Blog Archives

Cul de Sac, by Michael Roberts

24/9/2021

She wanted a clean break, she had told me in an email.
No histrionics, no asshole lawyers getting fat off the corpse of our marriage.
Just….done.
Her way of explaining why she waited until I went to work one morning, then buying a dozen or so storage bins and throwing 20 years worth of her personal shit into them and then the bins in her boyfriend’s car.
Scott.
He was her physiotherapist from a couple years back, when she’d blown out her knee at work.
Maybe I should have been more upset, but it was a relief, really.
She’d taken the settlement from her job; the knee had been a result of improper safety practices and they were happy to buy her off, rather than having the entire thing dragged through some court.
So, with her taking the settlement money and me keeping the house and the cottage and one of the cars, we had come out almost dead even.

So here I was.
Newly single.

Last year my mother had willed me the house I had grown up in, then revealed that she had end stage cancer.
So, now I had her house as well.
This one I was going to keep.
The one in town had been bought for about a quarter of what I could get for it now.
Same with the cottage.
If I sold them I could retire early and write, most likely in my old bedroom slash office.
I would miss the cottage though, even though it was full of ghosts of happier times; that glorious first decade of our marriage, before it descended into what it would end as.

“You want help?”
I looked up to see Megan, my old neighbour.
“Help doing?”
“Cleaning up the house?”
“My cousins beat you to it.”
I had gone through the house with post-it notes for the stuff I wanted, then let Bethany and Nico have at the rest.
“So you’re moving in?”she said.
“Yup,” I said, “You’re selling your Dad’s house?”
She nodded.
“No reason to stay. We live an hour away now,why keep this?”
“Memories?”
“A few. Not enough to keep me here.Just those about you.”
“ Forty years ago,” I reminded her.
“Well, that was a great summer…At least I liked it,” she said.
“So did I, obviously.”
“You know what we never did?”
“What?”
“Do it in my Mom’s bed.”
“No we never did.”
“You want to?”
“Megan,” I said, “ I haven’t seen you in years and suddenly you want to fuck?”
“One last time.”

It was OK, if a bit awkward.
Neither of us was fifteen anymore, but everything fit the way it used to and she even came once.

We exchanged phone numbers and even texted for a while.
Then she stopped, presumably before her husband found out.

A couple times while working in my office I’m sure I see her red minivan drive down the street, then drive on past.
Eventually I hope she stops.

Invasion Music, by Harman Burgess

24/9/2021

At 1300, Sgt. Salt reported an anomaly on his radar to his commander. An electromagnetic, spectroscopiatric wavelength was echoing through the galaxy; bouncing off moons, pirouetting with asteroids, floating across nebulas. The commander told him to keep an ‘eye’ on it and went outside for a smoke.

At 1308, when the commander returned, he found all the radiomen in the top-secret base tuned into Sgt. Salt’s frequency. ‘What’s this?’ asked the commander. Someone handed him a set of headphones. ‘Oh my God,’ he said when he heard the music.

At 1330, an Australian DJ (who was also an amateur astronomer) picked up the frequency and played the ‘space music’ to his audience. He was responsible for eighteen car crashes and three deaths when listeners became too focused on the music to drive.

At 1400, the media got a hold of it and ran stories warning people not to listen to it. Of course, everyone immediately tuned in, and the death count was unknown.

At 1428, the United Nations issued a warning, telling people absolutely not to listen to the music. Not to even think about it. Which made people want to do it even more.

At 1500, the wavelength passed by Earth and out into the rest of the galaxy.

At 1902, Sgt. Salt called his commander over to inform him several unidentified flying objects had been discovered on the edge of the Milky Way, and they were getting closer…

The Adaptation, by Mandy Meikle

24/9/2021

The year is 2047. The chants and shouts from the crowd died down as the Prime Minister’s stony face appeared across the city centre on the strategically-placed Tru-Vu screens, each one gathering data on those below and beaming out party propaganda in return. Born in 2000, Prime Minister John Jeffries and his cohort had vastly different views on society than did previous generations. Gone were the days of the welfare state—John Jeffries senior had seen to that.

“People, your attention!” Silence followed the voice like a well-trained dog. “You will have witnessed the awful, unforgivable scenes taking place across this great city.” Unknown to the crowd, similar scenes had taken place across the British Federation but news reports rarely told of life in faraway places, like Sheffield or Leeds.

“It is now 15 years since The Adaptation began—these shortages and cut-backs are nothing new. We must adjust to our new normal of degrowth, a process it is futile to fight. These are frightening times, for all of us, but I can assure you that this Government is doing everything it can to keep all legals safe and provided for during these times of scarcity”, he said as a cuff-covered gold wrist strap glinted in the studio lights.

The main geophysical event leading to The Adaptation was two metres of global sea level rise in less than five years, something not even the gloomiest of models had predicted. Billions had died during years of floods, famines, disease and a new breed of hurricane—the hurricane wind scale no longer stopped at five. The response was mostly building massive sea defences with what resources were left, followed by figuring out how to grow food and deal with waste in this newly-warmed world of walled islands.

All debt had been cancelled, which was not as much fun for the indebted as you might think. Similarly, UniPay gave everyone a basic income in exchange for so many hours working for the common cause. Again, sounds good and indeed it was until the Youth First party came to power in 2032. For decades, climate change had risen and fallen in the public’s awareness, but it was always there for the children—shadowing their futures ever darker. Then, in 2018, 15-year-old Greta Thunberg caught the attention of the grown-ups and, for a while, it seemed like they might wake up, but that’s not how things go, is it?

