Joe’s body twitched in his bed, as he knew it would. He hadn’t slept since he left the war zone in Macedonia. Violent dreams with buckets of blood, screams in the night, these had been predicted in the article he had read. Now, safe in Amsterdam, he was living the symptoms.
Continue reading “Leaving Macedonia by David Flynn”
The glass falls from the counter and I find myself sucking in air right before an explosion of small bits of glass and red liquid spill out over the beige tile. I mourn the glass in the aftermath, not that it is anything special, but I hate to waste anything regardless of its obscurity of significance.
Continue reading “Hundreds of Little Pieces by Rachel Sievers “
The cupcake frosting compacts and puddles in my mouth, slow and sticky going down my esophagus. I cough almost choking, shoving the rest of it in my mouth, and look down at the plastic container. It is hard to see in the dark of the closet but I can see neon pink sprinkles of three that remain.
Continue reading “Coral, Not Pink by Rachel Sievers”
Arthur Nagel is an ugly, little man. He stands barely four feet tall, and his head is much too big for his body. The muscles on the left side of his face are totally paralyzed causing his face to droop. Because of his looks, most people think Arthur is mentally deficient. He is not.
Continue reading “Friend by Donnie Cox”
“I’ve done it more than once. Which makes it possibly a bad habit.”
“What’s that?” Rama had asked.
She’d been complexly twisted in her bus seat, patchouli-scented Jessica, pea-coated back to window, New Jersey gliding by behind her in what Rama remembered as a raw and drizzly November afternoon. “I just tell some people straight-out I’ll sleep with them if they want.”
Continue reading “Wrecking Ball by Stevie doCarmo”
Blue is the color of anxiety, the smell of despair, the sound of confusion, the taste of fear, the touch of doubt. For Jamshed, it brings back jumbled flashes of long-buried images and emotions. A neon cobalt-stained hospital wall at age five, the time he’d smashed his knee and waited endlessly for a doctor to arrive, any doctor. An inky high school test paper that he’d known he’d fail before even looking at the questions. A joyride in a stolen navy-hued Honda that had landed him and his slow-witted friend Pesi in jail for a night.
Continue reading “Blue by Selina Sheth”Welcome to a new year. Today is 8 January, an interesting date due to the odd mix of persons born on it. For example, Elvis, Stephen Hawking, David Bowie and Larry Storch were all born on this date. Elvis would be eighty-seven (thus still possible to “sight” at southern Piggly Wiggly buying peanut butter and bananas, if you are crazy); Mr. Hawking would mark his eightieth. and Bowie would be seventy-five. Alas all are gone, but we still have Larry Storch (dear God please let him live at least til this post airs, please, please). Yes, we still have “Corporal Agarn” from F-Troop. Mr. Storch turns ninety-nine today, and has outlived the others mentioned by a considerable margin of years even though he was (and by a long way) born first.
Continue reading “Week 358: The Pursuit of Meaningful Longevity, Tales For the New Year and an Elevating Saturday Special”
Has something gone horribly wrong? Are you beset by the inexplicable certainty that unknown agents have broken history and plunged you into a new and malign reality? Does every day lead you ever further from the path you expected to follow? If you answered yes to any of these questions, there’s a good chance that your universe has been hacked.
First of all, remain calm. The aftermath of a hack event is disorienting. There are, however, various practical steps available to you. This document will walk you through your options.
Continue reading “Has Your Universe Been Hacked by Matt Zandstra”
Bikbratu’s body was sturdy, his shoulders strong, he dressed well for a man of his age, his face and hair were missing. As we were kerbside catching up with chat, several other people of all types walked past with no faces. Some were hand-in-hand with a partner with a face, nobody had half a face, it was all or nothing it seemed, it looked like only over-eighteens, this was off the scale of impossibility, why hadn’t I heard of this?
Continue reading “Bikbratu by Daniel Roy Connelly”
My uncle was a substantial man, a man whom you could roll because his stomach curved like a ball. I often had the impulse to bowl him: there was something frustrating in the way he spent hours stitching old clothes. His painstaking labour jarred with my need for going fast at the time, which I remember taking the form of speed-reading. While I took a break, I’d find him in the kitchen, stitching lugubriously. I wanted to pick him up and roll him at speed. He was like a blocker, resisting my need to encompass his deliberateness. He was stitching, stitching, methodically bringing together; I, at that age, wanted to tear things apart.
Continue reading “Uncle by Ralph Hipps”
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