faint light seeped from a few anemic signs. An ice cream store’s neon sign spelled “CAR.” “VEL” burned out long ago.

Thick layers of dirt covered everything, windows, sidewalks and cars. Safety glassed windows were cracked and shattered as though someone, or something, had attacked them with a car jack or a baseball bat.

Long ago, the door to a jewelry store window imploded. Gold, silver, Rolex watches, diamond rings, rare gemstones and glass shards intermingling on worn black velvet. Once beautiful baubles scattered among the debris, treasures too dirty to glitter and gleam any longer.

A boy limped passed the broken door, oblivious to his surroundings. In the darkening sky, he looked to be about sixteen, a teenager. He was tall and skinny, thick, curly black hair hung in his face, obstructing his vision. He shuffled along carrying some kind of long flat thing. His right hand pinned it tightly against his scrawny thigh.

He moved off toward the rear corner of the parking lot toward a steep concrete ramp. He paused at the top. A faded ‘wheelchair accessible’ sign dangled from a steel rail. His baggy, tattered three button Italian suit might have been an olive color once, now it was dirty gray. Both knees poked through the torn pants. His loose necktie was knotted with a Windsor knot; the color faded and the pattern indecipherable.

The thing he carried was a skateboard. He flipped the board upside down with an awkward jerk. The board was grubby and the wheels rusty. It looked like a kid had forgotten it in the front yard for an entire year. The current owner spun each wheel, one at a time, watching each until they stopped. As the teenager watched each wheel revolving freely, he muttered to himself in a barely audible raspy voice, “Good.”

Deliberately, he set the skateboard on the level, flat concrete at the top of the ramp. The board surface revealed a faded skull and crossbones emblazoned around the word ‘FLIP’ in its center. His movements were painfully slow. He stood erect. It took two attempts to get his left foot on the front of the board, even as his right hand clutched the steel handrail running parallel to the sides of the ramp. He paused and gazed intently across the street at the parking lot.

There was not a living soul in sight. He stood for a long time and gave the impression of searching for an image from a long lost memory.

His stiff right foot rose and rested firmly on the back of the board. He gingerly pushed himself backward and shoved himself down the ramp.

He was rigid, unable to bend his back or his knees, and unaware of the need. Gravity took over. Somehow, he balanced on the board as it accelerated forward, crossing the seams in the sidewalk with a quiet clack-clack, clack-clack.

The board went in a perfectly straight line. It was a little short of its maximum speed when the board intersected the steel rail at a corner point. There the ramp swapped directions to complete the route from sidewalk to the parking lot.

The rail caught the teen’s body at waist level. He was flipped off the board in a judo movement. The board rolled faster under its lightened load.

The boy hit the pavement face first. A thick black oily substance splattered on the concrete. His head bounced like a melon into the street, the rest of his body tumbled behind him.

The skateboard held its steady course. It passed under the railing, and under an Econoline van. I was halted mid-trip by smashing into a pile of rusty, power tools. The impact flipped the board onto its back. The racing wheels slowed and finally stopped. The board was lifeless once again.

The boy lifted his head off the ground high enough to look for the skateboard. A streetlight flickered above. He pulled himself off the ground in the same slow and deliberate manner he used to cue up the board.

His face had gravel and stones embedded in it, minor mutilations compared to his grotesquely, broken nose. His nose lay smashed flat against his upper lip. Not one drop of blood flowed from the shattered nose, just that black, oily stuff. He managed to get to his feet. He walked forward looking for the place where the skateboard crashed to a stop. Suddenly, he stopped. He either sensed or felt the injuries to his face.

He used his hands and fingers like a vise to squeeze the bridge of his nose. The cartilage cracked as he adjusted it. That facial feature was still crooked but no longer flat.

He looked around for the board, but couldn’t find it. Losing interest, he started shuffling away. Bright street lighting revealed the ripped back of his coat, and the grungy shirt underneath. Three large holes punctuated his upper back, exit wounds from a .357 Magnum. The wounds were open and oozing but not bleeding. Holes through his heart and lungs made it difficult to believe he could remain standing, let alone ride a skateboard. Impossible in fact. But then again, Zombies aren’t really alive, are they?