“The violent protesters have shown that they do not care for life and harmony. We, the Youth Party, do care about life and harmony, even if the means to that end involve death and violence. I thank you for your time.” The PM finished with the Youth Party’s salute: the raised fist of solidarity held out at shoulder height. The backdrop bearing the party’s logo—an angular hourglass in a green circle—faded to black.

Hang Ten, by Jim Bartlett

24/9/2021

With the morning sun just beginning to show over the mountain’s ridge, its golden glimmer sparkling in the slow rolling swell, Glen paddles his board through the gentle waves until he makes his way to that sweet spot he so craves. For him it can only be found in the calm just beyond the surf’s break, as it’s the place where he can straddle the board, sit back, and take in all the ocean has to offer. It’s his before work morning ritual. His sanctuary from a world that seems to be falling apart at the seams.

Eyes closed, he breathes in the sea, lets its soft touch brush up against his soul. He’s been doing this for ten years now. No, wait. Fifteen. He sighs and shakes his head, flinging a spray of salt water off his long sun-bleached hair.

Where does the time go?

Before he can give it much thought, a splashing sound catches his ear, and he shifts on the board. A dolphin peeks up from his left side, the little guy’s (or gal’s?) face bringing him a smile that comes from his heart. But even as he marvels at his good fortune, a second, followed almost immediately by a third, surfaces, each making their comical, yet wondrous clicking, as if to wish him a good day.

He looks to the shoreline, hoping to share this magical moment, though he knows few will be on the beach at this hour. He’s quite surprised when he sees several people standing at the water’s edge, most waving their arms. He broadens his smile and waves back – they’ve obviously seen his new friends – yet this only seems to make their swinging efforts all the more frantic.

Another splash pulls his focus back, and he turns to see there are now six, maybe seven dolphins, and they’re circling his surfboard in a sort of aquatic parade. It’s then he realizes his surfer buds are gray bottlenose dolphins, rare for this area, rather than the black and white commons.

“Are you guys lost?” he calls out.

But as he does, he feels a bump from behind, and he spins around to see two of the dolphins at the rear of his board giving him a push.

“What the—“ he starts to say. However before he can finish, or even react, two more join from the side, adding their noses to the board, which is now skimming the water’s surface and heading – very quickly – toward the shore.

Rather than fight his fate, he sits back and enjoys the ride, the dolphins not letting up until his toes touch the sand below. Slipping off, he turns to say thanks, but his newfound friends have already vanished into the surf.

As he stands there smiling, though quite perplexed, a young woman comes racing up.

“Wow!” she practically screams.

“Awesome, right?”

“Awesome IS right...those dolphins just saved your life.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you see the Great White Sharks? There were two right by your board...”

Brass Improvement, by Daniel Aceituna

24/9/2021

The Joint Chiefs of Staff gathered around the soldier sitting in the chair.
Dr. Mark Reynolds, the head of the project announced, “Generals, seated before you is Captain Thomas B. White. He served two tours in Iraq. We have affectionately nicknamed him the six million dollar man.”
“Show us what he can do,” The Chairman said, motioning to the other generals to take a seat.
Reynolds faced Thomas and said, “Stand up and walk around.”
Thomas stood up and walked several yards in one direction, then turned around and walked back to the chair.
Reynolds looked at the generals, expecting a round of applause. Instead, they quietly sat there.
“No, no, have him carry something while he’s walking,” The Chairman said.
Reynolds motioned to an assistant who brought a military backpack and placed it in front of Thomas. Thomas smiled, then mounted the backpack on his back and walked the same route again.
“How many hundreds of pounds is he carrying?” the Chairman said.
Reynolds frowned. “The backpack has only about fifty pounds.”
The generals started looking at each other.
“Doctor, we want to see some superhuman act.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes, we gave you millions to improve our soldiers.”
Captain White raised his hand. “And sir, my family and I want to thank you for that investment. Now I don’t have to spend the rest of my life as a quadriplegic.”

A Turn in the Air, by Isabel Evans

24/9/2021

He remembers standing backstage, the stomach-churning mix of greasepaint, sweat and fear, exhilaration and expectation - his body poised, alert, ready for his cue, muscles warmed, the music swirling. He was never the lead, not a Nureyev, but still, he’d been in the big productions – a courtier, a princeling. The sticky flow of the greasepaint, the stiff velvet of the doublets. The ache of the muscles. And backstage waiting for the start, all his senses alert, him embodied in his body, at one in balance and movement, trusting every sense and every part of his body.

He leapt, caught in the air and the moment, onto to the stage, every step held in the cradle of the music and his certainty, and then – the leap off stage – the misjudgment caused by a momentary lapse… And the terrible realization as he turned and twisted in the air that he was going to land not with grace and a final few off stage steps but entangled painfully with the metal cold impaling of the side spot’s stand. The terrible crashing audible in the audience. The pain through his legs and side. The blood metallic in his mouth, the silent ministering, the show going on for everyone else…

And he picks up his supper tray, and puts it on his walker, and pushes it out from the kitchenette towards his chair. Each misplaced and ragged step still a pain to his mind as well as his body. They shoot racehorses that break their legs. Sometimes he thinks that’s kinder.

