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Waiting, by Camilla Ignacio

27/10/2019

A cool breeze swept in through the window. She observed the happy pair outside. The man made silly faces and the baby giggled with delight. She felt a familiar tightness in her chest.

The boy behind her--no, the man--continued his attempt to fix the broken chair at the kitchen table. She still thought of him as a boy sometimes. It had been so long. He often saw her as a girl instead of the grown woman she was now. She didn’t know this; he could add this to the list of things he hadn’t told her.

The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and her heart was aching. She heard him tinkering with the tools behind her. It was a familiar sound. No, it was more than that--it was a comforting sound. A few moments had passed since either had spoken.

“I wish you had,” she whispered softly and felt her chest collapse in on itself.

The clinking tools stopped for a moment. He steeled himself then looked up at her. But she wasn’t looking at him. She was still gazing out the window. She wasn’t visibly angry or upset. There was no evidence she felt the same devastation that was wreaking havoc on his insides. A little smile played on her lips as if she was envisioning what could have been. It passed over her face like a mist.

He stared at her profile silhouetted against the soft light coming through the window. He reminded himself to breathe and turned back to the chair. She walked out to the garden where her husband and baby waited for her.

Harvey Franklin Jackson, by Gordon Lawrie

25/10/2019

Harvey Franklin Jackson was enjoying his golfing holiday in Scotland away from his long-suffering wife back in Texas. In Harvey's world, women had only two functions, one of which was to look after any children that were the result of the other. In everything else they were inferior beings –in politics, in business, in the arts and in the professions, but, most of all, as drivers. Each day, Harvey sneered, swore, made obscene gestures and blared his horn at any female unfortunate to find herself in his path and being tailgated by him. But at least women drivers provided him with a series of cheap jokes to share with his friends.

Harvey Franklin Jackson showered, shaved and dressed, clambering into his outsized golfing gear, which today was his favourite plus-fours and tweeds: it didn't look so out of places when he wore the braces necessary to keep his trousers up somewhere near his midriff. Then he set off for breakfast in the dining room, where he demanded to see the manager because the young waitress had brought warm milk for his americano rather than cold. When the duty manager turned out to be female, he berated her further for her poor management and insisted on reporting her in turn to a male colleague. Any male colleague.

Thankfully, his golf today would be at an all-male golf club where women were only allowed into the clubhouse to clean the toilets. Scowling, Harvey Franklin Jackson left his hotel, climbed into his outsized four-wheel drive hire car and set off down the driveway. Turning right, the last thing he saw in life was the large family saloon coming straight towards him, and the woman driving it. Harvey had forgotten to keep to the left side of the road.

Mercifully, the woman emerged unhurt.

Boxes, by Doug Hoekstra

25/10/2019

Standing in line at the grocery store, I spotted a National Geographic special edition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Grand Canyon. Stunning photography, I tossed it on the conveyor belt with my yogurt, almonds, and various sundries. A short dude rang me up. I’d seen him there before, always smiling, seemingly happy in his work.

“It looks amazing,” he said, gesturing to the magazine, “have you been?”

“Yes, I have and it is,” I answered. “It exceeds the hype. I stayed at the South Rim, but I hear the North Rim is great, as well. Less traveled.” He nodded as he scanned.

Suddenly, he stopped and looked at me. “Do you believe in God?” he asked, still smiling.

Quite the transition, but having lived in Tennessee awhile, I was ready. “It depends on what day of the week it is,” I said, trying to be both respectful and disarming.

See, I do believe in God, or I don’t, depending on my daily reality. I have friends of different faiths, who I admire and look up to for their dedication to service, humility, and community. Other people label themselves as believers and seem to manipulate the whole things to dubious ends. But, I don’t know their pain, so I try not to judge. As I get older, I see more of the gray area in everything, the shadows between black and white.

“The Canyon is there because of the flood,” he continued. “Noah.”

On the other hand, I believe in Science every day of the week. Water cut the canyon, for sure, erosion through the eons. You hike down a trail, you see it real time.

