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Once Upon a Time, by Ceinwen Haydon

29/6/2018

The frog sat on the lily leaf in her garden pond. It croaked to find a mate, and she sympathised. The warm spring sunshine led thoughts astray. Apparently on a whim, the frog dove down into the water with serious intent. Now she was all alone. It had been too long; would she even know what to do on a date. A date, did people still call them that? Her mobile vibrated in the pocket of her jeans. Nice sensation, but she decided she’d better answer.
‘Hi, Jo. Yes, it’s fine. I’m not busy. What’s up?’
For the next half an hour she listened to her kid sister ramble on about her latest romantic balls-up. At last she interrupted,
‘No, you’re right. Absolutely right. He isn’t worth wasting time on. You’re worth more than that.’
She ended the call. If Jo’s life was anything to go by, maybe the whole relationship thing wasn’t for her, after all. She didn’t have the energy.
She sat down on the grass. He came around the corner,
‘Hi, I’m looking for Jo. Have I got the right house?’
His tee shirt had evidently shrunk in the wash, but it wasn’t a bad look. Nice body.
‘I’ve a sister, Jo. But she doesn’t live here anymore. She got her own place a month ago.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to disturb you. She gave me her address at a Christmas party. I lost it then found it yesterday stuffed into my Santa’s outfit. Please, don’t ask?’ he said.
‘Well, now you’re here, do you fancy a coffee?’
‘Sure. Thank you.’
The frog reappeared.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You don’t often see one
of those.’
‘One of what?’
‘Natterjack. Toad.’
‘That’s a frog.’
‘And I’m a prince.’
‘Well then, I’m a princess.’

So High School, by Pamela Painter

28/6/2018

My son and I got a 66 on his history paper. He didn’t want to tell me. I had to weasel the grade out of him. When I suggest he talk to his teacher about our grade, he refuses, even after I threaten not to help with his next essay, due in a week. Stuffing the paper into his backpack, he says anyway it’s dad’s turn to help. This makes me suspicious so I ask what grade he and his father got on their last paper. His father is in the next room watching Jeopardy, shouting wrong answers. My son says they had an easy topic. So? I say. We got an 84, he says, his gaze sliding away. I don’t know how to deal with this information. Is the next paper easy? I ask. You don’t know until you write it, he says.

I’m ahead in the Jeopardy competition so I say, “It’s your father’s turn,” and I leave it at that.

Fleas on a Griddle, by Mark Tulin

25/6/2018

10 p.m.

We approach the California King bed with the intention of a delicious sleep. The bedding has a soft fluffy comforter and fresh, silk burgundy sheets. There are two King pillows and six brand new standard sizes.

My wife goes to her favorite side of the bed, while I hop on my usual left by the window. She reads a chapter of the Game of Thrones. While I do some blogging on my iPhone and check out a few poems on Kindle.

We read for about an hour.

Then we curl up and snuggle, doing different things with our bodies that are unique to our cuddling style.

We talk about random things: what’s going on with Trump, the latest episode of Baskets, and interesting bits of gossip about the neighbors. We giggle a lot and engage in baby talk. Her four stuffed animals lay in different positions at the foot of the bed.

We yawn in unison.

I turn over. My wife rolls to the opposite side. Our backs touch.

My wife falls asleep first, then I try. Soon my wife makes a barely audible gurgle, then snores like the sound of a runaway train. At that point, I flip to the other end of the bed, with my head staring directly into the faces of the stuffed animals. I toss them to the floor for more room. I stick a kingsize pillow between my knees, one I cradle with my right arm and another I place under my head. I close my eyes but not for long. The thoughts of the day pop in my head like fleas on a griddle—writing ideas, appointments for the next day, and faces of people that annoy me. I ruminate on these things for a while, perhaps too long, tossing and turning, trying to tune out my wife’s snoring and my endless thoughts. Eventually, my eyelids grow increasingly heavy. I yawn some more, and, finally, drift off.

Then I have to pee.

Cliffhanger, by Mark Joseph Kevlock

23/6/2018

The bus teeters at the edge of a cliff.