It’s morning now. The pale light caresses his face. He pulls himself up. If he cannot dance, he can still teach. He dresses, leaves. The fumes of London traffic, and the cool freshness of the Park. He makes his way to the White Lodge. Students nod and dip in bow and curtsey as he passes. The dusty thunder of the rehearsal rooms, the arpeggios of pianos leading the swirls of arms and legs trailing grace in unity. He turns to his class. One of these boys will be a Nureyev, a Nijinsky, a Baryshnikov, an Acosta…

He claps for attention, and the boys turn, alert, like the young sparrowhawks they are. He’ll teach them to fly with grace, to excel. He was never going to be a Nureyev, however much he strained his body. He is a good teacher. Maybe, just now, the best. He smiles. Life is good.

Where Did Everybody Go? by Doug Bartlett

24/9/2021

John approached the pulpit to give his first sermon to his new congregation. He was young and nervous. He looked up and saw the church was packed. He thought it was because of him.

The date was September 16, 2001. You see, it wasn’t just his church that was packed. Every church in America was bulging at the seams. America had just been attacked a few days earlier.

People no longer looked at themselves as young or old, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. No, they looked at themselves as Americans. They were also looking for God and thought they could find him at church. This caused a huge problem as many Americans could not find a seat in church.

When John discovered his church wasn’t crowded because of him it did deflate his ego. But he soon realized the reason for it was much bigger and better than him.

Now, twenty years later, when John gets up to preach his sermon and looks across the sanctuary, he realizes we no longer have that problem.

Second Response, by David Milner

24/9/2021

The soft wind rises

Filling the void with the sound

Of your whispered name.

He writes the haiku on post-it notes, of yellow, pink, and blue. Places them on desktops, on old, borrowed, or purloined Toshiba laptop screens, in this re-configured office space. Rosa, like assistants through time immemorial, hovers. She looks at Cassidy, scrunching his face inward, at the carpet, which Rosa had brought from a friend; an old or ex lecturer, information she kept from Cassidy. It is tinted beige. One minute he likes it, the next it’s the scrunching his face inward thing. For a moment their eyes meet. The sound of a train crossing the iron bridge rattles the re-configured office space. Noise from the city. Cassidy smiles. Perfect.

Outside of time, this is art’s perspective, its vista. What it brings to the table. Cassidy sits in a swivel chair, imagining how his sister would have looked, who she might have been talking to. He has no way of knowing. Maura was 23 years of age. Rosa’s age now. Rosa will play Maura in the reconstruction.

Rosa is not exactly happy with this idea.

“All you’ll do is sit there.” Cassidy has said.

In photos his sister looked quite stunning in a girl next door type of way. The brotherly comments backed-up with sardonic caveats. Kinda sad. Like, Cassidy never really knew her, or cared. That was then, Rosa guesses.

The soft wind rises

Filling the void with the sound

Of your whispered name.

Old water cooler covered with post-it notes. Framed photo on a desk facing east of Pope John Paul. Waxed yucca plants in lime green ceramic bowls. More post-it notes. Large, plastic round-faced clock fixed at 8:45am. In his mind an unfinished Joan Miró landscape. An office on the edge of eternity.

Maura was estranged from the family. Rebellious, older sister. Amorphous New York rumours. On the periphery of The Strokes’ circle. In pleated micro-minis, promoting their first album.

No-one could say for sure why she was in that office, on that floor, in that building, on that day, at that time.

The installation is a reclamation. A homage. A helpless response. To the impact of loss.

A Turn in the Air, by Isabel Evans

24/9/2021

A Life in Reverse, by Angela Carlton

24/9/2021

If only we go back to when things were simple, that beautiful time when we collided beneath the sky by the lake. My heart was fluttering and you held it. My world was shiny, blooming. It was you. You were the moon and the stars, the sunlight that danced on my skin. Those sapphire eyes spoke to me as we laughed on a tweed blanket in the grass, not a care, not one.

You pushed that ring on my finger and we fell into something magical, heavy.

Then the sky opened up, the rain came and the thunder roared. You slipped away into something, someone and I was broken, pieces of me were everywhere. It was the puzzle I couldn’t solve. The wicked dream I couldn’t come out of.

Can we go back to that place that we know? You cook me gourmet dinners and book trips to faraway places, islands surrounded by the sea. My thoughts rush like wet cement running down-down my flesh to my feet until I’m stuck and can’t move.

Mostly, I look to the sky now waiting. Sometimes the clouds will part and the light will shine right down on me, like our lake day, warming me all over again.

Yes, the Gods are winking and whispering, answers.

Lonely Body, by Don Tassone

17/9/2021

“What should we do with the body?”

“Ditch it,” he said. “It’s of no use to us.”

“Easier said than done.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d have to throw it in the dumpster.”

“So?”

“Lenny, the dumpster’s right outside. People would see.”

“Wait until it gets dark then.”

“That’s no better.”

“Why?”

“There’s always a cop around.”

Lenny sighed.

“You know, Brooks, you’re my assistant. You’re supposed to do what I say.”

“Don’t I always?” said Brooks, a scrawny, mousy-looking man.

“Not right now.”

Brooks said nothing.

“I could fire you, you know,” Lenny said.

“Go ahead,” Brooks said with rare bravado.

“Maybe I will.”

Lenny was sitting at his desk, a hunched mound of flesh with thin, gray hair combed over a head the size of a soccer ball.

“You’d have a hard time finding anybody who can do eyes like me,” Brooks said.

“There are others.”

“But nobody who can do them like me. Lips too.”

“You’re kind of full of yourself today, aren’t you?”

“Just stating the facts.”

Brooks seldom stood up to Lenny, but he knew the big man needed him, so he decided to push it.

“I won’t even mention hair,” he said.

“All right!” Lenny bellowed, slapping the desktop with his meaty palms. “I’ll do it myself!”

