They say that telepathy is a gift.
But it was not a gift when I was designed as a tool—a gene-twisted thing, a tool made of meat. My gaunt, pale, body was designed by the norms for one purpose—reading the thoughts of other norms. I was made to be a psychic burglar, built to uncover the secrets that a norm hides in the lies or silences of their porous mind.
Continue reading “The Mirrors of His Eyes, the Thirst of His Soul by David Newkirk”
Russell Freeman, long white hair tied back, dressed in jeans and white cotton shirt, got off the bus and walked down a side street of the city he grew up in. He looked around and shook his head. Urban renewal in the late sixties had taken much of the character out of the center of the city and replaced it with parking ramps, cheap prefab buildings and fake facades. According to city elites the old sturdy brick buildings of the past were obsolete and old fashioned. We must look to a bright new future said the politicians as money flowed to demolition companies.
“Renewal my ass,” Russell mumbled.
Continue reading “Cheap Whiskey and a Crumpled Dollar Bill by Lee Conrad”
He took a swing at me. I braced for impact as it battered my jaw.
Big mistake, I thought, as I got low, latched on, picked him up. Buddy laughed; guy was having fun with me. Fine. I spun around and took him down.
He snatched my beard, mashed his face into mine. I tore free, pinned his arms, prepared to strike. His feral eyes widened; he knew his fate.
I put my lips on his bare belly and blew. My son squealed and flailed, then stiffened and vibrated. Electrocuted by elation.
Continue reading “Death on Rotation by Brandon Nadeau”
Somewhere in a land where only the forgotten remembered, stood a river flowing with discarded memories. Tears cry above it, ever begging for the one who shed them to return.
Sometime between now, today, and never, a man burst out under the river––let’s call him M. He splashed around, thrashing his arms, kicking his feet, but all was unnecessary, for the river never had the will to drown.
Continue reading “Where Do Lost Memories Go? by Rinanda Hidayat”
Wildlife
I have either finished turning invisible or the local wildlife considers me as threatening as Jane Jetson. The wild things are taking advantage of our slipping sense of surrounding and are slowly, yet steadily organizing. I present three instances for your examination. (And although some of you will not detect acts of duplicity in these seemingly random events, I say that is what they want us to believe.)
Continue reading “Week 503: Further Adventures in Wildlife; Six Pack of Encouraging Words; and “Like, Boo, Dude”–PDQ Peety’s List of 80’s Halloween Horror Films”
The metallic aftertaste of recycled oxygen lingered in my throat, each breath a sweltering struggle to survive. I tracked the merciless white sun as dust devils spun in the distance. Their swirling forms juxtaposed against the still figures before me.
Continue reading “Chrome and Marrow by Maudie Bryant”
On Monday, the most enthusiastic girlfriend in the world had left late and rushed to work at Nicky’s. Running through a cloudburst I’d cheered her from the balcony. I was busy tidying our apartment in readiness for cleaning, after which I’d head downstairs to begin a few maintenance jobs for the building owner, when I glanced out of the floor-to-ceiling window, which my girlfriend calls ‘the French doors’ (she longs for a garden) to see the weather clearing and the sun had begun to tumble-dry the world.
Continue reading “On Monday Nothing Seemed Out of Place by Antony Osgood”
The Lunar Landings—a lofty achievement for mankind. Today, 3 billion miles from Earth, two hundred years later, I’m passing Pluto. But only in the company of a doomed ghost ship named the Achilles. All fuel reserves and chances of returning home vanished with my crew.
Continue reading “Final Transmission by Savannah Oldham”
The M’sieur Fleurnoir depicted in the press was not a far cry from the M’sieur Fleurnoir with whom I dined at the Cabaret Mort. There was the same baleful demeanor, the same pale gleam of malice in the eye, and his remarks, few as they were, never failed to be less than cutting. His silences of course were legendary, and as they grew in stature, so too did his ambition to attain the kind of silence the press described as “towering.” For those who liked their Fleurnoir undiluted, Wednesday’s interminable evenings were considered the best time to catch him. Being one of his few old friends, rather than one of his many ex-friends, I was permitted to sup with him, and sup we did, after a fashion. The odd oyster, a Vin Mariana or two, followed perhaps by an apricot or a dollop of blancmange. Fleurnoir always ate with an air of distaste, seeming to savour his reputation as one who’d subsisted for decades on a diet of raisins and boiled cabbage. He told me he’d never in his life tasted boiled cabbage – that, he said, was a newspaper invention! He had however lived for years on a diet of stale chocolate and gutrot coffee. Stickler for detail, Fleurnoir. Especially if the subject under discussion was himself.
Continue reading “The Fleurnoir I Knew by Geraint Jonathan”
I’ve been thinking a lot about Kurt Cobain. Not so much how he ended it, that lonely moment above the garage, surrounded by impenetrably dense, green, tall trees, surrounded by nobody. Not that, as I sit in the stall nearest the far window, the toilet closed, my knees bent so my Target sneakers don’t show beneath the door.
Continue reading “Nevermind by Matt Liebowitz”
literally stories 