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.
Continue reading “A Door with a Thousand Locks by Ed Dearnley”
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.
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.
Continue reading “In the Beginning by Lee Stoddart”
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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.
Continue reading “SaragunVision ’23 By Leila Allison”
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.
Continue reading “The Returning by Rob O’Keefe”
His face was blank, no eyes, no mouth, nothing, on his back was a towering backpack, twice the size of his body and on his belt hung the masks he sells, three of them : Happy, Sad, and Angry.
“What are you looking for today?” asked the mask man.
“My in-law is coming, I need to be happy,” replied a woman with furrowed brows.
“I see,” the vendor put his backpack down, and with just a quick pull, he got exactly what he wanted: a mask with a half circle smile “You know what happens next–”
Continue reading “Smiling Mask Vendor by Rinanda Hidayat “
A demon places a sharp sabre in his hand, An angel gently whispers words of reassurance. The pain he feels is equal to having a dagger pierce his heart, the angel wants to take it out while the demon wishes to push it in further. Since he lost her nothing has been the same, he oscillates from melancholy to a furious rage that swallows him whole. This leaves his soul barren like a desert, an almost perfect ground for the deities to do battle. “Slay him and be done with it,” the demon says in a haughty tone.
Continue reading “A Quarrel Of Divinity and Impiety by Mirza Copi”
Ida hates the sunset. She also has a profound dislike for the ocean, Greece, Italian villas, and all 30,000 islands of the Pacific Ocean. But every morning she wakes up to one of them, rotating views out her window: a nightmare cycle of 5 star resort views. Sometimes she thinks she is already dead, stuck in a penitentiary of hell’s ennui where every day is more passive then the last.
Continue reading “After Dark by Nico Gurdjian”
Boots sank into the damp ground, charting his path through the mud. The long, gnarled wooden stick added its own accompanying impressions. Pulling the brim of his hat low to guard against the puddles of rain exploiting gaps in the trees, Vincent walked. Unconcerned about the trail he left, knowing nature would conceal it long before any of them rose. He’d dedicated his life to knowing their practices. A commitment borne of bloodline. They hunted. They executed. Without exception.
Continue reading “Beasts by Claire Marsh”
There’s foolishness and then there’s sin. I’m talking breaking the big-ten sin. You ever did something stupid like drunk texted and thought you felt shame for it? Nah, that’s not good enough for regret! Good enough for regret is when you steal or kill.
Don’t know how I got in the park that night with my 9-millimeter. Told that fucking Puerta Rican, “don’t drag me to no gun range, I deal with depression.” He taught me to shoot, and that didn’t do me no favors. See, you own your weapon of choice and tell yourself you gotta protect your family, but the shit lays idle until it gets in the wrong hands, and in this case, it got in mine during one of my episodes.
Walking the park, don’t even know how I got there no more than how I got the gun, and I’m going down the sidewalk, you know all outta place. Got on a long black robe over striped pajama pants. Top hat going on, too. Real pajama gangster. Sign says not to step on the prairie. So, what’ I do? Step both feet on, after all I’m wearin’ a fuckin’ top hat.
What happened next, you aint gonna believe, but remember this aint makin’ me look good. I’m confessing sin. Good enough sin for regret. Them flowers on that prairie came to life. You say plant life is life too, but I’m saying they really came to life, here. Started singing so beautifully, I wept. The sunflower in the middle-had lady bugs crawling all over. Goes, “easy, ladies, I’m married.” He sang base. Most beautiful rendition of happy birthday I ever heard, and them ladybugs told me I was gorgeous.
What a flowerbed of lies. Fuck em! Fuck em’ for telling me life is sunshine and rainbows. Let me introduce you to me. I’m thorn. I pulled out the 9-millimeter and aimed it at that ol’ sunflower!
After all, it must be a hallucination, right? Right? But Mr. Sunflower in the stiff stems, squirting blood with his base range up to high pitch screams haunts the hell outta me. I can’t forget it. For the sake of Mary and all the saints—I can’t. Clovers and coneflowers and goldenrods rushed to him. That’s reds and violets and yellows or something like that. Doesn’t matter, cause even the bright colors are dull.
What matters is Mr. Sunflower in a huff says, “my last wishes are for my family to get the little house like Michael Landen’s that I promised, and that you forgive my assailant, for I too have a soiled and seedy past.” He’s a guy like me with his own rap, dying cause I popped him. And he’s praying for my forgiveness? Yeah. Hope his family gets the house so half his wishes come true.
Might of got outta that prairie without any detective looking for the pajama gangster, but neither God nor me will ever get over what I did to that sunflower.
Steve Combs
Image by Pavel Durčák from Pixabay – flowerbed filled with mixed colourful blooms
literally stories 