Tag: relationships

All Stories, General Fiction

Instead of Yelling at the Television by Charlie Rogers

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Sometimes you just want to try something new.

Last week I embarked on a project – growing a beard – and tonight, instead of trimming the Christmas tree I never bought, I trimmed my new beard. The electric clipper vibrated too close to my ear, drew blood, and snagged a chunk of my hair. So tonight I also shaved my whole head. It’s fine. Waiting to go bald is exhausting. Now bristly black stubble covers my head and I resemble a mugshot on the news.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Arthur Rimbaud in New York by Cathleen Davies

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‘Creep, my love, why don’t you photograph me?’

Creep took many photos. Creep had seen a lot of bodies. They were always scarred and twisted because all bodies, excepting those of new-born babies, are scarred and twisted. His models were dirty. Creep liked bohemian grit, the real, as he called it. He liked the street-rats best. He savoured dirt.

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All Stories, Science Fiction, Short Fiction

La Vie en Rose by Barbara Diggs        

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“Where shall we go tonight?” Euan caresses my cheek with the back of his hand then brushes a stray braid away from my face. He is propped on his elbow next to me in the classic post-coital pose. I suppose he thinks he looks suave, but he doesn’t. He just reminds me of a kid trying to pull off a look that’s too big for him.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Her Father’s Ghost by Harrison Kim

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Kathy’s Dad passed away in his own house, his last rattling breaths aided by the morphine his daughter poured down his ancient mouth.  He lived alone in the old place for decades.  Germs terrified him.  He secured the windows with plastic.  The air inside turned stale and rancid.  He roamed the neighborhood at night, searching for cans and bottles.  He filled the house with old lawnmowers, pieces of scrap metal, newspapers piled to the ceiling.  Kathy inherited this rotting, junk filled dwelling.  Over the next year, she and her husband Neil renovated.  All the plumbing and electric wiring renewed, a new shingle roof, restored walls and floors.  The father’s piles of tools and newspapers, old tiles and bottles all recycled, usurped by Kathy’s stuffed toys and hangers full of vintage and antique clothing, her hundreds of art books and coffee table volumes about Hollywood stars, her garbage bags and boxes packed with blankets.

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All Stories, General Fiction

When People do Bad Things by James Hannan

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8 am, Wednesday, and Chris waited for his mother. If only there was some way to stop her. Just because she had borne him nine long months, gotten up to him in the middle of the night in the years directly after, suffered his tantrums in the years after that, sent him off to school with a fresh packed lunch each and every day, saw to him as a teenager with his sullen silences and raging hormones, and helped him get a job and out into the world, she thought she could still intrude.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Priorities by Penny Faircloth

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When I was about seventeen years old I met myself in a downtown park sitting alone on a concrete bench in a small amphitheater. I was not skipping school—I did not do that kind of thing. And anyway, it was summertime. It was an ordinary summer day with oxygen blue sky vibrant behind the office towers with revivifying sunlight. The few trees were green, the leaves glossy and stiff with chlorophyll-rich fibers respiring life. Either side the park, steady sparse traffic rolled by in opposite directions on one-way streets. When I came upon him there, I did not recognize the man life had made of me. I was about thirty years old in that malingering guise. My seventeen-year-old self was with a friend and nor did he recognize me. But I may be forgetting, I am grown older … Even I, who saw so clearly, have become confused about what is what and contradict myself at every turn; at every remove, remove myself further from myself. Soon I will be unable to return to who or what I always was, and my dissolution will be complete, as is the way of all flesh; as is the way of all that may be said to exist. Do not believe me, see for yourself. It’s more miraculous than ever you might imagine. What is more miraculous than anybody could ever imagine? What is? Exactly!

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction, Writing

The End Of The Night by Hugh Cron – Adult Content

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The coffee boat wasn’t a boat. It was a small building which sat harbour side and sold fast food. From Thursday through to Sunday it was bouncing from around midnight.

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