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I have a wife, three daughters and a female cat. It is hard to find time to write more than my signature on a check or a credit card slip!
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Flashcard Freestyle and that wicked, wicked Bandwidth

Contributor: Cheryl Anne Gardner

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Before the killer cheeseburgers and sex toys, I was a free man, listening to my own love dirge in the wee dark hours with fatal abandon. Then it all caved in around me: crystal wine glasses, decadent desserts, and dirty pool water. That's how these things happen in the real world. It's a party -- no extra legroom and the incandescent lighting's a little weak. Glen, my best friend, wanted revenge, domination in a single drop of sweat. She'd never been his girlfriend. She had hits in the millions. She was a ghost, a construct, bountiful acres of flesh he hadn't had the sense to manhandle the way he'd wanted to. He said she was ugly, pixilated, but I didn't think so. She had small hands and big dreams. Now she was my baby strange pushing the hard edge in the periphery. Our romance was a brief and righteous act of lust and longing, not a snot-palmed-purplish song of internet dating desperation, I can tell you that. She was mine, in real life. I was in the back of the room; she at the bar, and I watched her squeezebox a penny in those lacy little capris with her ankles bare and her warm lips crusin’ the cocktail rind at ten seconds to midnight. Five, four, three, two, one ...

She didn't kiss anyone, so I texted her site, hoping she was still mine.


- - -
When she isn't writing, Cheryl Anne Gardner likes to chase marbles on a glass floor, eat lint, play with sharp objects, and make taxidermy dioramas with dead flies. She writes art-house novellas and abstract flash fiction, some published, some not.
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Yard Work

Contributor: Matthew Vaughn

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Fred pushed his lawn mower while the afternoon sun beat down on him. He was sweating profusely, he had to constantly wipe at his eyes to keep them from stinging. Maintaining his yard was hard work, but Fred didn’t mind, he loved to look out at the fiery orange fur that covered his lawn.

As he pushed the mower across the length of his yard from one end of his house to the other he couldn’t help but contemplate a break. Part of him thought about how nice it would be to sit on his porch swing and sip on a nice cool glass of liquefied goat meat, it was his favorite. But he wouldn’t do that, he didn’t have time to take a break, his yard needed him.

Having just completed a row and reaching his driveway he did let off the handle of the mower, but not to take a break. Fred pulled his small ruler from his back pocket and knelt down to the fur. He placed his ruler straight up and down to measure the height of the orange fur, it read three and a half inches, just like it was supposed to.

Standing up Fred stretched out his back, it was hurting pretty bad today. Before starting his mower back up he decided to throw a little more fertilizer in it. He walked around the side of his house and chose the body of a nice fat man. Hefting up the dead bodies was probably the hardest part of keeping his lawn looking superb, but Fred thought it was a small price to pay.

Fred carried the fat body to his mower and threw it in. As he grabbed the handle to restart the mower he looked over to his neighbor Marty’s house. Marty was his only competition for best lawn on the street, even though he could never truly beat Fred.

“What the hell?” Fred said. Marty had his mower out and was preparing to start on his lawn. He came around the corner pushing a wheel barrel full of hot dead blonde women. “That son of a bitch, where did he get the cash for that?”

Fred was very unhappy about this, he knew that beautiful blonde women, especially some as well endowed as what Marty had, fertilized a fur lawn like nothing else. There wasn’t much Fred could do about it other than get back to work on his own lawn. He squeezed the handle, cut a chunk of flesh from his arm and dropped it into the mower to bring the machine to life with a roar.

Turning away from Marty helped Fred quite a bit, he smiled at the bright orange of his lawn as he mowed row after row up towards his house. He stopped a time or two to refill his mower with bodies, none quite as nice as Marty’s hot blondes though. He had a couple nicely fat men, but the rest were barely over weight at all. It was almost embarrassing to be seen tossing an average size dead body into his mower.

Reaching his house Fred glanced up to look at Marty’s progress and his neighbor saw him looking. Marty’s mouth grew into a big goofy grin as he threw his scrawny arm into the air and waved.

“I hope you have a stroke out here you dumb bastard.” Fred said to himself as he half heartily waved back. He pushed his mower up onto the front of his house and continued his rows across the front face of his house.

Once he reached the roof he let go of the handle on the mower letting it die. Fred pulled out his little ruler and knelt down onto the roof. He checked the height of his orange fur, three and a half inches, just like it was supposed to be. Fred smiled as he cut a chunk of flesh off his arm and started the mower up again. There was no way Marty was going to have the best lawn on the street, no way.


- - -
Matthew Vaughn fixes machines in an Injection Molding facility. When he is not working with robots plotting world domination his enjoys writing bizarre stories. You can follow his ramblings on twitter @ https://twitter.com/edkemper or at his site http://mcvaughn.wordpress.com/
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Challenged

Contributor: Douglas Polk

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November 3, 1989 was the day I was born. My Dad had three car wrecks that same day, all with the same pimply faced kid. The day was a Friday, and the next day, the Nebraska Cornhuskers lost to the Colorado Buffaloes 27-21 at Boulder, for only the second time in 22 years. That is the way my Dad remembers my birth was a Friday, because his beloved Huskers lost a football game the next day. It was the only loss of the regular college season for the Cornhuskers. Colorado was the ranked second in the polls and Nebraska was ranked third before losing to the Buffaloes. The Huskers later lost in the Fiesta Bowl to Florida State 41-17 to finish the season 10-2.

