Tag: loss

All Stories, Fantasy

Woman With Jigsaw Puzzle by Tom Bentley-Fisher

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“I am the Seven Wonders of the World … I am the Endless Ocean and the Garden of Eden … I am the Mountains and Valleys and a Great Desert.” 

Gabriella has a complex system for organizing the loose pieces. What might look like a haphazard pile of small cardboard shapes is a clearly thought-out symmetrical pattern waiting to be employed in a system of elimination “far too sophisticated for even the Venezuelan postal service to figure out”, she used to tell her little boy when they sat together day after day working on a new puzzle, waiting for him to die. “It’s like DNA,” she’d say, “every piece unique onto itself.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Night They Brought Him Home by Jake Bristow

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When they brought him home that night, the lid was strewn canted off the wooden lip and jacks and queens ornamented astray around the box like a ring of fire. Someone- I do not remember who- had loaded coal into the fireplace and after some poking it begun to lick its flame at the iron grate. Ma was cold and Paul and Jane huddled around the hearth for they were cold but I suppose not as cold as him. Still, it only felt right to keep him warm.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Tip Run by Alex Kellet

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I knew I shouldn’t have come to the tip on a Sunday, the queues are always massive. I should have come in the week, but I couldn’t be arsed. Yet another mistake I’ve made. Petrol is nearly empty as well, that’s another job I’ll have to do. Never fucking ends, does it?

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Silence by Rehanul Hoque

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The dimness of the room was perfect for them both. That was how she loved it; the gentle light covered up the years that had become ingrained in her skin and the weariness in her eyes. He never asked for more light. Every Tuesday, he would drop by, say nothing, and leave a wad of money on the dresser.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Patience by Ed N. White

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Without thinking, she started smoking the day he left, nearly thirty years ago. It was just something to do when he walked away. She constantly sat at the window, hoping, peering, and smoking. One cigarette lit from the other, with the smoke dragged deep into her lungs. Everyone said that was a bad thing to do, but she still smoked, and most of them had passed away. She kept her hand outside to let the smoke drift into the clouds and considered it a signal, a beacon he could follow home. The ash burned close and scarred her fingers, so little pain remained. The pain was all in her heart.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Dial 1 for Heaven by N J Delmas

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A red phone box stands alone in the middle of a field. Long grass and wildflowers surround it and little else. I make my way over; glad I’m wearing my wellies. I avoid the cow pats along the way and bat a couple of flies from my face.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Chalatenango, 1983 by J. Paul Ross

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Warning: Extreme content – see tags.

Running.

Gasping.

Retching, the son of Olayo Mejia charges toward his village amid the stench of burning wood and searing flesh. The odor is heavy and it is moist and it fills the valley beneath him in a haze of squalid yellows and heavy browns. It covers the fog-laced treetops and mingles across the terraced fields and, as gunfire again bursts over the Salvadoran hills, its reek grows sharper with every footfall and every wild swing of his arms. Its taste lingers in his mouth, its fumes choke his lungs and he wants so much to pause and catch his breath. He wants to fall to his knees and weep in terror but he knows he cannot, for the helicopters are prowling above him, the smoke is billowing high into the morning air and his home is very far away.

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All Stories, General Fiction

March by Sarp Sozdinler

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March was a bitter month for everyone involved. Jodi was born into one, like Eric Clapton, her childhood idol. In another March, thirty years ago, Clapton’s four-year-old son ran into a hole in the wall. The hole was supposed to be a window, but it had no glass on it. A scream tore through the house, and the mother understood right away that it didn’t come from the boy; the boy was busy plowing through the air, down fifty-three floors.

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All Stories, General Fiction

At Sea by Andrew Bennett

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In the muted afternoon light that leaked through the curtains high on the cellar wall the old man, sweaty and disoriented, reached out from a nap he had not planned to take. He lurched forward and tumbled headfirst out of his recliner and up against the television, two feet in front. He cursed himself. 

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