He got up and waddled across the room, passing head after head, arranged in neat rows on narrow, wooden tables. Dozens of heads, each one anchored to a tabletop with a metal collar. Each was expressionless, staring blankly ahead. Some had hair. Others were bald. Some sported eyelashes and wore lipstick. Others were unadorned. Most were the heads of men and women. One row, though, was made up of the heads of children.

Finally, Lenny reached the body, propped up in the corner, wedged between rows of boxes stacked high against the walls. He wrapped his fleshy left arm around the naked torso and pulled it close. He grabbed hold of the head with his thick right hand and twisted it until it popped off with the sound of a bottle being uncorked.

He dropped the head on a table and drug the decapitated body toward the door of the shop, his shop, where he had worked for nearly five decades, preparing plastic and fiberglass heads for storefronts all over the world.

Why, he wondered, during all that time, had only one arrived with a body?

Apps, by Barry O'Farrell

17/9/2021

My phone is running slower by the day. Audit and cull your apps the Troubleshooting page on the website recommends.

There are many apps. Lots of apps. Perhaps too many apps for me to wade through. Some apps I don’t remember buying. Others I do. A few I can vaguely remember why I bought them and what they are supposed to do but I didn’t get around to using them. I’m coming up blank on several. Perhaps they seemed like a good idea at the time.

The people who invent apps make money. The most popular apps generate a river of gold for the inventor and the phone company. The inventor becomes a millionaire. Billionaire maybe.

What I need is an app which tells me when I bought each app, why I bought each app, what it is supposed to do and how much I paid for it. Ooh, it just hit me. This could be the next big thing!

So Much for the Diamond Stud, by Susan Fairfax Reid

17/9/2021

"I'm putting a diamond stud in the hole in my nose," Olive told the Physician's Assistant, as she waited to learn if Dr. Quick's surgery had been successful. In less than five minutes, he had removed a basal cell carcinoma from her nose.
A short, stocky, fast-moving brown-skinned guy, Dr. Quick wore a white coat over slacks and a shirt. He giggled when Olive told him she accidentally blocked his number, thinking he was a "new friend" from Facebook.
While waiting for the biopsy results, Olive became restless.
She slid off the black lounge she had been lying on during surgery and wandered to the restroom. An abundance of hand sanitizers were on hallway walls because of Covid 19. She squirted one of many placed on the nurses' station onto her face. "Darn," she said, "The pump on that bottle is arranged to land in the hands of someone at least six-feet tall." She thought about going outside where a lone cricket had been singing an end-of-summer song in a lush flower garden.
Dr. Face Changer came in and introduced herself as Olive reclined on the black lounge. Wearing an above-the-knee cranberry dress under her white coat, Dr. Face Changer informed her the biopsy showed that Dr. Quick had gotten the cancer out.
She stitched the hole in Olive's broad nose. "I'm using cat gut," she explained. Olive said she wanted to spit in Dr. Face Changer's face, as she stood behind her, looking into Olive's green eyes. "I love cats," Olive wailed. "I have two rescue cats," Dr. Face Changer said.
Emotionally worn down from filling out medical history forms, waiting more than an hour for the biopsy, and learning she had part of a dead cat in her nose, Olive didn't have the fight left in her to say "no" when Dr. Face Changer asked if she could cut skin from part of her nose and use it to cover the hole. So much for the diamond stud.
After she left, the P.A. told an agitated Olive she could leave once he gave her an instruction sheet and scheduled her next appointment.
She left the skin care specialists' medical building at 1 p.m. She had been there since she and her friend Alice Ann arrived at 8:20 in the morning. Olive caught a cab and walked into her apartment about 2 p.m.
She called Alice Ann, who with her daughter Ali, picked up a prescription for antibiotics and packed a bag with Extra-Strength Tylenol, cloth and Band Aid bandages, medical tape, treats, and napkins.
Twice a day, Olive washed the area by dripping soapy and then clear water over the area. Then, she applied Vaseline and covered the area with bandages.
"Anyone who goes in for plastic surgery needs to see a psychiatrist," Olive said, ending our discussion about her outpatient surgery.

Writer's Note: Susan donated her last four rescue cats to science. She is glad parts of them helped people.

A Helping Hand, by Caitlyn Palmer

17/9/2021

Suzie screamed as Jack tripped her. She reached with both hands to stop herself from falling, but her tiny, malformed hand couldn’t grip the cafeteria table, and she fell to the concrete.
The other kids jeered and stomped their feet.

“Suzie the claw hand!” they chanted. Many of them curled and stiffened their fingers into an exaggeration of Suzie’s defect.

Suzie’s knees were grazed and bleeding, but her classmate’s words hurt more. She squeezed her eyes shut. Crying would only make things worse.

She pushed herself off the ground with her good hand, being careful to miss the hole in the concrete near the table, then stood straight despite the cruel faces surrounding her. Her brown, curly hair fell over her eyes and hid the pain she felt; something she was grateful for as Jack stepped closer.

“What’s the matter, Claw Hand? Aren’t you gonna fight back or curse me with your demon powers?”

She hid her hand behind her, out of sight from the bullies in the front row.

“Leave me alone,” she whispered.

The children laughed and Jack mocked her. He grabbed her arm and held it aloft for everyone to gawk at.

With her cheeks burning, Suzie struggled in his grip. She twisted her body around the table and forced Jack to step into the hole by her feet.

Jack howled as his foot became wedged, and he released Suzie’s arm.