My birth was an emergency c-section and I went right from the delivery room to the intensive care nursery. After nine days I was finally able to come home. The next day my Mom went back into the hospital for a week with a dangerous infection. It wasn’t until almost three weeks after I was born before my family was able to be home together. My Mom seemed to take this to be some kind of omen.

A toy is directly in front of me. Red and white and looks like a clown but is a rattle. Stretching I reach with my left hand and try to grab it, but my Dad stops me. He grabs the rattle and places on my right side. Leaning to the right, I once again reach with my left hand, but again my Dad stops me. He places the rattle next to my body, on my right side, but has tied my left arm to my side. Looking at the toy, I begin to rock until I tumble onto my right side. I roll myself around until my face is next to the toy, then I grab it in my mouth. My Dad and Mom clap and tell me what a smart boy I am. My Dad unties my arm and then waves my hand in front of my face, then he waves another hand in front of my face. A hand so similar to my own, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was my own.

My parents realize within the first three months of my life, that my development is different than other babies. My Dad was the second youngest of seven children, and had babysat for most of his 19 nieces and nephews, one time or another, before I was born. Taking me to the doctors and questioning my development, it was decided my development was being affected by “new born stress”. Since my birth was an emergency and was so difficult for both I and my Mom , it became the justification for me not wanting to use my right hand. No one at the time realized, I didn’t even know I had a right hand.


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In Pucklechurch Terrain

Contributor: David Macpherson

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The knuckles crash my cheek and one of my teeth loosens. Later, I will spit blood. But now I swing from my side and connect with somebody’s ear. My shoulder twinges from the compression of the impact. I hope I didn’t hit one of my own. My bros: Joey, Mac and the other guy. The guy whose name I don’t know. He sits by himself most nights at the end of the bar. But when the swinging starts, he usually swings for us.

Mac clobbers the bearded dude with the frosted beer mug, clubbing him on the top of the head. Joey takes an elbow to the chin. We are all backing up to the fire exit. We’re not surrendering, its just that we can see the bouncer heading our way and its best to take it outside then to be taken.

I aim my foot for the little guy’s knee and I get nothing but air. I can’t do any of that karate shit. I grab the front of his collar and swing him to the side, hitting the broken bowling game. I step outside to the alley and now I’m doubled over from a shot to my gut from some fist.

The assholes run. The only one left is the one we’re all kicking on the ground. The one that stumbled. He moans long and low like a fog warning. We step back and I guess he crawls away. I don’t know the assholes we swung at. I just saw Mac moving hard and jumped in.

The bouncer pours into the fire exit door. “This shit keeps happening and you’ll be out for good. Not just the night.”

“Fuckers started it,” Mac says.

“They always do,” the bouncer says.

“We can’t help it,” the guy whose name I don’t know says. “It’s part of the DNA of every bar goer. It’s a royal tradition. Hell, a king of England died in a bar fight. King Edmund the Magnificent died in a pub fight in 943 in Pucklechurch. This thief Leofa was giving one the King’s bros some shit and wouldn’t leave and they had at it. Leofa knifed Edmund. But at least the King’s men got Leofa too, Evens it out. If it’s good enough for kings, who the hell are we to stop?” He wipes the blood from his lip.

I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I know he’s right. The way I feel now, the pulsing of the blood in my veins, it’s not just my blood, I feel all my bros and all the bros before me, like a line going way down the years.

The bouncer thinks its funny. He almost smiles as he shakes his head and steps back to close the door on us, leaving us heaving for breath in the alley. The click of the door’s lock telling that we’re exiled again.


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Johnny Depp ruined my day

Contributor: Matthew Vaughn

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I walked into my local Marketplace and stopped near the entrance to look at the DVD’s in the DVD Machine. I had been dying to see that new Johnny Depp movie, but the last three times I looked for it, they didn’t have it. Scanning through the available movies it seemed this time was no different.

I thought about kicking the machine, but I knew that wouldn’t get me the stupid movie, if anything it would probably just hurt my foot. I tried cussing at the machine a little, but all that got me was some funny looks from people passing by.

But then, like being open handed smacked in the face, an idea popped into my head. I decided I would climb into the DVD Machine and just wait for somebody to return a copy of the movie.

