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I heard toenails slipping on linoleum in the kitchenette off my office. Only Dogs create that sound; and sure enough, upon inspection, I discovered the “Baw Brothers,” Beezer and Barkevious, teaming to raid the refrigerator. I am guilty of leaving the fridge door ajar, so this situation happens almost constantly.
Continue reading “The Adventures of Beezer and Barkevious by Leila Allison”
“There’s a toll for everything…the toll for happiness is often sorrow.” — James Carr
Would you opt for a different life if you had the choice? This is the question I asked myself, a question so burning that it dampened my palms; it’s also the question I needed to ask my best friend, Charlie, because we both hated our lives—just as much as the guy who pulled up to my booth on that icy evening. Under the amber lights, his red Jaguar gleamed like a ruby. Decked out in a fancy camel-hair overcoat, he told me he was gonna jump off the bridge.
Continue reading “The Toll Collector by Jack Kamm”
Growing up as a Nigerian meant that your parents filled your head with all sorts of supernatural phenomena. When we were children, my mother would tell us these euphoric stories, a lot of which kept us up all night, like they kept a lot of other kids around us up at night as they too were being told these stories in their own homes.
Continue reading “The Monster at the end of this Tale by Mohammed Babajide Mohammed”
William Wendron balanced on a wooden stool, wedged into the corner of the old pub, leaning upon the slate bar top. A crooked half smile fixed upon his face; old hands deformed with arthritis by years of toil in the damp with pick and axe. He grappled with his mug, draining the last of the sour gin down his throat. He welcomed the warmth spreading out from his gut, encompassing his wizened body; worn before its time, the pain of years of hard labour dulled under the gin’s spell. He knew he should not have another; he had promised the mine captain he would stop turning up in the morning stinking of gin with glazed eyes. Despite the ember of guilt in his conscience he shouted for the barmaid.
Continue reading “Knockers by Amy Tryphena”
Okay. I’m being serious now. Not that I haven’t been serious all along. But this I gotta say. If there’s anything…anything at all that’s important to me, it concerns this matter—this matter of the heart.
So…
Continue reading “Initiation by Fiver”
Ghosts of the old world make their presence still known upon the moors. Known by their ancient stone walls and standing stones that still litter the landscape. The walkers, incongruous in their primary colours, garish symbols of the twenty first century.
Continue reading “Threshold by Amy Tryphena”
In a house in the woods, smoke churned and twined through the red bricks and out into the cold autumn air. A very pale girl sat on a sloping hill and watched the smoke huff and puff and disappear.
She remembers now. It does not always stay with her, like a word on the tip of your tongue. She can almost taste it but in the end it evades her, staying silent and unknowable. Today is different.
Continue reading “Friendship by Brooklyn Peters”
She was the craggy-faced, big-boned, broken-nose blonde on the ripe side of 50 working the night shift at the front desk at the small New Hampshire Hotel.
Continue reading “Checking In by Frederick K Foote”
I knew I wanted her for a model when I saw the portrait selection at the Portland Art Museum. She was painted hanging out of the passenger seat of a car waving at something unseen by the museum visitors. I don’t know if I’m right, but I thought of early Marilyn Monroe.
Continue reading “Twin Sisters by Doug Hawley”
On the canvas, the sun glints off the edge of the pool where the turquoise water meets the azure sky. The palm trees almost sway in the sea breeze, the water shimmers as if tickling the sides of the pool. In a dimly lit room, towards the back of the museum, a single spotlight in an otherwise empty gallery focused its beam on a painting of a swimming pool.
To the left of the painting sat a lifeguard.
Continue reading ” Dive Right In byJames Flanagan”