The bell sounded, announcing the end of lunch. The kids sighed and reluctantly dispersed. Jack, however, remained with his foot stuck in the hole.

He dropped to the ground and moved his ankle in every direction, only for his shoe to become wedged deeper.

“Stupid hole!” He yelled.

But there was no one left to listen except for Suzie, who watched with a mixture of relief and curiosity.

Jack struggled to fit his hand into the hole. “Ugh, my hand is too big.”

Suzie considered leaving him to his fate, but Jack’s face showed no sneering or malice, only frustration and pain.

She moved without a second thought, knowing she’d change her mind if she waited too long.

“Here, let me help,” she said, kneeling next to him.

Jack startled, as if he’d forgotten she was there. His brows furrowed. “How? You can’t do anything with that claw.”

Suzie shrugged. “My hand is small. It might fit.”

The boy pursed his lips, then nodded. A moment later, she lowered her hand into the space between his shoe and the concrete and wiggled the sneaker free.

Jack blinked several times. “Um, thanks.”

He stood and looked at her crouched on the ground. His mouth formed a hard line, but his eyes were soft as he held his arm toward her. Suzie offered her malformed hand and Jack hesitated, but then took it gently and helped her to her feet.

“Don’t think this means we’re friends or anything,” Jack said.

“I know,” Suzie grinned.

Jack’s mouth twitched into a smile and they walked to their next class together.

Sugar 2128, by Greg Vander-Haeghen

17/9/2021

Good morning, afternoon, evening, night, or whatever other spot in the time-space continuum you are in. Or on.
Hello, my name is Theodore T. Tazbury III. I am a Portland-based historian, conspiracy-theorist and private investigator who is on a crusade to expose The Highly Classified History of Early Civilizations to an unsuspecting public. I am in the know and the Cereal Society would undoubtedly be delighted to see me in a gigantic concrete cereal box at the bottom of any ocean.
As I experienced before my very eyes, the history of Early Civilizations began in the future: 2028 and everything was bankrolled by the cereal industry. (Note: This would be the year that sugar was found to not to be linked to obesity, Captain Crunch received the electoral vote for the Presidency, and a celebrity Scientologist finally rocketed out of a volcano in a UFO built out of sugar cubes.) With President Crunch at the helm, nobody really ran the country as it was one big fun circus.
During a ten-hour drive from San Francisco to Portland, my sputtering, blue and white VW van suddenly drove straight into a pitch-dark hole or tunnel or portal of some sort, and into some land that looked so foreign to ours. Having seemingly dropped out of the sky, I was quickly summoned by the sun god named Osiris, as one of many ancient gods in Mesopotamia. I was particularly interested in the little-known things that were subsumed by mainstream history. I will share the few that I remember:
The ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia, the purported originators of cuneiform script, actually used IBM Selectric Typewriters, while the Babylonian “Code of Hammurabi” was written on an iPhone. Comment: IBM and iPhone have since been purchased by the cereal conglomerate Apple Jacks.
The ancient Egyptian Pyramids were built by a time-travelling team from the Home Depot in Bakersfield, California. Comment: The laborers were fed a daily dose of Apple Jacks.
The Great Wall of China was originally built as a revenue-generating, climbing wall. Comment: A climbing wall on the back of cereal boxes is in the design stage, pending liability concerns.
In ancient Greece, there was such a thing as Greek Alphabet Soup. Comment: The new Alphabets cereal will include Roman numerals.
Lots to think about. I wanted to visit more, but I was considered to be a security risk. Allow me to conclude by saying that as 2028 nears, I can only wonder if I’m going to go on the same journey or even beyond.

Life and Soul, by Isabel Evans

17/9/2021

That hollow feeling. The bleak emptiness of the evening spreads ahead as inviting as drenching rain on plastic, as warm as the wind whipping through the bus shelter.

Janine teeters balanced on her stilettoes and applies herself: black and red, glossy slashes, again and again. She’s putting on her game face. To be who everyone thinks she is. Ready to rouse the troops and lead the way to the next dire, smoky, dark, smelly nightclub, with its impenetrable noise, its groping hands. And then the next, and the next…

Onwards to a final outpouring of vomit on some cold, grey pavement.

It’s who she is.

It’s who she’s not.

But for a trance-like moment at the end of the evening she’ll finally be in the place she wants to be. Nowhere.

“Ready Janine?”
“Yeah – let’s do it.”

Her lips stretch sideways in a wide rictus slash: the silent scream her friends think is pleasure.

She’s a laugh. She’s up for it. She’ll do… anything to fill her void.

She’s the life and soul.

Hope Was Hard to Come By, by John M. Carlson

17/9/2021

Ellen always hated seeing summer end. She loved summer. She loved the warm, sunny days. She loved eating seasonal fruits and vegetables bought at the local farmers’ market. She loved the scent of cotton sheets dried on her backyard lines after washing. She loved having windows open, with a gentle breeze blowing through her home. She loved all the flowers in her yard.

Meanwhile, she hated the cold, dreary days that set in during fall...and didn’t relent until spring.

That September day, she sat at the table on her back deck, thinking about how the end of summer in 2021 was harder than usual, thanks to the seemingly endless pandemic.

What would happen this winter? she wondered. Would winter bring new lockdowns in her area, as rumors kept suggesting? If there were, would the business she owned survive? Or would it go bankrupt, which would bankrupt her? She looked at the sheets waving in the breeze. Today might be the last day she’d ever have sheets dried on these lines. She might lose her home by next summer if her business went under!