“The Colorado River is still working on it, I said,” trying to find common ground. “The Canyon is actually getting bigger.”

“It’s all from the days of Noah,” he said, dismissive, as if this explained everything.

One of the true clichés about the Grand Canyon is one can sit and stare at solid rock and see constant change in motion, as the sun ducks behind clouds, the earth moves, and shadows paint the day. Stone walls that appear static come alive, shifting in color and shape. It makes you think about the significance of the moment, and one’s very small part in that moment, no more relevant than Noah, going along for the ride. This is what I thought.

But “that’s interesting,” is all I said. There was silence. “You should definitely go sometime,” I added.

As I paid for my groceries, the girl at the end of the checkout line offered to box them up and take them out to my car, which I declined, as I always do. If I’m lucky, I’ll live long enough to be cruising through the grocery store on a scooter someday, unable to lift much or take my groceries to my car without help. Until then, I would do it myself. Plus, at the end of the day, I would only throw the boxes away.

Angela, by Chelsea Aston

25/10/2019

“Mommy! Mommy! A pretty bird!”

Margaret rounds the corner into the kitchen and finds Angela, little blonde head tilted to the side, staring out the sliding glass doors. Her daughter’s curiosity was insatiable when it comes to animals. Even the occasional snake that managed to slither into their garden elicited a oohs and aahs from baby Angela. Now at age five, her interest in wildlife has only grown stronger.

“Where, darling?” Margaret asks as she approaches the door. She peeks over her daughter’s head and stops. A smear of red stains the glass, and on the other side, a bird lies, neck cranked unnaturally, on the sidewalk.

Swiftly, she covers Angela’s eyes and shifts her away from the door. “Stay here, honey. Don’t look.”

Outside, Margaret stoops over the poor bird. Its body twitches in its death throes, and a pang pierces Margaret’s heart. She grabs a rock, takes a deep breath, and smashes the birds head. The twitching stops, and a trail of blood leaks from beneath the rock. With a great sigh, she turns back to the house.

Angela stands in the doorway, mouth in a perfect little O.

“I told you not to look!” Margaret scolds, then admonishes herself. Her daughter is just a child, curious to a fault. She wraps her pudgy little hand in hers. “The bird was hurt. We couldn’t let him suffer, so mommy took away his pain.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yes. We’ve put him out of his misery.”

****

The next morning, Margaret awakes to the whiz of cars passing on their early morning commute. The sun shines through the sheer curtains, filling the room with cool autumn light. She meanders into the kitchen, aching for coffee, and glances at the sliding glass doors. They are ajar. The smudge of bird blood has dried, and below, a new bloody smudge, thicker and more viscous, stains the glass. She crouches to better see. The bloody print is in the shape of a pudgy little hand.

“Weee! Stay still, critter!”

Margaret spins toward the sound of her daughter’s voice. “Angela? Where are you?”

She bounds down the hall to her daughter’s room and throws open the door. A sour, decaying stench whacks her in the face. The white carpet is sprayed pink with blood, and a bright red puddle forms at her daughter’s feet. Before the little girl lies a mangled raccoon, patches of fur ripped from raw skin, it's back legs a tangled mess of bone and flesh. Something she found on the side of the road! Margaret thinks. It hisses, thrashing weakly at Angela's leg. Gracefully, she side-steps its attack. The little girl lifts her ceramic piggy bank above her head--

"No, Angela!"

--and slams it down on the raccoon, once, twice, three times, until the hissing stops and the room grows quiet.

Angela turns around, smiling at her mother. Flecks of blood drip down her cherub’s face, and she says, “See, mommy? I put it out of its misery.”

The Man With the Plan, by Kim Favors

18/10/2019

“I have the secret weapon,” boasts Paul. “I’ll have the women swarming all over me.”

“I take it you’re leaving the cigars at home?” laughs Stan.

The charity fundraiser at the country club is three weeks away but already the five longtime friends are betting on who’ll collect the most phone numbers.