Its womb is filled with Japanese school children.

I've seen this movie before.

But I can't remember the ending.

Tigue was jumping through time at ten-minute intervals. He had that long to catch the outlaw. Or else the chase would continue.

This jump led him to a rest area off of the interstate. A way station for travelers. A carnival of complaints.

Maggie the waitress spotted Tigue right away. The guy practically had a shimmering aura around him, he was so alive compared to everybody else. She almost tripped herself getting to his table.

Tigue ordered a lot of food, messy. "The same way I like my women," he said.

Maggie blew a curl up off of her forehead. Her knees twitched involuntarily.

"I'm chasing an outlaw," Tigue said. "Been at it for awhile."

"Are you a cop?" Maggie said, handing over a salad with fries that Tigue hadn't ordered.

"Sure," Tigue said. "I'm all cop."

More flirty stuff followed.

Later, Maggie the waitress chased Tigue out into the rain, halfway across the parking lot. Tigue had used seven of his ten minutes. Soon he would jump again.

"I get it," he said. "This is the love scene."

"It sure is, cowboy." Maggie hung her arms about his neck. He wasn't the type to waste time, so she couldn't either.

The downpour made them both wet in some pretty good places.

A platoon of Japanese school kids pushed past them, loaded onto a bus, and took off in the rain. Tigue spotted the driver last minute.

"Marshal," the outlaw said.

The game was afoot.

Tigue jumped on the back of the bus. Girls wearing too much pink and skirts and black clunky shoes let him in.

One minute till the next jump.

Maggie ran to her compact car and chased after the bus.

The outlaw spotted Tigue coming up the aisle. Was it a crime to roam history, playing around with people's lives? The timeline could stand a little alteration in its boring spots.

The interstate wound down the mountain on a serpentine that took no prisoners. One horseshoe treated them particularly unkind and sent the back end of the bus fishtailing toward the guard rail.

Thirty seconds left.

The brakes caught, the railing gave way, and the bus ended up hanging halfway out into oblivion. Maggie came running over.

Tigue said, "It's still the love scene, darlin'. Glad you made it."

The bus seesawed a bit over its ten-thousand-foot abyss. Tigue counted the school kids to and fro with his remaining ten seconds. When he disappeared, the weight balance would shift. The back end would plummet. All kids would die.

"You've gotta take my place, sugar," Tigue told his waitress. She climbed aboard. Tigue and the outlaw disappeared.

"I hope I'm dreamin'," Maggie said. Little Japanese faces screamed at her. The cliffside went silent. A few pebbles trickled down. The bus teetered.

Damn.

I still can't remember that ending.

Slime, by Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon

22/6/2018

The windows had been opened wide, an attempt to air the assembly hall. The still heat of midsummer won. His eyes settled on her younger sister. Her head was bowed, and auburn curls stuck to the nape of her neck. His colleague crashed the keys, the first hymn began.

‘Be seated,’ said the headmistress.

Sweat stained the underarms of his white cotton shirt. The knot of his tie hung low. A clear deviation from the staff dress code. He looked away from the curls; his eyes settled on a jar of tiger lilies on the head’s desk, orange and black tendrils. The blooms were fading. He loathed their limp petals, and their brown stems rotting in fetid water. The liquid could have been drawn from the same river.

After forty minutes everyone filed out. The fug pressed sweat and intimacy up his nose and down his throat. Hormones saturated the summer uniforms, unmentionable currents.

‘Bloody teenagers,’ he thought. ‘So lucky, so careless.’

The sister passed close by. Their eyes met; hers were damp. She had reason. She worked her cheeks, sucked in and out and spat full in his face. Then she walked on. He turned back to the empty hall, grabbed the vase of flowers and smashed it. The foul water trickled over the parquet. The sun glanced across the puddle and he saw her face. The girl he had taken swimming and been unable to save.

