Time was you could walk the whole length of the world going from island to island across the bridges raised high above oceans and mountains, deserts and forests, sometimes alone, or with a single companion, sometimes one among thronging multitudes, of merchants and hunters, explorers and sightseers, the clamour of whose voices drowned out even the howling of the winds and the screeching of the giant eagles.
Continue reading “Time Was by David Calcutt”
No retreat offers someone more quiet and relaxation than that into his own mind, especially if he can dip into thoughts there which put him at immediate and complete ease.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
She was foaming at the mouth. Her eyes dilated rolled.
Her mind was gone–possessed by Bacchus– she could not hear her son.
Euripides, The Bacchae
Marcus sat alone, cross-legged, in the quiet of his studio, having dimmed all lights. He sought to set his mind at rest by deeply inhaling and exhaling; as errant thoughts floated into his mind, he considered each one for a moment and dismissed it.
Continue reading “The Call of the Bacchante by Matias Travieso-Diaz”
STEP 1 – When the undead thing scratches at your window and asks if it can come in, say no.
STEP 2 – When the thing says something that stirs your soul and awakens your senses, and when it promises that it doesn’t want to hurt you, it just wants to be with you, and when it asks to come in so you can have a really good talk about it, say no again.
Continue reading “How to not keep a Vampire out of Your House (in Eight Easy Steps) by Bob DeRosa”
Concerning Boys and Men
Shirley was eavesdropping one night when she heard her mother say that lonely people can’t help but do terrible things. She was bedridden, her mother, laid up with a debilitating melancholy after her latest episode. Her father was in there with her. Shirley imagined him to be glowering over the bed, hands on his hips, but she couldn’t be sure.
Continue reading “Homecoming Queen by Adam Dorsheimer”
Xius waved at the family driving away in their BMW M3—it had license plate frames from his cousin’s dealership—with their brand new Fénix rolled up and strapped to its roof. He locked his showroom’s front door, hit a switch, and the sign reading “New and Used Flying Carpets!” flickered out. Sighing as he tried to ignore the worn linoleum, and the faded map of the world, marked with places such as El Dorado, Xanadu, and St. Brigid’s Well, he gathered together his receipts—paperwork would take him about two hours, he figured. He smiled as he thought of his daughters nagging him to get a computer, but he didn’t see the point, now—he had been at this for almost forty years, and every day seemed as if it might be the last.
Continue reading “Xius and his Flying Carpet Emporium by Hermester Barrington”
At what point, the man wondered, does semi-light become semi-dark. It was, he recognized, his first intriguing thought of the day after sitting immobile at his desk for hours with legs tightening and stomach growling. And the idea had only come to him after looking out his window and noticing that the sun was beginning to set. So it was becoming semi-light. Or semi-dark.
Continue reading “Transition by Chris Klassen”
Lucy kept an eye on the man at the corner table. He’d glance at the front door each time it opened and then return his gaze to a book whose pages he rarely turned. He waited for someone.
Continue reading “The Monk’s Knife by Callie J. Smith”
You may have seen me. That is, if you ever look up into the airy spaces. Few do. Some look straight ahead into the distance, unseeing, sure of their path; some look down, watching out for things not to tread in; others glance sideways at pretty girls as they pass. Just occasionally a flawless morning or an irrepressible carefree mood will set the stroller’s eye a-wandering, and I may be taken in as one of several irritations on an otherwise symmetrical arrangement of planes and curves. Or the gaze may even rest on me for a moment, and the beholder wonder idly – such curiosity evaporates instantly – who I am supposed to be. Next time you pass St Paul’s on the south side, do look up. You will see five statues in various unlikely poses above a phoenix that perpetually does whatever a phoenix is supposed to do. I am the one on the right.
Continue reading “Stonechat by Stephen Silvester”
Nate’s flight was late landing, it took forever to get off the plane, and then his bag didn’t come out.
“Son of a bitch.”
Continue reading “Baggage By Richard Jones”
In the summer of 1997, when most men of his age were discovering the quiet dignity of cholesterol, Gopal Banerjee decided to make a perfume that would outlive death itself. Not metaphorically, he meant it quite literally. “Eternity,” he called it, though Calvin Klein had already used the name. Gopal didn’t mind; he believed trademarks were for those who lacked vision.
Continue reading “The Scent of Eternity by Susmita Mukherjee”
literally stories 