As I get deeper into my cronehood, this time of existence in which people either do not see me or pretend they have business elsewhere when the cowl slips, November has become my friend. The mocking young forms who strode about oh so hot to trot last summer are now buried under layers of linen and lycra and are having a hell of a hard time using their phones in the rain.
Continue reading “Week 557: Magick and Fare Thee Well Sybil Fawlty”
Five hours. That’s how long Angela had been hiding in the basement. Five. Whole. Hours.
Continue reading “Angela and the Balm by J D Strunk”
‘Where did you say Mum is this weekend?’
Florian is stretched out on the sitting room sofa, feet up on the coffee table, laptop in its customary position. Affecting nonchalance, he keeps his eyes on the screen.
‘She’s off for a spa retreat, sweetheart.’
Continue reading “Florian Is Totally Fine With This by Courtney Jean Day”
Do you ever feel stuck? Asleep at the wheel of your own life? Each day a motion, repeated to the point of mental RSI, a means to an end? You must surely know the feeling. The same papers passed over your desk. The same documents read on a dusty laptop screen. The same dull drum playing on the surface of your temples. And you think to yourself: surely this ends soon?
Continue reading “Days Off by Dylan Ng”
I was barely thirteen when my big brother Jimmy came home from school with a wailing guitar. We were two kids caught up in an ongoing dispute between our parents over things we could not really understand, and we feared they were going to split up and we would become casualties of a broken home. As a byproduct of this trauma the two of us had bonded over a budding and mutual love of rock music. Somehow our mutual interest in rock guitar music had given us something to hang onto as our parents became more and more involved in petty bickering and outright bursts of anger.
Continue reading “Wailing Guitar by Steve Sibra “
Rooooolllllll. Bang!
Rooooolllll.
Catch.
I love the solid smack of my dad’s old cue ball into my small palm. I sit against the foot of my bed rolling the ball across the floor so it ricochets off the baseboard back to myself. I’m only feeling my own momentum, but I can pretend it’s from someone else.
It’s a fine day for a game. Though the sky is dreary– columns of smoke rise from the building above– the weather is just chilly enough to motivate us to stay moving, focused. We arrived at Mauthausen earlier this afternoon. One of the men had been waiting for us at the station. Our walk to the field was short, the town small but warm– comfortable. The people are nice here. The fuẞballfield is conveniently placed at the end of the main street– the bottom of the hill.
Continue reading “Like Lightning by Evangeline Golden”
Something has been playing on my mind this week after eating some Japanese crackers – Do fish taste the way that they do due to the seaweed? Or does seaweed taste the way that it does due to the fish?
Continue reading “Week 556 – Two Questions, Oocha, Ooocha, Oocha Ooooo!! And Serial Killers Are Much more Interesting Than Your Kids.”
I got the idea to resurrect Paul because eleven years had passed since we’d spoken, including the year he’d been dead, and I wanted to tie up loose ends. I never liked the way things with us ended. Exploded is a better term. I blamed him, even changed details of our story to make myself feel better when I told it. Now, I wanted to do better and set things straight.
When I say bring Paul back, I mean in a loving way. “Jesus wept,” is the shortest verse in the Bible. It’s just before he calls his friend, Lazarus, out of the tomb. Nobody called Lazarus a zombie that I know of. I think he was happy to be back. Maybe a little disoriented, but happy to see his friends and family. Although my history with the church was no love affair, I had a fondness for things like compassion and hope. Lazarus was a hopeful story, and I believe in second chances.
Continue reading “Rescue by Michelle Stoll”
The night before, my sister sobbed a waterfall into the sleeve of my silk pajamas. My own eyes are bone dry like the wooden roof we lay under. Rain hasn’t come in weeks and the tomato plants outside are decaying like autumn leaves crumbling to dust underfoot. The market was shut down weeks ago by Japanese men with eyes painted with malice.
Continue reading “A Sister’s Promise by Grace Lee”
literally stories 