Dear Diary, by Sandra Orellana

22/6/2018

Look at it on the bright side, it could be easy for both of us. Today is the day. With a lot of feelings , I will tear you apart into tiny pieces. For you, it was all a dream, but I can handle it. Little do you know, it is coming. You will be thrown into the trash. You fell head over heels in love with me. But I am alive and well. I've decided to start writing to others, rather than you. Our bed of roses is a cold comfort . Thank you for being my process of writing to the world. Another day, another hope for me . A sea of change is my new outlook. It will be as easy as pie for me to be free of you. Good night forever. Let´s sleep it off.

Imported from Spain, by Mark Tulin

19/6/2018

Miles usually removed the hair from a styrofoam head on the dresser. He brushed the dark brown strands that his barber told him were imported from Spain. Miles would spray the locks with a detangler and make sure that there were no knots. He fluffed the hair with a pick to make it look windswept and natural.

He would then apply double-edge tape on the base of the hair and some special latex glue to make sure that the hair would hold in place. Miles would carefully plant the hairpiece squarely on the crown of his head, trying to seal it to the exact same spot every day, pressing the edges with his two middle fingers and holding the unit down for at least thirty seconds.

But not this day. This day Miles was in a hurry. He grabbed a donut from the refrigerator and poured the rest of the coffee from the coffee maker into his mug. Miles then rushed out of the house baldheaded, forgetting about the hair that was still sitting on the styrofoam head on his bedroom dresser. He was expecting a promotion at work and couldn’t be late for his 9 o’clock appointment with his supervisor. He jumped into his Honda Civic at 7:45 a.m. and sped off.

When Miles arrived at work, the office staff greeted him with funny looks, some were either giggling or bent over in laughter. He checked the fly of his pants, rubbed his mouth thinking that a part of the donut was stuck to his beard.

He put his briefcase in his office. It was almost 9 a.m. He hurried to the men’s room to make sure he looked okay. He did a double take as he checked himself in the mirror. He couldn’t believe that he forgot to put on his hair. Now the person who stared back at him was almost unrecognizable. He touched his bare scalp in disbelief, about to cry. Then he took a deep breath and got himself together. He couldn’t let this opportunity slip away. Miles told himself to view his baldhead differently, not as a liability but as something that could work in his favor. He slicked back his eyebrows, plucked a few hairs from his ears and left the men’s room feeling lighter and more confident.

Car Crash, by Ceinwen Haydon

15/6/2018

Me and my husband, Gordon, we’d always struggled to get on, being so different. Still, when he got his diagnosis, I promised I’d be there for him. Daftly, I hoped that at last we might become closer. Seven years on, his condition has stabilised. His quality of life isn’t great, but the pain is under control most of the time. I get on with what’s necessary.

When I met Ken, everything changed. The circumstances were a car crash, literally. I skidded on ice and hit his Volvo’s rear end. His vehicle was unmarked, my Micra was a write-off. We exchanged details, and the insurance eventually paid up. I never expected to see him again; then, when spring came, he called my mobile and asked me out for a drink. I was surprised, but it seemed churlish to refuse. I didn’t tell Gordon where I was going.

I love the attention, the sex and having my life back. The trouble is, I’ve found it harder and harder to tolerate life at home and I feel guilty. One evening in September, Ken said, ‘You don’t have to stay with him, you’ve a right to some happiness. And I need you now.’

I told him, ‘I can’t leave, I promised.’

At Christmas, Ken took me out for a posh dinner. After dessert, he presented me with a gift of diamond earrings. Hanging them in my earlobes he said, ‘A matching ring is yours. If you make the right choice.’

Dear Diary, by Sandra Orellana

15/6/2018

Look at it on the bright side, it could be easy for both of us. Today is the day . With a lot of feelings, I will tear you apart into tiny pieces. For you, it was all a dream, but I can handle it. Little do you know, it is coming.You will be thrown into the trash. You fell head over heels in love with me. But I am alive and well. I’ve decided to start writing to others, rather than you. Our bed of roses is a cold comfort.

Thank you for being my process of writing to the world. Another day, another hope for me . A sea of change is my new outlook.

It will be as easy as pie for me to be free of you. Good night forever. Let 's sleep it off.