It was a perfect plan, but squeezing myself into that little slot the DVD’s slid through proved to be harder than I hoped. With a little wiggling and some sweet contorting skills I managed to get in there.

Walking around all the different movies was kind of boring at first, but then something weird happened, I wasn’t the only person in there. Taking a left around the newest romantic comedy starring Justin Timberlake I almost ran into another person.

“Oh, excuse me.” I said. Then I realized it wasn’t a person. It was a large collection of dirt and debris shaped like a rabbit. It was an Evil Dust Bunny.

“Oh crap, its an Evil Dust Bunny.” I said aloud.

It frowned at me and then started punching me in the jeans. I wasn’t really sure why It was doing that but I didn’t like it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, please stop.” I said to It. The Dust Bunny looked at me and smiled, I took that as a good sign. Then It smacked me over the head with the latest Hostel movie, uncool.

I didn’t waste any more time trying to talk to this thing, instead I pulled a Sponge Bob Christmas special down in-between us and took off running.

I decided to head for the slot that I originally came through. As I was running I looked back over my shoulder. The Dust Bunny was surrounded by movies starring Ryan Reynolds, Jack Black, Chris Evans, and Simmon Pegg, and they were all laughing at me.

I finally reached the slot and tried to go back through exactly opposite from the way I came in. After I got my whole body out of the slot my head got stuck, I looked back just in time to see the cover of Kung Fu Panda 2 come flying at my face. It was solid hit, and it was enough to push my big noggin through.

Standing in front of the DVD Machine I straightened myself up and flipped off the machine. I promptly turned and left the store, stupid Johnny Depp and his good movies.


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Matthew Vaughn fixes machines in an Injection Molding facility. When he is not working with robots plotting world domination his enjoys writing bizarre stories. You can follow his ramblings on twitter @ https://twitter.com/edkemper or at his site http://mcvaughn.wordpress.com/
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The Reaper

Contributor: Chris Griglack

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His shadow stalks swiftly from tree to tree, though the man is little more than shadow himself. The dark cloak weighs heavily on his shoulders, bound with a duty black as night.

They scream when he cuts them, but this is good. A silent harvest is a poor one. He whistles a tune as he works, and the wind whistles through their branches with him, a tune of cold, slow, remorse that no words can convey.

His sickle flashes, and for a moment the wind stills as the willow's hoarse, ethereal scream fills the air. He gathers the freshly cut boughs and moves along the river bank to the next tree, whistling the song of lament known only in that grove.

The moon hides her face from his work, but the stars look on with interest. Too distant to hear the screams, too cold to care. He continues harvesting as they watch, winking down at him as if they understand and share in the secrets of his work.

But they don't even know the song.

He waits for the wind to draw a veil of clouds across their peeping eyes before he tends to the seedlings. Each one so delicately balanced on the cusp of existence. No light can see them until they are rooted. Even the tiny glint lost in the dark depths of his eyes could be enough to wither their fragile shoots.

His shrill whistle becomes a low, rumbling hum to soothe the earth as their roots invade her. She trembles as they lap up her moisture, the sole comfort she can offer to these sad, tender lives. They drink greedily to ease their fears and quell their confusion, sating themselves on the tears of their elders.

The most ancient willows weep to see their children so, and the river swells with their sorrow. They rattle their branches in a howl which the wind echoes, dropping the veil in which the stars are tangled.

In the light of their curious glances the river glows. Individual streaks of silver tears gleam brilliantly for a moment before they are briskly swept away by the current.

One by one the trees grow silent as a different light moves among them. This light is dampened by the darkness with which it is imbued, a terrifying darkness with which they are all too familiar. It is accompanied by a shrill whistling which they shudder to hear.

He touches each one with the shining sickle before moving on. They shiver at its icy touch, squirming beneath the bark which imprisons them before stiffening in silence.

When dawn breaks the grove is silent but for the slow whistling of a man with no past. He vanishes as he walks amongst the trees, merging with their shadows which writhe in the sunlight though their pale bodies remain still.

The reaper fades from the ancient grove, but his song lingers in the air. A haunting echo of a man that only the earth and wind know.


- - -
My name is Chris Griglack and I'm a senior English major at UMASS Dartmouth. I prefer to heavily blend genres when I write in order to create unique works, but I occasionally write straightforward horror, fantasy, and sci-fi, as well as poetry, reviews, and non-fiction opinion pieces.
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Midnight Surprise

Contributor: Linda Garnett

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“Mitch, can't this car go any faster? We’re not going to make it."
“We’re almost to your house, Jackie. You’ll make your curfew.”
“We should've left the dance earlier. I told you what’ll happen if I’m not home right at midnight.”
Mitch laughed. “You didn’t need to make up a stupid story so I’d get you home on time.”
“I didn’t make it up. Drive faster!”
A few minutes later, Mitch parked outside her house and glanced at his watch.
“Not bad, it’s only one minute past midnight. How about a good-night kiss?”
He let out a blood curdling scream as Jackie the werewolf lunged at him.


