Carol was so transformed by her wedding attire – swamped in her heavy bronze foundation, fake eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings – that her three-year-old daughter, Allison, no longer recognised her.
Continue reading “Underwater Wedding by Tim Frank”
Jackson’s silver hair glinted under the full moon. His boots crunched the gravel parking lot in front of the ramshackle apartment building, long ago a hotel, where I shared an apartment with my mother. Jackson shared our space a few nights a week. He cursed and cast a black trash bag into the bed of his truck. It landed with a soft thud. He hadn’t noticed me yet, standing on the sidewalk, but his presence allowed me to soften my grip on the house keys poking through my fingers. My white, work button-down was stained and reeked of the whiskey spill from an overserved guest at the Angler’s Inn.
Continue reading “Catch and Release by Heather Rutherford”
Ethel Jordan holds her hands out in front of her. She never liked her hands. The fingers are stubby, too short to be mistaken for the fingers of a pianist which she had wanted to be in another life.
Continue reading “Just Trying to Make a Living by Donna M. Williams”
“You’re coming on fine Malcolm.”
“Malky, I want to be called Malky”
“Malky?”
“Aye”
“Aye?”
“Aye? Are you just repeating whit Ah’m saying or are you just being a fud in general?”
Continue reading “A Typical Scottish AI Story by Hugh Cron – Warning – Adult Content.”
Kanji’s shop is easy to spot, the name board is big and backlit, and it stands out amongst shabby establishments with dull yellow-red lighting. I shoulder my way through the late evening bazaar crowd to reach the store.
It’s getting dark and I don’t like the look of this neighborhood. Yet I set out to see ‘my uncle’ thanks to my innate sense of duty.
Continue reading “An Invite for Kanji”
Hovering over the table, the young lady stands. Though she calls herself woman. But only in whispers. The room caves upon her slight frame as she leans to re-read the letter, clutching the pen in her hand. Her wild crimson hair which once ran free and loose is pinned and smoothed from her face, just the way it pleases him. The kitchen is sparkling too much for an observer, but all appearances are in place so that he can tell himself that life is perfection and that he is perfection too. Little does he know that the table is set tonight for his Last Supper with the wicked Magdalena. The Magdalena who beneath her apron hides the bruises of unladylike womanhood, the bruises of those who dared to challenge his Gospel one too many times.
Continue reading “Wicked Magdalena by Ailbhe Curran”
“We were just here,” said Ned. “Why do we have to visit so often?”
“It’s been a whole year.” Emma took his arm. “Some folks do this a lot more often than that.”
Continue reading “The Visit by Kurt Hohmann”
The world was so much simpler when Forever 21 was just a shitty clothing store. Nowadays, it’s nothing more than a bar off 42nd street, with a comically-large hourglass by the door filled with sand that never falls. I used to consider it nothing more than a cheap gimmick; another one of the city’s countless tourist traps. The truth is the bar was never what attracted people. All those stupid, far-from-subtle decorations aren’t what people come to stare at; we are.
Continue reading “A Little Time by Dylan Martin”
He say, “You a pitcher or a catcher?” I say, “I’m the red-necked Sandy Koufax.” Sandy being a big deal at the time.
He laughs, asks if I’m hungry. I say, “Yeah and cold, wet and tired.”
Continue reading “How Daddy Gets his Due by Leo Reilly”
I had heard about her for a long time. She lived alone in a cave in a deep-set canyon, on a cliff looking sharply down at the edge of the prairie. She was a most beautiful Indian maiden who, I heard from several sources, had been driven from her Cherokee village. The word bandied about said she was bound in her mind to find a good man to be her husband. She would have the best of children and would be the best of mothers. For that she needed the best man she could find.
Continue reading “The Girl with the Long Dream by Tom Sheehan”
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