The Doctor is cleaning up Jerry’s mess, as usual. With a grunt, he bends, grabs the dead boy beneath the armpits and drags him toward the stairs. While the Doctor works, Jerry hides in an attic bedroom of their mind, eyes closed, fingers in his ears.
Continue reading “Jerry’s Last Problem by Jennifer Maloney”
I’m sleepwalking at night again but my wife sleeps so deeply she can’t hear my cries for help. Tonight, I’m balancing on a boat on the choppy waters of the Atlantic Ocean. I hear hungry seagulls gliding through the salty air. “You can’t make me jump!” I call out to the fleets of ships and submarines that have surrounded me. “I will never give in.” When I crack my head on the medicine cabinet and cotton buds fall to my feet like confetti, I realise the cold tap from the bath is overflowing and I’m standing on the weighing scales, waving a loo roll at the mirror.
Continue reading “Sleepwalking Visions by Tim Frank”
Release is real. These days there aren’t many left who’ll deny that. We’ve all had our glimpses. Maybe you caught someone’s eye at a bus stop in the rain, and when they smiled back it was like something heavy tearing loose inside you. You felt the future drain away through your fingertips. Not your future, the future.
Continue reading “A Latecomer’s Guide to Release by Greg Golley”
I stroll down the promenade and onto the bridge. This one is closed to automobiles.
Between its dead-gray embankments, the river glows noon-gold. I’ve seen the river at its source: young, leaping motion-mad. Here, near its mouth, matured into inertia, the river drifts. Over the river, past me this balmy June Sunday, people jog, stroll, power-walk, and bicycle. Dog-walkers discipline the curiosity out of their dogs with smart little leash tugs. Old couples, combining constitutionals with treat-shopping, have finally found all the time in the world.
Continue reading “Courage Anniversary by Amita Basu”
Jacob used to love his walks. He looked at the wildlife, listened to the river and tried to guess the oncoming weather.
…Rain was always a fair bet.
Mr. Randall prided himself on his ability to imagine a person in animal form, a technique he furtively employed, quite frequently it turns out, when he suspected the person might be smarter than him. This method reduced the individual into someone easier to deal with. As such, the small, long-necked man interviewing him from behind the desk in his bowtie and buttoned cardigan was perceived to be a bureaucratic turtle. The image, however, caused Randall to stew in disappointment. He had expected something more for his money—something out of The Sopranos—maybe a gorilla, or a bear. And that wasn’t all. Turtle-man’s office reeked of potpourri, for high on the wall a plastic dispenser spat out a staccato “phft,” and just about the time he forgot its annoying existence, it would “phft” again—signaling the imminent descent of chemical lavender.
Continue reading “Button by Joe Manion”
“Mommy! Mommy!”
As the summer sun neared the horizon on this longest day, the heat of late June only fading slowly, Ann drew fingers through her dark hair, trying to work out the beginnings of a tangle. I should just cut it short, she thought. Everyone else my age does.
Continue reading “Night Stranger by Torger Vedeler”
A man who is middle aged wakes up in a room . . . a middle-aged man wakes in an unfamiliar place where he has lived for the past 30 years, except that’s not right. A man awakens in a house where he has lived since getting married. His wife is deceased, his daughter leaves for college this afternoon (or tomorrow). I’m not sure which . . . but she leaves soon enough and I’ve waited a long time to tell this tale.
Continue reading ” 11:11 by Charles Sutphin”
When I am stressed, I sit on my bed and count five things. A booklight, melatonin tablets, black nail polish, faded jeans, and knitting needles. Name four things I feel: the dangling pillow tassel, the chilly windowpane, the geography textbook, my pinky toe. I cannot hear three things, because my uncle is working, and my mother is quiet. So I listen to the consistent hum of the heater three times as long as normal for good measure. I can smell the cheap air freshener and my soccer shoes. With the window open, my tongue catches the breeze and I taste cold.
When my mother is stressed, she slits her wrists in the bathtub.
Continue reading “L’amore di una Madre by Claire M Welton”
There weren’t many restaurants Harold still tolerated. Most were too crowded – like the buffet down the street which clearly had a busing arrangement with the local nursing home. Others were just too damn expensive. Harold also hated theme restaurants, anything cooked with cabbage, and food from countries that bordered the Mediterranean.
Continue reading “Just Desserts by Andrew Rodgers”
literally stories 