A man who is middle aged wakes up in a room . . . a middle-aged man wakes in an unfamiliar place where he has lived for the past 30 years, except that’s not right. A man awakens in a house where he has lived since getting married. His wife is deceased, his daughter leaves for college this afternoon (or tomorrow). I’m not sure which . . . but she leaves soon enough and I’ve waited a long time to tell this tale.
Continue reading ” 11:11 by Charles Sutphin”
When I am stressed, I sit on my bed and count five things. A booklight, melatonin tablets, black nail polish, faded jeans, and knitting needles. Name four things I feel: the dangling pillow tassel, the chilly windowpane, the geography textbook, my pinky toe. I cannot hear three things, because my uncle is working, and my mother is quiet. So I listen to the consistent hum of the heater three times as long as normal for good measure. I can smell the cheap air freshener and my soccer shoes. With the window open, my tongue catches the breeze and I taste cold.
When my mother is stressed, she slits her wrists in the bathtub.
Continue reading “L’amore di una Madre by Claire M Welton”
Chuckata-thuck Chuckata-thuck Chuckata-thuck Chuckata-thuck …
The rhythm of the boxcar rumbling down the track reminds Billy of a song he wrote a long time ago, back when he was still playing for nickels and dimes outside the lumber yards and cotton mills along the Mississippi River. Although he hasn’t sung the thing in years, he can still remember the words.
Continue reading “Boneyard Blues by John Vander”
First off, I’m a bra expert. I came by my bra expertise unwillingly. I was born flat-chested.
I understand that you, reader person, may not find my subject relatable if you personally have not experienced flat-chestedness – You haven’t walked around in my shoes. You haven’t walked around in my bra.
Continue reading “The Chicken Cutlet Bra by Lisa Shimotakahara”
By and large, old age doesn’t suit poets. I’m not saying that, once they pick up their pensions, all of them start to regret that they didn’t crash and burn in their twenties, like Keats, Shelley & Co. Or that they start experimenting with monkey gland injections, like poor old Yeats. Nor that there aren’t quite a number of poets, like Seamas Heaney, who could keep the pot stirring through all the transitions of age (indeed, I know a couple of pensioner poets myself).
Continue reading “The Ex-Poet by Michael Bloor”
Sihanoukville began dressing itself in a fresh coating of sleaze just as the night bruised the evening’s amber face.
Its nocturnal denizens awakened bleary-eyed to crawl out of a thousand tacky rooms and flee the judgement of mirrors, desperate for another drink, another fix, another sordid five-dollar fuck.
Continue reading “Barang by Alex Sinclair”
The two cats spoke as cats do, ears twitching, signaling, plotting, slowly inching forward one muscle at a time. This was no time for meows, purrs, or broken twigs. Something interesting jiggled in the deep grass, and they needed to get closer.
Continue reading “The Rule of Unintended Cataquences by Bob Freeman”
There weren’t many restaurants Harold still tolerated. Most were too crowded – like the buffet down the street which clearly had a busing arrangement with the local nursing home. Others were just too damn expensive. Harold also hated theme restaurants, anything cooked with cabbage, and food from countries that bordered the Mediterranean.
Continue reading “Just Desserts by Andrew Rodgers”
Anna sat quietly watching through the two-way window as the patrons marvelled at her paintings in the gallery below.
Everyone stopped at Vienna. The piece she kept in the old wooden chest with her sentimental collection.
Continue reading “Vienna by Karen Uttien”
The art form that had the biggest impact on my mind during childhood was TV cartoons. Yes, art form. And I will also say that cartoons were responsible for the stimulation of however much creativity I was endowed with.
Continue reading “Week 438: Raised by Cartoons”
literally stories 