And what would happen with her kids? They were a year behind in school, thanks to remote learning that was one step short of worthless. If schools shut down again, her kids would never recover academically.

She knew she could only hope for the best. That next summer things would be OK...and she’d able to sit out here again, enjoying a warm summer’s day. But after a year and a half of the seemingly endless pandemic, hope was hard to come by.

Moving Fast, by Isabel Evans

10/9/2021

The lichens have had enough of the situation. Intelligent enough to cooperate interspecies, and environmentally aware enough to understand how to manage an ecosystem, they were always going to take a dim view of the jumped-up monkey brains progressively despoiling and deadening the planet. Having already masterminded a succession of increasingly complex and aggressive pandemics, organizing multiple species cooperating across the biosphere to engineer viral jumps into the humans, without sufficiently reducing their numbers, it was time for direct and drastic action. Time for the lichens to start moving fast.

They’ve recruited one of the brighter humans who’d shown a deeper interest in them than usual, to work for them, their plan.

And now, the lichenologist’s work is complete. She’s done everything they had required of her, co-operated in their work, in return for the change to immerse herself in their world.

They are quiet now, passive under her gaze. Their lichenologist.
Crustose, foliose, fructicose - all still, each disc a silent eye. “Good lichen” she says, “Be still when watched, move fast when unobserved. Know your target. Don’t stop till you have enveloped everyone. Who is the master of lichen?” She closes her eyes, holding out her arms. The swarm undulates rapidly over her body, accelerating as she struggles involuntarily. Blocking her eyes, invading her mouth, insinuating into her nostrils, then leaving her, and speeding on through the forest, towards the city.

A hunting pack, insatiable, focused on just one genome.

What Was He Writing? by Doug Bartlett

10/9/2021

It was the Sabbath and I went up the southern steps onto the Temple grounds.
I walked past a teacher presenting a lesson to his disciples just outside the courtyard gate when I first heard it.

It was the sound of a woman yelling and screaming. She was surrounded by a group of men pushing and pulling and at times even dragging her. It appeared they were heading straight for the teacher. That’s when I realized that he wasn't just any teacher but he was the Teacher. He was the one who claimed to be the Son of God and was giving the Pharisees and their corrupt religious system fits.

These men interrupted the Teacher by bursting into His group of disciples and flinging this woman down at His feet causing a cloud of dust to encircle the woman. When the dust settled I realized she was naked. I also realized that most of the men who put her there were Pharisees.

That in itself was strange but then things got even stranger. The Pharisees, with hatred in their voices, questioned Him.

“ Teacher, according to the law of Moses, this woman, who was caught in the very act of adultery, says she is to be stoned. What say you? “

That’s strange I thought. That was a half-truth. According to Moses both parties committing adultery were to be stoned. But these Pharisees would know this. Hmmmmm…...something strange is going on here. This is starting to look like a set-up. Then it got even stranger. The Teacher didn’t respond to them but instead bent down and began writing in the dirt.

This infuriated the Pharisees because He was ignoring them. They began picking up large rocks. I couldn’t believe it. They were going to stone this woman. The Pharisees were trying to get rid of the Teacher so they could get back to their comfortable lifestyle of corruption.

The Teacher told the Pharisees to go ahead and stone her, but the only guys that could do it would be the ones who had not committed this same sin.

Wow! There was some murmuring in that crowd and then you started to hear the rocks hit the ground as the Pharisees began dropping them. Then the Teacher asked the woman where her accusers were. There were none, they had all left. The Teacher told the woman to go and sin no more.

I went on to the Temple to worship and when I came back the rocks were still there. I picked one up to take home as a reminder, not just a reminder of what I saw happen that day. It would also be a reminder to me not to hold someone to a higher standard than I hold myself to.

Oh, were you wanting to know what the Teacher was writing on the ground? No one knows for sure but some say It was the names of all the Pharisees that had had a sinful relationship with this woman.

Sundogs, by David Milner

10/9/2021

Breakfast on the balcony again, she looks across the field of rowan and silver birch trees, over hawthorn and spindle, over the wee duck pond and, past the cobbled stone shelter of the bus terminus, to the cottage where the better part of her still lives. All locked and silent now, but for the creaks she still hears, at night, when the wind blows. The wooden sign, still hangs above the door “Welcome to the Melody House.” Not that there were many callers, save for utility peoples, the postie, and Freddie, with his fish on Fridays.

People said she should have sold the place. Ach, what do people know?

Oh, the money, the money rolled in these days. Only you couldn’t see it, never mind hold it. Just figures on a screen, decimals, points of interest, units not making a blind bit of sense.

She bought the newly refurbished, old manor house. As a small child, she thought the Queen herself owned it. Now it was… Now it belonged to her, Mary Foy. There were times she had to be reminded how many rooms there were! She knew well enough – and too right – how much at 1 point 3 million it had cost to buy!

And the money, rolled in. Mary Foy had never known such worry.

Arriane – her personal assistant – was suggesting she have smoked salmon for a breakfast. Whoever heard of boiled egg on toast with salmon? And purple asparagus, dearie me? Mary had to tell the girl, “Don’t start with that caviar, I retch at the thought.”

Life had changed.

“What time is this Thomas De Quincey due, Arriane?”

“It’s Quentin Twombly. He’ll be Zooming at Noon, Mary.”

Another well-groomed face on the screen. Arriane arranged these matters. All Mary wanted was to get her hands on a mountain of cash, then hide it, preferably in bricks, throughout the cottage. In case the day should come when she needed money. She kept this idea to herself. And cursed the singing competition that she won with its Mediterranean cruise first prize. She met Nyland J. Crabbe, the near blind, old Texan billionaire, didn’t she? who fell in love with her voice, didn’t he! then went and left her 40 million in his will. With a sizeable stake in a South American mining company, to boot.

