All Stories, Fantasy

The Backwaters by Christopher J. Ananias

Jenny stood at the dingy laundromat’s bulletin board. She wore a bright red Indiana University shirt and jeans. The crude flyer showed five or six stick figures holding hands in a circle. Two suspiciously looked like they had a penis or almost three legs. She smiled and thought, Maybe that’s what I want to see. They danced in bright green crayon slashes of grass in some pagan ritual around a blue gazing-ball. The smiley-face sun, shining from the top right corner, looked sneaky and somehow hateful. Like it was holding its middle sun-finger up just off the page. Black words cut across the lightly shaded blue sky. FORTUNES READ by Sue at Backwaters Salon $50. No Refunds.  

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Is There Anybody There? By Michael Smith

Acacia knew her calling from the age of ten. Noticing all her clothes were labeled ‘MEDIUM’ and, being a highly impressionable girl, she naturally assumed the universe, or possibly a parallel one, was offering a clear hint as to her correct career path.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Swindled by Seth Bleuer

“I’ll need his name, something of his, and payment upfront, of course,” I say. The young brunette sitting across from me forces a half smile.

“Of course,” she replies. “His name is,” She pauses and her lower lip trembles slightly. “His name was Theodore,” she corrects herself. She reaches into her Dior purse and pulls out a pair of cufflinks. She then pulls out a matching wallet and pauses. “You said cash only, right?” She inquires. She slides her Gucci sunglasses off to see better in the dim lighting. Even from across the table, her eyes look red and puffy, presumably from crying.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Psychic Promise by Yash Seyedbagheri

My father seeks help from the psychics, their names a litany, a liturgy. Padre, Maria, Esmerelda, Christin. They promise good fortune, alignments of the planets. They promise to vanquish his opponents. To vanquish bad luck. And he has so much, at least in his opinion. There’s the divorce from years ago, something that still simmers. I, his only son, didn’t become a lawyer. I up and left. I became a writer, a marker that to him conjured garrets and begging for food, and not victory, conquest. He tried to amass a coterie of girlfriends from abroad, each one coming in from distant lands, snatching a green card and the possibility of things. They called him prophet, valiant lord, but those were only obsequious platitudes.

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