When we received this work we were undecided what to do with it. We knew that we wanted to publish such a powerful and emotional piece of writing but, in fairness, it isn’t what we would normally class as a story. I will be honest and say that it moved me to tears.
Anyway, fate took a hand. We were scheduling this week at the time and when better to publish this than Remembrance Day.
The battle had been harsh, crude, and longer than expected, but at the inevitable end the ship Gerben Huraq had sailed on for three years, initially at the point of a maniacal sword in the hand of a maniacal privateer, was sinking fast. Huraq, still on the good side of thirty years of age and seemingly primed for long distance of days, had once crawled up a rescue rope to that ship from another sinking ship. Now, twice saved and twice accepted aboard a rescuing vessel, he was in the water again, in the Black Sea, the sea of seas, death scene of floaters, those abandoned, thrown overboard or fallen from their stations at battle, each one in a downward slide into their own histories. He had no idea how long he would last on this wide sea, until one precise moment when he espied the growing dot of a mast at full sails advancing from a distant point, ever moving closer, hope most possibly a passenger, and a final surge of excitement propelling his nearly inert body toward an expectant welcome.
Continue reading “Black Bird of Prey, the Death Ship by Tom Sheehan”
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Holly More first got drunk at the reasonably late age of nineteen. On a late summer Saturday night in 1977, he dropped in on a pair of college classmates who shared a shithole studio apartment at the base of Seattle’s Capitol Hill. The roomies extolled the virtues of “Bokay” apple wine, which sold for sixty-nine cents a bottle. Ritzy nectars such as Boone’s Farm, T.J. Swann and, Allah-forbid, Lancer’s were too fancy-pants pricewise for students who earned $2.10 an hour at Work Study jobs. That left MD 20/20, Night Train, Thunderbird and Bokay. Since the first three were what the Pioneer Square bums drank, the guys went with the Bokay. Holly later found out that Bokay was the wine of last resort amongst the Pioneer Square bums.
Continue reading “Elbows With Fishes by Leila Allison”
This week Leila has dusted off a story by a loyal friend of the site. James has been with us from the beginning – long may it continue:
Continue reading “literally Reruns – Table by the Window by James McEwan”
Rata baboon-leered as the twenty stone clown started to sweat, the meth ravaged copper coloured flesh peeling back from his skull, rubberized dead slug lips baring his yellowed teeth.
Continue reading “The Child of Smoke by Alex Sinclair”
After my husband died I gained a friend, Kafka is his name. One would suppose that having a cockroach is somewhat akin to having lice or genital crabs, a tabooed parasite that will ultimately tarnish a lady’s reputation and habits if discovered, but Kafka is a special kind of companion. His favourite place is atop the kitchen radio where he habitually gyrates to Jazz FM in the early hours of the morning, watching me drink cheap Chardonnay and speaking to me reassuringly in the sweet-butter voice of Jeremy Irons. Before I was enlightened to his more practical uses, I admittedly went through a spell of being rather ruthless; I wanted to kill him, but in the most decent, kindest way for everyone involved. So, naturally, I concluded the obvious. Flushing. Yes, flushing him down the toilet in a vortex, much like a flume at Water World except with feces and used tampons at the end, a cockroach’s paradise. So I tried. I dutifully dropped him in the toilet and flushed, watching rather sadly as he spun. But the little chap just coughed, spluttered softly, and crawled back up. I discovered after that they can live for up to a week without their head, a month without food, and can hold their breath for forty minutes at a time; a species that would undoubtedly survive an apocalypse. They are resilient, gregarious creatures. So of course, in time, Kafka soon had a friend, a wife perhaps, and spawned a tribe of lovers and cousins and acquaintances and one-night-stands. I began to realise Kafka’s army were quite efficient at cleaning up my often neglected messes. Far more so than my old Henry Hoover friend, with his can-do eyes and pleasing suction trunk, that now just sits looking forlorn, gathering dust. Cockroaches eat crumbs, dust, hair, sewage, decaying matter, and even each other; they are the perfect companions to a less than perfect housewife. Someone like me needs a helping hand once in a while. Try as I might I can never keep on top of the housework for long, being too easily lured by afternoon wine and my artistic pursuits. George, my late husband, used to (rather too sternly, if I do say so) remind me to ‘CLEAN YOUR F*#&ING ACT UP’, but there’s no one here anymore to keep me in check.
Continue reading “The Metamorphosis by Jess McColl”
I’ve always liked Gin.
Straight gin that is.
I know exactly where it started…My love for the gin.
I used to go to my mum’s boss’s house with my parents and I was allowed the odd can of beer. One night that we were there, his old aunties were visiting.
Weird they were.
“Letti the Yeti. Letti the Yeti,” the children chant.
… “Mama, what’s Yeti?”
“The Yeti is a monster, Letti. It’s also called Bigfoot.”
Nina and I were just kids when we started running into oncoming traffic. Dodging cars was something that felt natural – a part of growing up, facing demons we didn’t know we had. We’d sit on the low curb, flicking crisps into the gutter like cards into a top hat, then as we heard the rumbling of a car approach, we clamped hands and dashed into the street. We experienced short spurts of ecstasy, drifting away on a sublime high and yet the feelings were short-lived, elusive.
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Murphy Conway was half Albert’s age and twice his size, but all Murphy had to do was look into the pieces of flint that were Albert’s eyes to know he could never take him, even if he did him dirty and started it from the side.
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