Widowed, divorced, never married, the OctoBoys as they call themselves — they’re all 80-plus or nearing — haven’t given up on romance. Just no more online dating, bars or singles’ events.

“Remember the gal who waited until we were at the steakhouse before telling me she was both vegetarian and vegan?” says Ed at one of their get-togethers. “Don’t forget the one who took me to a nudist resort but refused to remove her makeup,” Manuel chimes in.

The five have also learned that not all women share their enthusiasm for golf, tennis, car shows and deep-sea fishing. Or cigars.

So over Sunday brunch and drinks at their favorite restaurant, Stan, Manuel, Riku and Ed begin strategizing on the women who might attend the fundraiser and how to meet them.

Paul just sits quietly and smiles.

“The last time you smirked like that, we were playing poker and you wound up losing five hundred. Why so confident this time?” asks Stan.

“You’ll see,” Paul can barely keep a straight face.

The five put down their money. Paul, “since I’m going to win anyway,” logs the bets.

Country club day arrives and four of the five — their attire preapproved by Riku, best dresser of the group — show up together.

As they scope out the women, they also look for Paul, who’s uncharacteristically late.

Finally, he appears at the gate. Women immediately begin heading his way.

Under each arm, Paul has a wriggling mixed-breed puppy. Both are wearing small doggie vests with the words “Adopt Me.”

With the puppies licking his chin and ears, Paul catches up with his friends.

“Man’s best wingman,” he says, grinning.

“You can pay up now, boys. I’ll need the money to buy drinks for all these good-looking dog-lovers while I get their phone numbers.”

The Human Curiosity, by Sankar Chatterjee

18/10/2019

Ms. Sophia Luigi, a third year PhD-student in the field of antiquity was working in a new archaeology site near Pompeii (Italy). In first century CE, the volcanic ash from a violent eruption from nearby Mount Vesuvius buried the original city. Over past several decades, international teams of researchers had excavated various parts of that vanished city that remained surprisingly intact under the dust of destruction. This particular site sat a few kilometers away from the center of the city and postulated to be a recreational area.

This day, Sophia removed the last few bricks from the mid-section of a wall of a newly excavated structure. Then, she slowly lowered herself through the hole to land inside a large room. After gathering herself, she looked around and noticed an intact fresco, covering one wall. The painting depicted two armed warriors at the end of a fight; one victorious the other bloodied and defeated, asking for mercy. Intact maroon and yellow paints adorned the figures. Sophia’s research team had already excavated several artifacts pointing towards the existence of a gladiator fighting arena nearby. This painting would suggest that this particular room might have been used as a rest area, following a fight between two competitors. She took copious notes and filmed the entire area.

Six months later, Sophia presented her findings in an international conference in Istanbul, Turkey. At the end of the gathering, she would decide to explore Turkey, a country being at the juncture of Europe and Asia. Her journey would take her to Cappadocia, an ancient city whose landscape was shaped by the soft rocks from volcanic eruptions from nearby Mount Erciyes, million years ago.

One early morning, she took a hot-air balloon ride over the valley. The balloon floated forward over several tall cave-like structures appeared to be inhabited in past. After returning to the ground, she located a local guide who accompanied her to nearby Göreme National Park where several cave-churches were established by the early followers of Christianity, fleeing persecution. She entered one of the largest ones and immediately noticed a well-preserved fresco of Christ’s face on the ceiling, reminding her of the arts from Byzantine-era. She noticed that the major paints utilized by the artist were maroon and yellow, similar ones utilized in the painting she uncovered in Pompeii’s rubble. In addition, the painting techniques also bore an uncanny resemblance.

Sophia came out of the ancient church and looked at the distant horizon, murmuring “Throughout ages, our humanity had seen the rise and fall of several civilizations. But the results of human curiosity survived, whether in science, arts or literature.”