It was all worries now. And advice from all directions. Invest in cobalt, copper, zinc, get into the Democratic Republic of the Congo… don’t miss out on Big Pharmaceutical opportunities…. don’t forget fossil fuels just yet…

Why did money have to work like this? What if… she should lose everything? What happens then?

Mary Foy buttered another slice of toast, poured herself a lukewarm tea from the Wedgwood pot, and stared, wistfully, in the direction of her previous life.

Sally, by Virginia Ashberry

10/9/2021

Sally sits as quietly as possible in her office chair, clutching her hands tightly in her lap, while Audrey rages above her, waving a pair of scissors horizontally, back and forth at her eye-level If she dared to look up.

Shit, Sally thinks to herself. I am definitely getting too old for this. Only three shifts left before retirement. Ain’t this a classic.

Then she takes a shallow breath and speaks.

“Hey Audrey”, Sally says in as normal a cadence as she can muster. “What are your plans for Easter?”

Audrey stops her movement with such abruptness that she staggers backward three steps, bumps into the chair she leaped out of just moments before, drops the scissors to the floor then relaxes down into the cushioned seat.

“I think my mom is going to pick me up on Good Friday at approximately 3:45 pm., or maybe 3:47 p,m, Do you need to know exactly what time she is bringing me back?”

“Sure, if you want to find out”, Sally sighs then adds, “it would be good to know for the weekend staff”.

“Mental note, Sally thinks... we need to lock sharp office stuff in the cabinet too, not just things from the resident’s rooms and common areas. Can’t believe this never came up before....”

Model, by Barry O'Farrell

10/9/2021

Three police cars are parked outside Sky Preston’s block of flats. Precisely what she was not in the mood for.

It had been a typical day for a model; early morning start leading into a long day. Her driver had been a crude, rude, smelly boy. He was a terrible driver who enjoyed revving the engine loudly at every opportunity. Easy to tell it wasn’t his car.

After Sky had busted a gut to get to be on time, the makeup ladies were late, the hair stylist was even later. When she finally arrived, the stylist took her own sweet time doing everything and then decided it was wrong. Fiddle diddled around. Couldn’t make up her mind. Couldn’t get it right and redid everything at least five times. So, exasperating. Now to arrive home and find police on her doorstep was the last thing Sky needed.

#

“ID please,” demanded the policewoman blocking the entrance. Sky fumbled through her handbag until she found her Passport.

The policewoman scrutinised it closely. “Thank you. I am Policewoman Constable Seagrave. And you live in flat 10?” she posed. Sky nodded.

“I regret to inform you, today thieves systematically broke into every flat in this block. Every apartment has been burgled. Even worse, they have laiciously trashed or vandalised every flat. I further regret to inform you, your flat has been the most badly vandalised. Sky, we have a grief counsellor on hand for you. Let me say I am very sorry to be the one to break the bad news to you.”

“And now let me introduce you to Jane Wilson.” Another policewoman stepped forward. “Jane is the Grief Counsellor,” said Constable Seagrave. “I’m sorry we meet under such circumstances,” said Jane offering her hand to a stunned, silent Sky.

#

Both policewomen accompany Sky to inspect the crime scene. They hold open the door of flat 10 and shepherd her inside.

It is a distressing sight of manmade mayhem. Little containers of cosmetics some lids askew, others missing lids altogether, lay open on every flat surface and ledge. Shoes of all styles scattered higgledy piggledy across the floor. Wardrobe doors open, drawers ajar. Clothes flung over chair backs. More clothes dropped on the floor, interspersed with ripped open handbags. More clothes hanging half crookedly on coat hangers. Empty coat hangers randomly scattered everywhere.

“I’m sorry you have to see this,” utters Policewoman Wilson taking Sky by the arm, “has anything immediately obvious to you been stolen?”

Sky slowly takes in the shocking scene of devastation before saying, “Well, no. This is how I left it this morning. I was in a rush.”

The Love of Darkness, by V. L. Draven

3/9/2021

Everything about her was a lie. From the clothing she wore to conceal her true nature, to her painted on face; there was nothing about her that was real. She walked among people without anyone realising that she was not one of them. Had they seen her for what she really was, they would have run in horror.

Once, she was human. Born into a family that did not care, her childhood stolen by abusers and bullies. Laughed at, ostracised, ignored, pushed to the outside of civilisation her humanity had slowly slipped away. She was the discarded remains of a human being, used up by a society that took everything from her and gave nothing in return. By the time the darkness found her, there was so little left of the hopeful child she had once been, that she embraced it with open arms and open legs.

In the darkness, she found acceptance, kindness, love. Its icy touch was as welcoming to her as the warmth she had once craved. It cared, it desired her; it took pity on her; they were the same. She held it, drew it close, took it into her arms, felt it on her lips. She welcomed it into her body. She made love to the dark with what little life was left in her and surrendered to its loving embrace.

In its arms, she found the acceptance and love she had always craved. It was always with her, always nearby, hidden in the shadows by day and in the murk of the night. And, as she committed herself to it, the darkness grew within her, creeping through her body it took her: her loins, her thighs, her belly, her calves, her chest, her arms. It spread until her entire body had been consumed by it.

She was happy to be one with the dark. Every day, every night, they spent their time together. No words were spoken, no promises made, but she knew the darkness would never leave her, never tire of her, never desire another. The darkness was hers and hers alone. She was the concubine of the shade, the willing partner of the gloom.