Rain Like Wine, by Mark Tulin

11/6/2018

We were caught in a summer rainstorm at Roosevelt Park. I covered her shivering body with my arms as we slowly made our way down the grassy hill. I watched the raindrops drip off the ends of her curls and tasted the rainwater on her silky throat like I was drinking a fine wine.

She bit my upper lip as the thunder and lightning shook the nighttime sky. We were oblivious to everything except each other, as the moon barely peeked out from the dark rain clouds above.

“Hold me,” Karima demanded, no longer feeling like an alienated exchange student missing her country, but a self-assured young woman who was free of all cultural restrictions and taboos.

We fell to our knees on the grassy knoll as the pouring rain washed over us, making us brand new with our passion, thirsty for more.

“I’ve never done it before,” she whispered with her innocent brown eyes looking to me for direction.

I felt her warm breath on my chest and could feel her tremble with desire. I wanted to be that one guy who knew what to do in this very special moment, who would never betray her or lead her to a place of regret.

“Whatever you want,” I said, indicating that I was satisfied just holding her close. “I’m not rushing you.”

Without saying a word, she grabbed my hand and gently placed it on her breast.

I felt a chill down my spine, not so much from the rain, but from the uncertainty of the moment. I paused for a few seconds to slow down my heartbeat and said, “I’ve never done it before, either.”

The Queen of Cups Meets the Fool, by Riham Adly

6/6/2018

I. The Fizz---a memory.

In the heat of the ocean the dark fizz of uncertainty bubbles before it boils over the wayside of the Sea Wild. She sold seashells at the seashore. Those enacted fingers of yours knew the moment you pulled one that you'll hear my voice. It's a grey day when you look out from your condo's window: silver peaks terrorizing the shore, one slap after another. You want to look for her, the girl who sells the seashells, but you only hear the song. The deep well inside you is as empty as the ocean is full. Your footfall leaves its mark--- a memory.

II. Your Heart.
I can see you had large toes before the waves erased it all. In your lap still lies her song about the fluid disparage of sentimentality, to you it’s a lulling lullaby sung to a drowsy child by the sea.
A siren's song is a desert's mirage, like sighs you cannot see, like that tree that grows in the bottom of the ocean.
You come (hitherto/ after) the Great Unwind, your heart reinstates then relocates, in the end it immigrates, no longer satisfied with its chambers.

Faulty room service, you say.

You can no longer breathe, you say.

III. I’m coming.
You call out for her and those shells on the tree. You know that once your fingers grab one, you’ll hear the voice of me.

IV. Seashells at the seashore.
We need not leave a trail, for the song remains, and she will always sell seashells at the seashore… for free.

Red-Tailed Hawk, by Doug Hoekstra

5/6/2018

Early one morning at the lake, we happened upon a red-tailed hawk in a small clearing, clinging to a thin narrow sapling holding fast in the midst of a driving wind. We quieted ourselves, slowed, and stopped. The hawk turned around and around on the branch, settling and resettling itself, as if preparing a bed for the night. It appeared restless, but patient and sure of the grip it held. We remained still, watching, promising ourselves a memory.

Suddenly, in one quick motion, the hawk dove straight downward, slicing into a pile of fallen leaves with brutal efficiency. For whatever reason, she came up empty and cocked her head to one side, as if puzzled at the impossibility. Undeterred, she lifted herself up and quickly flew north, closer to the lake, following its banks, its smells, and generations of instincts. The wind thrashed the tree in her absence. Somewhere in the brush, a small unseen creature sighed in relief. We watched it all go down, the world coming to us, instead of the other way around.

Afterwards, we continued on our way, walking around the next bend on the narrow path, eyes alit, senses heightened, the highlights and hues of the sun glimmering off the lake to our left. We didn’t see the hawk again. But, for the day, we were wedded with each other and her, in an event that passed quickly, but remained vivid, and therefore, telling. Because I knew, that as with rocks or pebbles thrown into the water, ripples of memory dissipate, widening until they are too weak to carry on, eventually disappearing, into calm nothingness.

Like a moment, or a day, or a lifetime. Like our mothers and fathers before us. Like the red-tailed hawk, always searching for second chances.

