In her nursing home bed, petite Margaret, just four feet tall, stared at the ceiling under the dim glow of fluorescent lights, her face devoid of the vibrancy it once held. Legs that had leapt across a sound stage lay thin and mottled with brown age spots. Feet that had slid into dainty slippers now stood as small, rigid reminders of long ago.
Continue reading “Tiny Dancers by P A Farrell”
Looking out over the bridge, you can see widows in their sarees and gold bangles and solemn, painted faces. Above them, the sun emits a last, romantic orange which blends with the blue of the previous sky, creating stripes of pink which bring the two colors together. The air smells of death.
Continue reading “Please, Varanasi by Arjun Shah”
The parking lot was empty. But that wasn’t unusual, partly because it was midnight and partly because, since the sparkling new Saver General came to town, Dan Burns’s General Merchandiser rarely had any customers anymore. Dan learned with dread the coming of the Saver General and he knew that, slow or fast, the death of his store was probably imminent. Before he had closed up earlier that evening, he stood looking out the front door onto the empty lot. It was getting cold. Winter was certainly coming and in a high desert climate it would be dry and cold for months. Dan didn’t mind that too much. In the not-so-distant past, the chill would keep the townspeople coming in for heaters, batteries, warm socks, and hatchets to break icy ponds so livestock could drink. Now the cold seemed to make things more desolate and hopeless. Dan turned from the front door and left out the back to his truck. At least the truck was paid for. That would help him survive a bit longer. Probably.
Continue reading “A Whale of a Time by Kelly Hossaini”
One day, I meet Beelzebub standing ahead of me in line at the To God Be the Glory Soup Kitchen. Bathed in the glare of the fluorescent lights that flicker above us, the man glistens. Shards of hard white light reflect off his glimmering jacket, obscuring my view.
But that one glimpse gives me the shivers.
Continue reading “Slow Walking Out of Babylon by Deborah Prum”
It wasn’t until he was on the bus that his hangover started to kick in. Until then he hadn’t had time to feel anything – he hadn’t set his alarm (couldn’t even remember getting into bed in fact), and when his eyes had snapped open suddenly and he’d seen the time, adrenaline had taken over. He was up, dressed and running for the departing bus before the panic subsided and the nausea thundered in.
Continue reading “A Night, Out by Jessica Nilsson “
Mr. Morton needed a new pair of shoes. That was quite obvious to Mrs. Morton but since he had started this health kick she couldn’t convince him of anything. She shot a glance at the runners out of the corner of her eye, afraid they would jump out and get her if she gave them her full attention.
Continue reading “Steroids and Cottage Cheese by Rachel Sievers”
Emily’s in bed one night, brooding about her manager’s warning that Emily’s too aggressive, and thinking if she was a man, she’d be called ambitious, when there’s a puff of smoke, and an elf appears.
Continue reading “Emily Follows the Elf by Ed Kratz”
It started on Facebook, a notice from a neighborhood dog fanciers’ page about somebody dousing a piece of steak with anti-freeze and tossing it over a fence to an unsuspecting dog, which ate the meat and died. (Apparently these attacks have been happening for quite a while now, and they believe it is the same man.) Then it was taken up by the neighborhood listserv, the modern-day call-tree, and further warnings about this criminal – described as a bald white man in his sixties – prompted an outpouring of fear and outrage. (He appears to be targeting pitbull breeds in the Lakeview area of Potawatomi Rapids.) A vigilante call went out; posters went up on phone polls; you heard nervous chatter in the grocery. You could practically hear the bugle summoning us to action. (Let’s work together and catch this guy so no more of our neighborhood pets have to suffer from his horrible acts. PLEASE SHARE & SPREAD THE WORD!!!)
Continue reading “Bald White Man in His Sixties by J C Rammelkamp”
White clapboards and wooden slats nailed across double windows peek through a veil of house-high ferns, maples, and elms. Leaves caress the places where shutters may once have been. Along the front in red and white reads a sign: Private Property No Trespassing. A vacant driveway sits to the south, marked off by a heavy chain, its endpoints hidden by foliage.
Continue reading “The Persistence of Ruins by Barbara Krasner”
“No one’s going to be looking,” he snapped.
He heard her sigh but didn’t turn to look. After a moment, the sound of her struggling up the embankment and the crashing of undergrowth came to him as she made her way into the bushes that covered the upper slopes.
Continue reading “Breakdown by Matthew Roy Davey”
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