“What the people believe is true.”
—Nanabush, Son of the West Wind, Grandson of the Moon
I was a story I told myself.
My body required mechanical help with inputs and outputs, causes and effects—the purpose of one function needed to be fitted to the function of a higher purpose, from swerve of nerve to bend of bone, synapse to neuron across the junctions electric.
Continue reading “The Story of Jimmy Gray by Gerry Coleman”
The same place: Hampstead Heath. A misty London morning, the rising sun at times peeking through the pea-souper; joggers, dog walkers, city slickers taking a short cut, coffees in hand, trailed by confused people with no inclination to be doing anything, but stumbling around like zombies searching for a familiar face. Me: Canon in hand, covert, waiting for that magic pic to arrive – I’m poised.
Continue reading “The Forever Bench by SJ Butler “
He wasn’t a special man. He was just a guy with an above average trashcan. It might merit an even higher title than “above average.” Consider it magical. Yes, magical.
Continue reading “Gary’s Magic Trashcan by Peter Biles”
For two months of Summer, I spent my midnights wandering the streets of London with a sleepwalking girl. It wasn’t voluntary, to be honest. I was on my way home one night after my shift as a street cleaner: the pavement was empty of pedestrians, roads empty of cars; the night shift staff stirred the dim lighting of the dining rooms with their exhausted silhouettes; tumbleweeds of Gregg’s wrappers flew past my peripheral; pigeons strolled mindlessly over the large tiles of Trafalgar Square pecking for bits of croissant between the cracks; rats drunk on Aperol spritz bin-hopped in a chorus of squeaks; waltzing flies cast flecks of shadows beneath a streetlamp.
Continue reading “(Sleep)Walking London by Akio Lê”
“Sorry?” The young man looks up from his reading.
“That a mystery?” the visitor says again. Odd for a July night, the tweed overcoat. It’s fraying at the cuffs, and stains, smudges on the one shoulder, soot all down that side, the extra long scarf rounding the throat then across his chest, wrapped like a royal sash, and beneath it a t-shirt, yellowed at the belly.
Continue reading “Mr. Terrence by Rick Moss”
She’s in the middle of the street – a blur, a twirl, of color, this woman with a boombox. She’s not safe behind barricades or idling in a car as the rest of us are. She wears no coat, no makeup, shielded only by her floral dress.
Continue reading “The Dancing Woman by Bradley J. Collins”
Every morning, the Archivist arrived just before the sun burned off the smog. He rode the elevator to the fourth floor of the Memory Tower…the east wing…Department of Significance. The lift doors opened and he unlocked his office with a key labeled VANITY in scuffed gold.
Continue reading “Ecclesiastes by Zark Fekete”
1.
The human head remains conscious for up to ten seconds after decapitation. I read this in a medical journal I found in a dentist’s waiting room when I was eleven. I couldn’t stop picturing it—the severed head blinking, eyes scanning the floor for its missing body. I imagined it was my own head, watching the soles of the nurse’s white sneakers as she walked away, the antiseptic taste still heavy on my tongue. The article didn’t mention what happens in the ninth second—whether the eyes soften, surrender, or still search for a miracle.
Continue reading “Things I Know to Be True: by Kate Humbles”
Kyla scanned the exhibit, looking for the kangaroo. When she asked her dad where it had gone, he shrugged. She asked again, and all he said was, “Sorry, honey. This has been happening more and more recently.”
Continue reading “The First Thing She Noticed Disappear Was a Kangaroo by Michael Degnan”