Image from Pixabay A glorious bird.

Quorn of the Dead, by Robin Barker

4/6/2018

My name’s Ray, I'm dead and I am what you guys would call “undead,” but I don't want you thinking that’s all I am. I understand that you’re scared of me. I really do. I’m dead, I do look really bad and, I know, I smell even worse, but it's not my fault. If I had my way I wouldn't be a zombie at all, but it seems this is what fate had this in store for me.

I wasn't much cop at living, always falling over and hurting myself. Socially awkward was how my shrink used to describe me so I ate her first. Then I turned on my family. You must understand, though, that I didn't mean to. I had no idea I was a vegetarian zombie or that one of those even existed. It was all flesh, flesh and yet more flesh until one day I realised that Quorn mince was actually amazing. So versatile and so tasty.

When I brought this discovery to the rest of my undead brethren they turned their noses up at me, or at least the ones with their noses still intact did. So I found myself shunned. It's a good job that we don't have feelings or emotions or I would have been well on the road to a downward spiral. That’s what my shrink said before I killed her. It's also good that I don’t suffer from loneliness. We are solitary predators, you see.

The devil sent us up not to be friends or companions, but the worst of all possible enemies. The trouble is I seem to have forgotten that along the way. You see I spend my days doing things contrary to the strict zombie regime. I've chosen to think outside the coffin. I don't besiege the living in their homes, run riot in their towns or cities and I certainly don't eat their flesh. Instead I spend my time whittling spoons, recycling and helping old ladies and school children across the road.

They’ve got a name for me. I'm the Lollipop Zombie. I don't have a uniform or a lollipop, but I do have a purpose. My job is to ensure they get across the road without getting run over or eaten. This is what I was meant to do. You humans think I'm weird. What am I doing helping the aged across the road? The dead don't do that. Re-education is what is needed. Not all zombies are out to get you.
Admittedly I haven't come across any others like me and I don't feel hope, but we can't all be the same, can we?

The Seven Deadly Sins Holiday Schedule, by David Croll

4/6/2018

My uncle loosened his belt just like he does every Thanksgiving.

“That was some meal, Maggie. I propose we do it again next year.”

He was the only one to laugh at his annual joke.

“Why do we celebrate only one of the deadly sins?”

The family looked puzzled.

“I’m talking about gluttony. That’s what this holiday is about. If we’re going to celebrate this deadly sin, why not the others? I propose a holiday for…”

He pauses for dramatic effect. Scanning the table to make sure he has everybody’s attention he then blurted his answer.

“Sloth.”

He nudges me.

“I bet you thought I was going to say something else.”

I smiled. He was right. I was thinking of a different sin.

“We could celebrate it in August. Nothing ever happens in August. We would do absolutely nothing, and I don’t mean like any normal Sunday”

Who would organize it and make it a federal holiday?” I ask sincerely.

My uncle smiled.

“I would but I’m too damn lazy.”

Yellowing with Age, by Mark Tulin

4/6/2018

I dreaded when my mother headed for the living room closet. I knew that she would pull out the dusty, old family album that I saw a thousand times. Some of the pages stuck together and many of the photos were yellowing with age.

“Here,” she’d say and put the album on my lap whether I wanted it or not. “Look at you when you were a baby. You were so cute.”

I was annoyed at seeing the same old family pictures of me in outdated clothing and smiling awkwardly for the camera. My mother always thought I loved looking at myself in my little league baseball uniform or my Cub Scout outfit with all the badges on the shirt.

“Mom,” I’d say nicely at first. “I just want to sit on the chair and relax.”

But she wouldn’t listen as if she had a hearing problem. She kept turning the pages of the photo album expecting me to be interested.

I’d stare at the kid sliding down a snowy hill in a sled and my dad and I standing outside of our duplex apartment with a pair of goofy grins. I painfully looked at my bar mitzvah picture where I stood like a dope in my glen plaid suit not knowing what to do with my hands. All these images were burned forever into my brain.

