Tag: children

All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, Fantasy

Baby Blues by Jack Powers

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Cass had been on the Cold Case Time Travel squad eight years when I replaced her partner, Hoss. We’d done things differently in Present-Day Homicide so I shut up and listened. Cass was a pro, by the book mostly–she could even fix the damn machine! And since no other towns could afford the traveler fees, we’d be in ’60s Harlem one day and ’30s Greenwich the next. I’m guessing they brought me in for the Harlem cases. Brothers don’t tend to open up to two pale folks from the future. Of course, they weren’t supposed to know we were from the future, but occasionally our Era Lingo implants malfunctioned.

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All Stories, Fantasy

Friendship by Brooklyn Peters

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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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Clown and The Kid by Ashley Laughlin

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The kid had this puffy bee-sting face I wanted to shove into the toilet bowl. I liked him as soon as he came, breathless and sweating, through the door. I liked him more when he offered me a cigarette.

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Short Fiction

‘Will They Remember Us?’ Little Ignaz Wonders by Antony Osgood

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‘Will they come this morning?’

The boy cannot see his older brother’s face in the gloom, and neither can his forgetful toy bear. On any given day, during each endless hour and restless night, the single candle they afford themselves silhouettes the pretence of confidence. It has become a circus puppet show they take turns to perform.

 ‘Not this morning.’

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All Stories, General Fiction

Liza, Like Lizard by Joy Florentine

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She’s like a storm cloud drifting my way. The thick, grey coat and bright yellow rain boots are probably a choice she made herself, because the sun’s out and I’m sweating like a pig. I don’t understand why Lenny would let her go out like that, but I don’t have kids and won’t pretend to understand what it’s like. I guess my only comparison to dressing a child is when Roger, my Rottweiler, comes running to me with his lead between his teeth because he wants to go to the park, and he’s got only that one lead. I guess I shouldn’t call a dog my kid, but all he wants is to eat, play, sleep, and shit. Roger’s the closest thing I’ll ever have to a kid—which I’m perfectly fine with.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Miss Hart vs. The State by Carlie Morgan

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This story deals with subjects that some readers may find upsetting.

 

1

I’m willing the old lady to take her seat already so the driver can go. Come on, come on, old girl, just pick a seat, any seat.

“Please take mine,” I say and stand. She smiles a paper-thin smile and eases herself onto the damp fabric. I hold onto a pole as the bus shudders onwards and we’re off again.  I take out my phone and replay the message. “Miss Hart, Tabitha is unwell again. Please come and pick her up as soon as possible.”

The way Tabby’s teacher lingers on the word “again” sends a painful throb to my stomach.

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All Stories, General Fiction

s-Perfect by Tris Matthews

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After a short rest, when she thought he might fall asleep, Amy reached round to slap her sweaty lump of husband on the back.

“Get off now.”

With a groan, Brad peeled his slick torso from hers, rolled off and collapsed, naked and vulnerable. Their mixed sweat chilled the front of Amy’s torso, but she didn’t have time to shower.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Customer is Never Right by Leila Allison

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A few nights ago, Jim identified the great, distant sun Naazar in the autumnal sky, and then attempted to sell me tales of its splendor and glory. This had caused an old memory to trip my inner As If Alarm. Some claim my inner As If Alarm underscores the ever-suspicious side of my personality; all things considered, I find it a useful and necessary device.

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All Stories, Latest News

Week 179 – Borders, gateways and tales to tell our children

Nik

In my quest to find something interesting to say in Hugh’s absence this week I did a quick Google search for the significance of the number 179.

As you can imagine the results were thrilling.

I can confirm 179 is a prime number – an Eisenstein Prime no less as it is indivisible even by complex Gaussian integers, and  Chen Prime because it is 2 less than the next prime number.

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