Tag: relationships

Short Fiction

WEEK 444: Bug-Bird And Dreams

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DREAMING

Many writers are influenced by their dreams and nightmares–or at least that is the claim. I don’t dispute the possibility but if I had to lean on my dreams for material my stuff would be sparse and even stranger. A fine example of such happened just the other night when I experienced a dream I call “Bug-Bird.” My mind was in a white page and just ahead skulked Bug-Bird. Half Moth, half Pigeon and clad in a flasher’s raincoat and wearing a fedora, I could only see Bug-Bird from behind. But I spied antennae through holes in his hat, tail feathers and Pigeon feet. Bug-Bird staggered forward and I was gaining on him (only a guy would dare be Bug-Bird). I recall wanting to tap him on the shoulder and have a look at Bug-Bird but that is when I woke, with the words Bug-Bird, Bug-Bird, Bug-Bird chanting in my mind by what might be called a “sulfurous chorus” of demon voices. Hardly bestseller material there–and perhaps the only way Bug-Bird can get into print is through something like this.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Jerry’s Last Problem by Jennifer Maloney

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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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Sleepwalking Visions by Tim Frank

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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.

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All Stories, Fantasy

A Latecomer’s Guide to Release by Greg Golley

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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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Courage Anniversary by Amita Basu

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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.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, Fantasy

Button by Joe Manion

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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.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Night Stranger by Torger Vedeler

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“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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

  11:11 by Charles Sutphin

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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.

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All Stories, General Fiction

L’amore di una Madre by Claire M Welton

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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.

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