The Rescue, by Sivan Pillai

18/10/2019

It is past midnight and there is only a faint light from an infant moon and a handful of starlings playing hide-and-seek among the dark patches of clouds gliding across the sky. Even the fireflies seem to have decided not to come out of their habitat. And here I am, in my late sixties, standing beside a car that has decided not to move. There is no sign of human habitation nearby, and I don’t have my mobile phone with me. My wife is huddled inside, chanting the name of her favourite deity. The intensity of her chants increases with every passing moment, bordering on hysteria. I can’t blame her. We had been warned to keep away from the area after sunset thanks to the increasing number of crimes reported, but certain developments had left me with no option.
Ages seem to have passed before I see flashes of a torchlight heading my way, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of footsteps. I wait with bated breath, bracing myself for the worst.
A man of uncertain age in a crumbled uniform halts a few feet away and surveys the scene. The beam of his torchlight lingers momentarily on my wife, too.
“Any problem?” he asks in a low tone.
I tell him.
He asks me to lift the hood. Bending over the engine he fiddles for a few minutes with God knows what and straightens up.
“Start the car, please.”
And the engine comes to life instantly!
Even as I thank him and take out my wallet, he starts walking away. He doesn’t respond to my call to stop and soon merges with the darkness.
“I had no doubt my prayers would be answered,” my wife declares as I start the car.
“But that was probably just a nice man going home after a day’s work.”
“So late in this godforsaken place?” She asks with a derisive laugh.
I don’t want to challenge her faith. An angel in disguise or a good Samaritan, the least I can do is not to grudge him a halo.

This is Not a Scary Story, by Arlene Antoinette

11/10/2019

This is not a scary story about cats. Is there anything terrifying about creatures with
the ability to mesmerize human beings with a mere stare, turning us into nothing more than
living automatons, willing to do their biddings at the slightest flick of their feline tail?

This is not a scary story about cats, so, don’t you start looking over your shoulders and getting jumpy just yet. What’s so odd about an animal who has the ability to run across a fence less than half a centimeter wide, jump three feet straight into the air from a resting position or swat a sweet little mouse around as if it were a dollar store toy?

Really, what could be strange about an animal that cries like a human baby, in the middle of the night, attempting to lure our pathetic butts outside so it can take over our homes? Nothing, right? No, there’s nothing weird about that at all.

And what about that 'nine lives' folklore? Humans barely get one full life and they get nine? Where’s the justice in that? This is not a scary story about cats, but maybe it ought to be

Fear, by Roshwin Sengupta

11/10/2019

At half past 10 on a gloomy Saturday morning I find myself standing on the edge of a cliff. I look down. Only 60 seconds till I jump off, heading towards the cruel, meandering river below.

I look around. A few strange faces. Busy capturing moments of their beautiful life. Beautiful? I smirk. Then why am I here today? Ready to let go. Why do I not see any friendly face in these last few moments?

Why?

40 seconds.

Face your fear – they said. Let go of your shackles – they said. Embrace your fear, and enjoy true essence of life. Live life at it’s fullest. It would be excruciating – they never said. It would make your bones quiver, so much so that you will want to give up – they missed.

And so, here I am. On the cliff.

30 seconds. I panic.

What if this moment is the last before I jump? Before I embrace what comes next?

I see a few smiling faces. Happy. Excited. Maybe they wave?

20 seconds. I shiver.

Flashes of faces. Friends. Family. A few memories. Arguing. Laughing. Without a hint of what comes next.

10 seconds.

So this is it! Maybe it is better like this. To find myself enraptured by the wind, scarcely able to breathe, captured in an instant from hope to despair, blood thumping through your veins so fast that you feel it, is worth the last few moments of sanity.

5 seconds.

4.

3.

2.

1.

I jump.

A rush of wind gushing through. My heart beating with suffocating pace. The river seems close. Much close.

Splashes of water on my face. A lump in my throat.

I close my eyes. The end is near.

A sudden jolt.

I stop.

The rope works!

I let out a shout. A shout of joy. Of exuberance. Of conquering fear. The fear of heights. The fear of falling down. The fear of letting go.

This is worth the asphyxiating fear. Because what comes next is pure freedom. Freedom from my fear. Freedom from my own shackles. Freedom to live my life. Live, and not just breathe.

