In his book, On Hashish, Walter Benjamin describes what he experienced while under the influence of the psychoactive drug, hashish. In a section in which he details a numbered sequence of hallucinations, one lone sentence has not ceased to haunt me for even the briefest moment since I first laid eyes on it.
Continue reading “Feline Psychedelia by Sam Skipper”
I slink across January ice. The sun shimmers over clear, cold icy sheen.
I look ahead, but still slip.
I flail, feeling the world tumbling. The sky leers, pale blue, puffed-up clouds surveying me. Frame houses line the street, staring with cheerful yellows and greens. Oak trees stare with naked arms.
I right myself, arms flailing. It’s a miracle, but relief evaporates, replaced by shadows of shame.
Continue reading “Iceberg Theory by Yash Seyedbagheri”
Leila’s introduction to this needs nothing from me:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Canned Ravioli by Patricia Pocopi”
The 11th of November was a Monday. We were patrolling in dense fog near Mons when at 11 am, Lieutenant Harrison ordered us to halt then glanced at his watch.
Continue reading “Just Let Go by Anthony Billinghurst”
This is it. I have nothing left to say. I have no new thoughts. The words “Stop, Stop it, Please Stop Please Stop” ring out in my brain blaring again and again every time something new enters my mind. An alarm I cannot silence, a desperate prayer I cry out endlessly. I don’t think I’m talking to him; I think I’m talking to me. Violently begging my brain to stop firing, misfiring the way that it does.
Continue reading “Whiplash by Bryn Ledlie”
The odor is an eye-gouging, throat-punching combination of sour milk served over steamed shit, with a dab of honey. Like the killing fields of Gettysburg in 1863, scorched into an indelible stench.
“This is atrocious, Leo,” I bellow through the deafening grind of the gigantic truck’s engine. “Can’t you smell it?” I’m kneeling in a puddle of something brown and viscous, trying and failing to latch a chain onto a brimming green dumpster.
Continue reading “History in a Trash Heap by Mark Fellin”
As an infant, I sought nourishment in bottles, draining milk with frightening speed.
Thirty-four years later, I still need my bottle, except this time they hold Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the weight of credit card debts. They hold things I shouldn’t have bought to feel like a bourgeois dandy, antique bookshelves. Old lamps that glow and create illusions of home and communion. The bottles hold awards I pursued and barely missed, than missed big time, numbers, tempers lost over teaching philosophies and politics. Apologies I can’t speak. A life of could-haves, all laid out before me, scattered puzzle pieces whose counterparts are long missing.
Continue reading “Bottled by Yash Seyedbagheri”
The casket was too small for a man, yet too large for a child. A flag was draped over the bright pine box and it ruffled in the breeze, a burst of colour against the grey mud. Due to the small size of the casket, there was not room for the traditional six pallbearers. They would have been half-stepping back-to-belly, at risk of appearing comical, or worse, scandalous. Thus, the casket was carried by four soldiers, but from a distance their uniforms appeared varied and not of the same nation. The unneeded pallbearers joined the ranks of men in uniforms arrayed around a small open grave. The officiant wore the robes of a cleric and must have said something because there was a long silence, then a burst of laughter.
Continue reading “To Keep the Wound Green By Marco Etheridge”
And another one for the fairer sex (I’m probably not allowed to say that these days, am I?) So, another one for the people who we used to call the fairer sex (there – smiles with satisfaction at how WOKE I am!!) Leila has chosen this piece by Ms Field and this is what she said:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – Workplace Harmony by Rebecca Field”
I have yet to meet my new housekeeper. She comes highly recommended from, well, shall we say an intimate acquaintance of mine. The agency is headquartered in an anonymous building along the industrial riverfront where, if the amateur historians are to be trusted, a loose affiliation of second-rate magicians used to gather during the Depression to practice their dark arts. Like those illusionists, my housekeeper finishes her duties and vanishes with remarkable punctuality moments before I arrive home from my office at the graphic design firm.
Continue reading “The Disciples of Baphomet by Kevin P Keating”
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