“Pines everywhere. And we have been driving in this stinking Volvo for three hours without a break.”
“A much needed coffee break, indeed!”
Joe tapped the car window a few times. A clear blue lake could be spotted behind the pines, but Joe turned his head and just missed it. He turned on the radio.
“Listen. What the hell is he talking about? Is he talking Elvish?”
“No I don’t think it is Elvis, it sounds Swedish to me.”
Ulriksberg 4 km.
“Drive towards Owhlricksburgh. It must be Norway.”
They were running everywhere, the children. There was this confident little girl running around, Judith, the one who’s name we wish we’d have thought of before Jennifer was born. She ran around within that, wearing this little pink polka dot dress. It was the kind of thing that if Patricia were here she’d talk about how she wishes she’d have been able to give it to Jennifer for Christmas and talk about how it would have suited ‘ours more’. Patricia wasn’t here today, she couldn’t be. The agency was taking off and at least one of us had to be there to man the phones and those phones had been ringing lately. It was finally working. That dream we’d had was getting there and was breaking the wall that had stopped it for the last five years. But she’d have been jealous of that kid of all things.
There’s a temperature – not too warm, not too cold, just right – where I am caught for hours. Thousands of tiny water drops form like islands in an ocean upon the inner wall of the shower stall. Streams run down, connecting the islands and growing bigger to eventually drop to the puddle at my feet. As the water hits my forehead, eyelids and cheeks a comfort settles, knowing no matter how long I stand here, the water won’t stop. Sooner or later all of the thousand islands will be connected and new ones will form. The streams reaching my feet will not stop streaming and the flow will keep wrinkling my hands. I lean left and the shower hits my shoulder creating a waterfall.
The nags were against me. Six races. Six bets. All blown out before the finishing line. I’m going to change bars, I told myself, this place is bad fucking luck for me. Superstition and gambling become more impassioned bed fellows the worse your luck is – and mine, mine hadn’t seen anything to show for it in months.
I sat at the bar in the Front Page cursing my luck, cursing the Racing Post, cursing the barman who had talked through the back page of form listings and most probably caused me to rush to a decision when time and a clear head was required. As the stranger pulled up a seat beside me I cursed him too. Wednesday afternoon, quite possibly the quietest time in a bar’s week and in a room full of empty, cold seats this prick parks up alongside me.
Continue reading “The Front Page by David Louden – Adult Content”
Put yourself in my position. You can’t stop thinking about something that happened here years ago, when you were just a child.
Three boys wake up one morning. Three beds vacated eagerly.
You remember the incident but never really knew the details. Not knowing means your thoughts are just looping around uselessly.
Simon sat at his desk. His boss Michael walked in.
”It’s approaching the holidays.”
”You mean Christmas?”
“No, we can’t say that.”
“Because we don’t want to offend other religions?”
“We don’t want to offend large groups of consumers, yes.”
At the top of the eastern tower hunched against the wind, the man in black gazed out across the grey, winter waste of his homeland. His strong hands gripped the cold stone of the battlement as further assurance against the restless elements and neither his stance nor his stare wavered.
He was a man of many names. In the hushed, excited tones of children telling ghost stories he was The Darkman. To the men who had battled at his side throughout the surrounding lands he was Nightstrike. His dear, departed mother had referred to him as Wherizzeethistimethelittleshi…
Everyone else called him Stormcrow. Continue reading “Any Crow In A Storm by Nik Eveleigh”
Ray had been listening in for some time now. It was fair to say that not much happened. He was paid regularly and managed to make ends meet, sure. Most of the time, that was all he cared about. The days were hardly springing by like joyous animals, but neither were they crawling in the vein of pained snails. Rent got paid, the cupboards got refilled and occasionally he treated himself to a trip to the local cinema. Work was work though, and he turned up daily at nine in his suit and tie, draping his jacket on the hook behind the door, sitting at his computer, and donning his pair of headphones. Continue reading “Listening In by Jon Green”
Hans wandered a street in Eaten-Notthemeatenberg, a small rural city in Germanville, with his sister Gretel. The siblings were about to go trick-or-treating. They came to a house and rang the doorbell. A man, with a prominent mustache, called Friedrich, opened the door.
”Hello, Sir. Trick or treat?”
”What in the name of…”
“God?” Gretel asked suggestively.
“Please… God is dead. We killed him.”
“Did you kill God!? How could you…” Gretel cried out and both of the children ran away from the horrible man.
“No! You have misinterpreted me!” Nietzsche yelled and hoped that no one else would ever do the same. Continue reading “Trick-or-Treating in Germanville by Tobias Haglund”
Final credits. Show’s all but over. One last tune from Ed’s iPod and the crematorium doors widen. I’m going where the sun keeps shining, through the pouring rain. Randall lurches outside, wobbles in a thank-god patch of sunshine. Going where the weather suits my clothes. The family shuffle themselves into a line-up: the deceased’s mother reaching just the shoulder of the deceased’s wife. Ed’s brother next? Very tall and looks a little like him. Ed’s children, the daughter only up to her uncle’s waist. A face she loves interrupts the protocol and the little girl’s smile slashes the dark fabric of today. Ed’s son, adolescent and alone at the end, arms meshed over the outrage in his gut. Here now we see the stiff bar chart of the family, offering some kind of analysis. Continue reading “Post by Jenny Morton Potts”
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