This gives hope. Hope, that even at the lowest point, all is not over. Hope, that the journey downhill will stop.

And now, I am going back up.

Hostage, by Ashlynn Bruce

6/10/2019

It was a sunny, normal day in Lexington, Kentucky. Little kids from down the street were riding their trikes, teens were hanging out at the park, our new next-door neighbors were arguing about what shade of beige to paint their house, and I Mary Sanentini was listening to my mom telling me to go have fun and play outside. I am resentful but I comply. Outside it is scalding hot, so hot that I feel if I stay outside any longer my skin might melt off. I walk around the side of our big three-story rental house that we rented a few weeks after my dad disappeared. My mom couldn’t bear to look at all of the stuff and relive all of the memories, so we moved, and to be honest I couldn’t live with it either. When I reach the old dingy building where we keep all of dad’s old tools and my bikes I picked the rusted deadbolt lock and open the doors. When I walk inside I am suddenly hit with a powerful wave of memories. Dad smiling at me and my mom while using his 50-year-old Stanley drill that grandpa gave him when he was a kid. Dad and I working hard building the treehouse in the old backyard. I finally realize how much I miss him. Instantly I crumple to the floor and start sobbing. It must’ve been only a few minutes but it felt like hours until I feel cold strong arms grab me. I scream and then a wet cloth was pressed against my nose. A sedative. I thought. I tried to fight it but sure enough, I started getting entangled in a haze of blackness. The last thing I remember was hearing my mom scream my name and a gunshot before the sedative overcame me.

………………………..

I awoke horrified forgetting about the terrors that occurred however long ago. I was encompassed in darkness. The only light coming from a small candle in the corner of the room. It was damp and smelled like moss in the place and I couldn’t pinpoint what the ground felt like. I crawled over to the candle where I was shocked to find a body. At first, I thought it was dead but as I looked closer I noticed that it’s chest I realized that it was heaving steadily. Please don’t be a killer. I thought as I tried to shake it awake. The person swatted at my hand for a few seconds then arose and looked me up and down. I’d recognize that face anywhere, even under the scrawny physique, ratty hair, and the crazed look in his eye from exhaustion. Both of our jaws were practically on the floor as I whispered. “ Dad.”In reply, he whispered. “Mary.”

Judge's Day Out, by Sivan Pillai

4/10/2019

I can’t place him, but the face is familiar. A closer look at his face would have helped, but he, busy placing food and drinks on the table, seems to have decided to keep the distance. Once or twice he passes me from behind but that is of no help.
“Who’s your new servant?” I ask my host when the man leaves the room.
“John. Very trustworthy. Looks after me and my wife like a son.”
“Have you verified his past?”
“No, but…”
“How can you be so complacent, Tom? Don’t you read newspapers? Crooks are aplenty and elderly people are their easy prey. And you are supposed to notify the local police when you hire someone new”.
Tom hesitates a moment before replying, “Well, he was recommended by a close friend. You know him. Jailor James. He has told me everything about John.”
The cobweb disappears suddenly from my mind.
“He is so light-fingered, My Lord, that he can remove the iris of one’s eye without the victim getting any wiser.” The public prosecutor’s voice reverberates in my ears. I had sent the man to jail for pick-pocketing. Maybe about five years ago.
As I approach my car after bidding adieu to my hosts, I am puzzled to find the key missing from my pocket. I am about to turn back to the house when someone taps on my shoulder.
“Looking for this, Sir?” John asks with a mischievous smile, extending his palm with my key in it.
Amused by my confusion, he confides in me, “Don’t worry, Sir. Tom knows everything about my past. I have decided to lead an honest life, thanks to my fiancee. I am happy here and have no intention of going back.”
“And yet you picked my pocket?”
“Oh, that! I’m still proud of my skills and like to test it now and then, that’s all. No harm intended.”
It seems an eternity before I find my voice. I take him aside and whisper, “John, if you ever get tired of Tom, you are welcome at my place.”

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