She hid what she was from the world. Had people seen her red eyes and her featureless face, they would have screamed in terror. Covering herself with clothes that obscured the absence beneath, glasses that covered her eyes, makeup that covered her face, she remained invisible.

But she will not have to hide forever. Her belly is swollen and undulating with the children that grow inside her. Soon she will give birth, her progeny spewing forth from her body to spread over the world that treated her so badly. The world rejected her, but the darkness did not. Once the world is covered by its love, a new civilisation will rise. A new society that will embrace her once more.

Sometimes You Do What'cha Gotta Do, by Jim Bartlett

3/9/2021

With his foot pressed hard on the accelerator, his hands wrapped in a white-knuckled death-grip on a steering wheel that shimmies and shakes, he squints with reddened eyes through a cracked and dirty windshield. His breath comes in short gasps, his heart, like the car’s cranky old motor, races, as if it’s trying to pound its way out of his chest.

Yet he somehow keeps his mind and focus forward, the smeared glass offering a view of a black asphalt ribbon that slices a straight and narrow path through the cornfields, before disappearing into a sky cloaked in dark angry clouds.

He takes in a deep breath. There’s a storm brewing. Rain. Thunder. Lightning.

Yet he knows it won’t be like the one he’s just left behind. Nothing could ever be like that one.

Another deep breath. He shouldn’t have to be doing this. He’s fifteen for God’s sake. He should be worried about the algebra test he was supposed to take today. Worried about pimples. Worried about how to talk to MarySue in Biology without sounding like a putz.

Instead he worries about--

A moan from behind pulls his eyes from the road and to the mirror. His mother, tucked into a fetal position, lies shivering in the rear seat as if the car is filled with ice. Her swollen eyes are still closed, but at least the blood around her nose seems to be crusting over. She, like him, breaths in deep gasps, though hers carries a slight wheeze. Of pain or hope or fear, he’s not sure which.

He won’t let himself look at her arm, how it’s bent in that unnatural angle. Instead, he turns his gaze to her bare legs, where new bruises blanket over old.

Only twelve more miles. The sign said only twelve more miles.

Though the telephone poles fly by like fence posts, he presses harder on the gas. But the petal has nothing more to give, leaving the engine to growl in discontent, and the tension inside him to finally boil over.

The vented steam comes in the form of tears, a luxury he’s not been able to afford to this point. It would have resulted in a slurred and angered, “Girlie boy,” shouted to his face with a hurricane-force wind of cigarette and beer-laced breath followed by an open-hand slap that would have sent him reeling to the floor.

That’s behind him now. He needs to leave it behind. He HAS to leave it behind. Just like the house he used to call home. And that man...that man he used to call a father.

He turns his focus back to the horizon where the black clouds continue to gather. This new storm has been waiting for him. He’s long felt its cold digging into his gut. But, it’s okay. She’s gonna be okay. He’s gonna be okay.

Because his conscience remains empty, like the chambers of the still warm gun that lies beside him.

Sometimes you do what’cha gotta do.

A Berlin Summer, by David Milner

3/9/2021

This morning he woke up laughing. God help us, here of all places, going mad with quicksilver dreams. When he had asked for her hand in marriage, she had said, “Yes, of course.” The ‘of course’ pure comedy ringing in his ears. Comfortable as putting on a pair of soft woollen socks. His mother liked her. That is how it works. Waking up laughing, as the dream reminded him that Myrtle would have said “yes, of course” to just about bloody anyone.

Tuesday (Dienstag), middle of July, itching from backside to armpit with lice. Parasites, tireless germs bringing slow death. Oh, dear mother best tha’ doesn’t know…. he picks at a piece of sausage gristle, caught last night, between his molars. Can’t say, hand on heart, that he misses home. Here among the rubble of a thousand bombs, the ruins look the same as anywhere else. Just the dust, mother, playing havoc with my bronchial tubes! Like powdered glass trapped in the khaki wool and smeared into my pale, sensitive skin. I shouldn’t complain.

Here, in Wilmersdorf, Berlin, to clear up the mess. And bear witness.

Don’t know when I’ll next be…

Myrtle deserves more than a letter.

He traded with the street urchins, some as young as ten, no trace of Nazi on them. Though what would become of these kids, these refugees from the innocence of childhood, was anybody’s guess. They’d get under the feet of the Trümmerfrauen, the women who rummaged in the rubble and waste. He’d managed to get a Leica camera, a pair of superbly crafted motorcycle goggles (kept the dust out of his eyes), swapped for Woodbine cigarettes, mint humbugs, even his mother’s home- made rhubarb jam. It was trade, a sense of obligation; also, Private Eric Watts was a natural born collector.

He kept himself to himself. Bearing witness. If nothing else.

He’d seen the fat French pimp. Everybody’s friend, with his clean smelling tarts. Seen him violently beat one of the Trümmerfrauen half to death. Nothing he could have done to help.

Particularly irksome was the fat pimp’s waxed goatee. Funny that.

Myrtle deserved more than a letter. Let her know, tenderly, that life would never have worked for them. Tethered to tradition, or something….? Something like.

He would use the Hitler Youth Butterfly knife. Yes. Resolute in his thoughts. Knew the Pimp’s daily routine. His mother, his muckers at the barracks, and anyone’d ever known him, would all agree he wasn’t the impetuous type. Would be over soon enough. Just an animal sinking its teeth into another animal….

Someone had to pay.

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