I’m chopping wood with Norbert. We chop in man bikinis, on Catfish beach. I consider the meaning of life as my axe head cracks into the wedge that splits the stump. I’m here as part of the “Campfire Quartet” reality TV show. Our mission today is to create and mime a song, yet also to show off our other attributes, which for me include long hair and axe whacking.
Continue reading “In the Land of the Salamander by Harrison Kim”
Dear father, I’m sorry you think that I have been such a despicable daughter, but I wish you health and happiness so that you may spend yet another wonderful birthday in your Garden of Contempt for me! You’ve indeed worked long and hard to make that space luxuriant, so you deserve to kick back and enjoy!
Continue reading “Your Garden of Contempt Dominique Margolis”
The middle-aged, balding man sitting behind the desk at the Arapahoe County Funeral Home looked up as I walked in. He smiled a greeting. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” I said, trying to be polite since I really didn’t want to be there. “My name is Sam Jorgenson. I think I talked to you earlier this week. I came for my father’s ashes.”
“Ah, Mr. Jorgenson.” He nodded, his face taking on what I figured was his practiced look of sad commiseration. He stood up, came around his deck, and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “Yes, we did talk. I’m Jack Benson, the director here. May I offer my condolences.”
I shook his hand. It was dry and cold to the touch. “Thank you. Nice to meet you,” I said.
Continue reading “Desert Dust by James Bates”
He’s dead now of course. But my fondest memories of him are those summers when he would spend the long days in his garden catching mosquitoes in his special trap. “They’re not malarial here in England,” he said, “But we can soon sort that out.” And I would watch him injecting them with what he called his malarial blood that he siphoned out from the veins in the backs of his hands and stored in the same small transparent plastic bags the goldfish came in that you could win at the fair. He hung the blood-bags up medical style from the interior horizontal poles that kept the roof of his khaki ex-army canvas tent from sagging; then dressing himself as Ava Gardener he would attempt to nurse the mosquitoes back to health, constantly mopping their brows while delicately using tweezers and a magnifying glass to turn their tiny heads from side to side in a perfect imitation of febrile delirium, and calling them all Stewart Granger until he fainted. Once he was comatose on the tent’s dirt floor I would without fail take the opportunity to examine his astonishing knees. In the past they were simply called ‘knobbly knees’ and as such regarded both as humorous accessories, and objects of pride which could be awarded a small cash prize at a 1950s Butlin’s Holiday Camp. He was lucky to live when he did, as nowadays no doubt a doctor would insist that for your own comfort and quality of life you had them replaced with alloys of cobalt-chromium and titanium and high-grade, wear-resistant plastic, and, as perhaps you’re beginning to see, that would not have suited him at all.
Continue reading “R.I.P. Beautiful Man by Tim Goldstone”
Rain in Richmond was like no other, on that Wednesday in June.
David, the cab driver had parked close to the gate as I made my escape from the endless rain. As a regular, I recognised the art enthusiasts who frequented the gallery, but I had never seen him before. I had always believed art was to be publicly admired and privately dissected, in the comfort of one’s walls, an intimate ceremony, but the intrigue his face portrayed felt inviting. I was deep in thought when his gaze startled me.
Continue reading “Yellow by Jessica Aike”
Landing in Naples the heat from the tarmac met her face as they left the small plane. He was already a few steps ahead, keen to get through passport control and get a taxi to the hotel in Sorrento. They’d argued for days about whether to spend the night in Sorrento or Naples before visiting the ruins the next day. A sumptuous hotel, teeming with charm, only a thirty-minute taxi drive from the airport, and just ninety minutes to Pompeii had been her choice. His persistence had won for Sorrento, meaning a taxi was too expensive and a two-hour bus journey lay ahead. Sure, the hotel in Sorrento wasn’t as fancy, was further away from the airport, but definitely cheaper and being only half an hour from Pompeii meant they could do the full seven-hour itinerary. Since first opening that hefty, brown book of his dad’s, Histories and Mysteries, that he used to lift with both hands. he’d wanted to see Pompeii in person.
Continue reading “Pompeii by Paul Kimm”
My name is Hakeem Alford, and I made the Dean’s List at San Juan Junior College (SJJC). I wasn’t trying to make the Dean’s list. I was surprised to find out that the dean even had a list. I’m not a straight “A” student. Most of the time, I’m a student, you don’t expect to get an ‘A.’
Continue reading ” A Casual Abuser by Frederick K Foote”
Nelson was watching the fan wobbling from the dining room ceiling when he heard a gunshot somewhere in the distance. From the couch, the blades swayed and rattled unlike their original behavior upon moving in. Something he’d have to fix himself, no doubt.
Continue reading “Maintenance by Bryce Johle “
My girlfriend has the habit of tapping my hand with her bare ring finger; in libraries, in crowded bars, as we walk through galleries, in bed when she discusses my performance, at restaurants where she asks after my unsophisticated palate, whenever she wishes to emphasise her point, she raps a morse code bruise. In another year, I will be identifiable only through the stigmata she causes. I have said this when out with friends, only for her to tap my palm and tell me I’m not that funny. Each tap implies I am shallow, that I need to listen more, or perhaps simply that I’m lucky she has any time for me at all. Her friend Greta once took me aside to say she thought I was a little more than a mere project, (‘A doer-upper you are not,’ is what she mumbled drunkenly), and that I might do worse than speaking up for myself. Greta said even love might feel like a steamroller somedays.
Continue reading “Sidelined by Antony Osgood”
Most British towns and villages are ancient foundations with Roman remains, ruined castles, and the like. Not so Daleforge. Before the 1840s, there was just the forge and the smith’s cottage. Butthen, in quick order, came the pit, the rows and rows of workers’ cottages, the ironworks, and the railway. With the houses, came the football. Not at first the codifed game of eleven versus eleven,but the rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred, pitched battle held every Shrovetide between those in the houses on one side of the Red Brook versus those on the other. But soon enough after the English Football Association was formed in the 1860s, Daleforge United FC emerged and eventually became a founder member of the Football League. And that was what my dirty old town became famous for: the foundries and the football.
Continue reading “Jack o’ Diamonds by Michael Bloor”
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