“They’ve come to collect Max. We’ll be up in ten minutes. You can keep him occupied for a bit longer, can’t you?”
“Yes, but…he’s wondering what the delay is.”
“Does he know?”
“He’s in the classroom with me now.”
“Please, not a hint as to what’s happening. If he runs off on his social worker…”
“I don’t think he’s in the mood for football right now, sir. I’ll make sure he’s occupied though.”
Continue reading “Of a Lie – by J.M. Munn”
Clothes have gone out of fashion because public life has disappeared. People continue to get out of bed but they don’t waste time getting dressed. People don’t dress for work and they don’t go to church. Men and women no longer wear underwear. That’s modern America. Many people no longer even use the toilet. Late century sidewalks are dirtier today than they were in the Wild West. It was once due to the number of horses.
Continue reading “Deliria, 2068 by David Lohrey”
It’s a Thursday, and Ben watches Ellie through sleep-filled eyes as she dresses in the gloom of their bedroom. She rolls thick, woollen tights over her legs and pulls a long skirt up to her waist-line. She adds a bulky cardigan.
Oh, he says. Sexy.
Give over, she laughs. And go back to sleep.
Sexy teacher, he says, below the cover, his voice already thickening with sleep.
Continue reading “The Canal by Jill Craig”
Beth dies the night she packs her honeymoon suitcase. She folds a red-fringed shawl and places it carefully on top of her clothes. She zips up the suitcase and wheels it to the front door.
“I’m good to go.”
Her husband, Pete, walks into the room.
“What do you mean you’re good to go? Where are we going?”
“Oh, Pete.”
Before we went inside, Christian and I sipped on some coffee he had ordered at Starbucks and conversed in his car.
“She was livid,” Christian said. “Slammed the window wiper on the windshield and busted a headlight with her boot.”
“Because you invalidate Otherkins?”
“Yeah.”
“But she’s okay with you being a Trump supporter?”
“Yeah,” Christian laughed.
He knew I found ways to drop in his affiliation with conservatism and right-wing politics. It excited me to be wanted by someone that simultaneously hated me.
Continue reading “The Freakshow by Athena Vasquez – Adult Content”
From sunrise to sunset, Jill was a good-time girl.
She was hot stuff, longing to live large in high cotton, and Jack—was Jack—a jack of all trades, a master of none, living on the edge looking for face-to-face horizontal celebrations.
Continue reading “Jill’s Idiom Odyssey by Frederick K Foote”
I’m well aware there are endless possibilities, limitless universes where people live rather than die, where situations work out rather than fall apart, where superb memories are made rather than never created, and where love blossoms rather than weakens. I’m unsure how to reach these complex destinations, but I know they’re out there, situated somewhere on a higher dimension or hidden behind the veil we call reality. They conceal all the could-have-beens, circumstances that might have occurred if given the opportunity but, of course, never came to fruition due to some seen or unseen event…
Continue reading “The Could-Have-Beens by Mason Yates”
When Sally saw the ad in the free newspaper “Your Town” she knew that she had to check it out. “All around assistant, cook, accountant, teacher of tech. Low pay, but free room and board.” She was currently barely able to get by as a production assistant on a local television station. Without a small bequest from her late aunt, she couldn’t afford food and rent. The parents lived in Spain and she hadn’t seen them for ten years. Her financial situation made her feel like a child even though she was thirty-three. The Lakeside address was pretty ritzy, which was another plus.
Continue reading “The Assistant by Doug Hawley”
I’m parked on her street in front of the house. Hesitating. It’s just my third day back. What will Francesca do? I might have waited even longer if it weren’t for the thought of her sister, Lisa, who always greeted me with a hug and a smile.
Continue reading “Dry by Christopher W. Hall”
Translated from the Korean by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton
“Hey, Odol! School’s out?” We were on our way home when we heard this. Odori’s grandfather, crouched on the roof of their home and framed by jumbled white clouds streaming through a blue sky, was looking down at us. The prickly autumn sunlight glanced off the orange slate of the roof.
Continue reading “Odori’s Grandfather A miniature by O Chŏnghǔi”
