I’ll ask, are you ready? and she won’t hear me the first time. She’ll be busy wrestling the damp residue out of her clothes, cursing the dryer for its indolence.
I’ll ask again.
Are you ready?
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Category: Fantasy
Grave Stepping by Steven French
Warning – Content that some readers may find upsetting – refer to tags on the bottom of the page
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What do you say to a person who tells you, when they get one of those shivers-running-up-and-down-the-spine feelings, that not only is someone really walking across their grave but that they can tell who it is …? Well, I can state for the record that what you absolutely do not do is laugh. I learned that the hard way. So, when he sat bolt upright in his armchair, rolling his shoulders and glaring at me as if it were somehow all my fault, I knew better than to look up from my ironing.
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The Zen Master and the Genie by Rick Sherman
The zen master sat on his tatami mat in the spare, spacious chamber of the temple. His eyes were half closed as he sat, deep in zazen, at one with everything. He became aware that he was at one with the universe and then realized that that awareness was a concept and that was an illusion. He took a took a deep breath, breathing in the universe. Then he exhaled. And thus he was at oneness again.
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Sweet Pea and His Tiny Stony Heart by Sandra Arnold
The day Clancy started school, a girl pointed at her head, and hooted, ‘You’ve got no eyebrows.’ When Clancy went home, she looked in the mirror and wondered why she hadn’t noticed her missing eyebrows before. Next morning, she borrowed her mother’s eyebrow pencil and drew two thick black arches where her eyebrows should be. When she walked in the door of her classroom the teacher told her to go outside. She followed Clancy out the door, pointed to the pencilled arches and told her to go to the washroom and rub them off. Clancy scrubbed hard and wondered if she’d also rubbed off the few remaining blonde hairs that were pretending to be eyebrows.
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By the Beautiful Pond by Harrison Kim
Dan Bonner used his right hand to toss two keys to the moss-covered forest floor of Happy Valley Forest. The keys lay there glinting among the twigs and dead leaves. The throw sealed his purpose, to set his mind and body free from chance. He stood naked, one foot and one wrist handcuffed to a birch trunk. The forest stood so thick here, he could barely see the sky. That was the way he liked it, all the empty blue blocked so he could focus on the shade around him.
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A Door with a Thousand Locks by Ed Dearnley
The usual doubts arrive as I cross the street, heading for the corner of Abbeville Road. This seemed like the right thing to do an hour ago, sitting in a pub on the South Bank, toasting our anniversary with a third glass of wine. But now I’m here, all I can imagine is another rejection.
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How Soul-Globing Works by Dino Alfier
When you die, you find yourself on a sandy beach strewn with sacks, some old, some in tatters, still others weathered almost beyond recognition. All your orifices have been stitched shut. First you encounter the Bookkeeper, who opens the Ledger on your double spread and pores over the left-hand page to total all the times you have hurt others and yourself, what here they call your hurtlings.
In the Beginning by Lee Stoddart
Nothing.
Nothing to see. Nothing to feel. Nothing to smell. Nothing to hear. No sense of orientation.
Nothing.
Not just the lack of anything tangible, but the absence of even the concepts to describe the lack of senses beyond the externality of… what?
Me.
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SaragunVision ’23 By Leila Allison
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A Nocturnal Visit
I entered my office one morning and discovered a playbill pasted to the window. It was on the outside facing in. A quick check of the spy-cam I recently installed revealed that a Trans Weasel named Penrose had stuck the playbill to my window precisely at the stroke of midnight.
In Penrose’s case “Trans” doesn’t refer to gender (of which she or he is mysterious about). Penrose is a minion of the Witch HeXopatha; HeXy often endows her beloved animal toadies with abilities not normally associated with their species. In that context only, it was perfectly normal that Penrose had morphed into a Flying Weasel.
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The Returning by Rob O’Keefe
The wind off Nauset Bay is strong and insistent, demanding my presence. It draws me from the long comfort of my home, and yet, it does not have to pull too hard. This is the debtor’s wind and I know why it is here.
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