“You were so handsome back then,” my mother would say, rejoicing over several pictures of me on a scooter. I kept telling my mother that I’ve had enough of the photos, let's see a movie or go out for dinner. But no, she kept showing the damn pictures over again. So each week for a couple of hours, year after year, I was an ungrateful participant right up to the day she died.

The first Mother’s Day after my mother’s death, I wanted to change all that and do something for her to show my appreciation. I went to the living room closet and took out our family album. I blew off the dust and leafed through each picture, careful not to tear the ones that were stuck together. I imagined my mother by my side, hovering over me with a smile and gushing over my baby pictures. I made sure not to get impatient this time.

Ladder to Nowhere, by Mark Joseph Kevlock

2/6/2018

"What are you doing, Dad?"

"Proving that we live in a holographic universe."

"Oh."

Timothy had little interest in such things. He was a builder. An action man. All his father ever did was look through microscopes and see things that weren't there.

"I've almost reached the construction plane -- the level where reality itself is built."

Timothy karate-chopped invisible foes, pausing only to chomp down a baloney sandwich for fuel.

"When I get there," his father said, "I will be revealing a new truth to the world."

Timothy went back to work upon his space fortress made of plastic building bricks. Later there might be an alien invasion.

"Once the door is opened, it can never be closed," his father said. Half the lab was toys. The other half, inventions. But neither father nor son could say which was which.

"Come and see our collective imagination at work."

Timothy leaned over the microscope. The viewfinder showed dimensions so small they may as well have been make-believe.

"That's just it, Tim. That's what they are. Make-believe."

Somewhere between them a connection began to form. Both father and son ignored it.

"I found a particle that responds to thought. I've named it a thoughtron."

He only had the one father, Timothy did. And no mother. An only child. And a workaholic dad.

"This particle does what you tell it to do. But only if you don't concentrate too deeply upon it. Imagining too hard is like saying you don't really believe."

Timothy had a ladder that he would climb, right there in the lab. The ladder didn't lead anywhere. This never stopped him. Maybe his father was like that. Research for its own sake. He kept talking about things that weren't real.

"The Omega Level is the place where these particles exist. Only here can the true power of human consciousness be employed. Only here can willpower be displayed."

Norris Xavier Freeman would never be a famous man. But he might make a half-decent father, Timothy imagined, if only he would start trying....

"Dad, it's my birthday."

"Dad, it's the opening day of baseball season."

"Dad, it's Christmas Eve."

"Time and space possess only the meaning that we assign to them. We are the ones creating our own reality...."

Timothy decided one day that a baseball bat would accomplish more in the lab than his father ever had. He raised it, first, to demolish the under-dimensional microscope, cutting them off from the holographic universe and its theories.

But the blow never fell.

Even at thirteen, Timothy realized it was useless to fight against the person that someone truly was, inside. His father strode back into the lab, oblivious to the destruction that had almost just occurred.

"Showing the effect of willpower upon the fundamental designing forces of the universe will, I believe, at last prove my theory."

Timothy went back to his karate chops and building bricks, off in one corner of the lab.

"What are you doing, Dad?"

"Proving that we live in a holographic universe."

"Oh."

Jaundiced, by Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon

1/6/2018

He flushed the cold syringe with sterilised water, drew the liquid from the vial, tapped the cylinder with his thickened, yellow nail, and stopped. This one. The last of so many. The street light pierced through the crack in his long brocade curtains, now thick with dust. The narrow beam illuminated the stainless steel and the glass of his apparatus. It made the contents appear viscous and cloudy. Instrument of torture or benign alchemy? It had been both. Its clean lines cut through the any doubt of his intent. This appliance was made for focussed application. He laid it down on the clean, white handkerchief on the arm of his sofa. He was almost ready. He unbuttoned his old army shirt to reveal an emaciated belly. Normally, he took care to alternate sides. Now it didn’t matter. He pressed a fold of scrawny skin together and turned to pick up the syringe with his left hand. His fingers, sheened with sweat, lost their grip. It fell and smashed to smithereens. A stain spread and darkened the jute mat at his feet. The moment had passed. What now?

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