- - -
Linda Garnett is currently editing her first novel, a science-fiction comedy. Her work has appeared in New Flesh, Flashes in the Dark, Static Movement, WeirdYear, Flash Shot and The Short Humour Site.
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The Beach Dream

Contributor: Phillip Donnelly

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In the dream, he was a she.
He had the frame of a young girl, thin and fragile, but the body had no face. He, or rather she, or it, or whatever, was walking along a rocky beach in late Autumn. The sun set, turning the sky a dark red, like the embers of a forgotten fire.
She knew she was looking for something but did not know what. There was a dreamy emptiness to her quest, but also the will to continue.
She could make something out near the water's edge and cautiously approached the bobbing figure, wondering what it could be.
The sound of the waves washing against the shores grew. It became magnified and distorted and each wave began to cry. Each wave was soured with the bitter spite of all little girls, each wave's curl was twisted by the crashing malice of a child’s hate.
The sun, which had been setting, rose again and began to burn with a new midday intensity, its rays now beating in time with the waves' girlish laughter.
The grey sand turned black and oily, swallowing the dreamer’s feet. The boy who dreamed he was a girl wanted to run away, but couldn’t get her feet out of the slimy black quicksand. The more she struggled, the deeper she fell.
She stopped moving and felt her sense of will start to ebb and flow into the will of the tide.
The figure she had seen in the water was being swept towards her. As it got nearer, she could begin to distinguish some of its features. It was a little over a foot in length, and almost rectangular in shape. Whatever it was, it was floating. It grew closer, inch by inch, and the rest of the world began to fall out of focus and dissolve.
She could see the strands of long brown hair floating on the water, like a thousand tiny sea worms, all moving independently of one another. She could also make out a navy school uniform of some kind, but it was tattered and the sun and salty water had left it partly bleached.
One shoe remained, but the other had been removed by the tide, revealing a tattered sock, with a bloated yellow foot and blackened nails underneath.
Entirely against her will, she turned the floating corpse over.
What had once been a young girl's face stared at her through eyeless sockets. Maggots squirmed in the bloody holes and the child's skin had been stretched and so totally disfigured as to be unrecognisable. It had become a ghoulish mixture of blue and purple, but with the faintest hue of yellow underneath. Septic fluid seeped from her ears, and a large grub poked out of the hole where her nose used to be.
Despite the visage, the dreamer’s attention became fixated on one of the child's ‘hands’, part dog’s paw, part eagle's claw. On one side, white fur was soaked and matted, but on the other, it had yellow scales, some of which had fallen off, revealing bloody flesh. Twisted talons jutted out of the rotten flesh and gripped something fiercely.
She tried to unfasten the dead girl's grip, but she didn't have the strength. It was as though the girl had died through the effort of holding onto whatever was inside her claw, and not even death could make her release her grip.
The dreamer wanted to leave but couldn't. She did not remember where her home was, or who she was, or if indeed she was a she or a he. The answer to these questions was wrapped up in what the dead girl was holding.
“We know not what we are, nor what we do,” a ghostly voice whispered, and then a thousand wavelets giggled ringlets of contempt.
The sun suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a full moon. A billion stars came into being and waited. The girl’s hand opened, revealing the skull of a foetus.
Without warning, the dead girl jerked her head towards the dreamer in a strange mechanical way. The dreamer flinched at the sound of the bones clicking into and out of place as she made raven-like spasmodic movements with her head.
What was left of the girl's mouth slid into a sickening smile, a slimy grimace. Her open cavernous mouth contained no teeth and no tongue--only a hole that seemed to lead to infinity, and to the hell that lies beyond it.
A mournful but raspy voice emerged from the gaping hole. It was an adult female voice, a voice that had once been human, but would never be so again: a voice moving from sadness to despair.
When it spoke it felt as though all other noises on the beach had vanished.
"I am mother, child, future and past
I am the waves, the tide and the sea
I am all and you are nothing
And now not even time is yours”

*****

With a sharp intake of breath, the dreamer awoke...
And then he died.


- - -
Phillip Donnelly grew up in Dublin but has spent most of his life teaching English as a foreign language in various countries and continents. He currently lives in Hong Kong. He has had several short stories published in ezines, including one at Weirdyear, Proppland, and has also written three novels and several travel books. He is currently trying to interest publishers in his latest noel, Kev the Vampire.
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