Fiction
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Drove Her Mad by Meri (Mehrnoosh) Hirsaee
I don’t think that she knew that when you slit your wrist, you bleed. She hadn’t known about the sting of newly frayed flesh, hadn’t prepared herself for the site of sliced muscles and oozing veins. The very detail of being startled by what one would consider intuitive consequences revealed the distortion of her reality. The ever-sensible, always in control, the beloved child, the impeccable student—who would have thought such a faultless girl would lock herself in the cellular space of the shower, meticulously tear away the sharp blade from her razor and ever cautiously cut her wrist like the dinner steak?
He hadn’t known the depth of her devotion. He mustn’t have, or else he would not have fixed such exploitation, or maybe he would have just followed through with more care. To have thought his love true—how naïve of her to give into the intensity of his words, to drown in the tide of him; he had been that, a ferocious tide that washed away what she knew and gave only what he was. To have fallen with such sweet intoxication was nothing short of helpless passions and lack of prudence. She had known that, had seen the honey oozing from his tales, had felt the hairy legs of suspicion crawling upon her skin, and yet she had gambled her life freely (how foolish). He hadn’t known, as he had smothered her heart, that she wasn’t one to mend. Alive she had become in his arms, for the first time free...(more)
He hadn’t known the depth of her devotion. He mustn’t have, or else he would not have fixed such exploitation, or maybe he would have just followed through with more care. To have thought his love true—how naïve of her to give into the intensity of his words, to drown in the tide of him; he had been that, a ferocious tide that washed away what she knew and gave only what he was. To have fallen with such sweet intoxication was nothing short of helpless passions and lack of prudence. She had known that, had seen the honey oozing from his tales, had felt the hairy legs of suspicion crawling upon her skin, and yet she had gambled her life freely (how foolish). He hadn’t known, as he had smothered her heart, that she wasn’t one to mend. Alive she had become in his arms, for the first time free...(more)
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Mr. Clutters Obsession by Rachael Acks
Sometimes I dream about the things I almost saw, those long streams of letters and numbers. I’ll have dreams even now, where I wake up with my hands in fists and some profound thought just out of my grasp. Just fleeting memories of those papers have inspired me to math that hurts my eyes when I look at it, even though I’m not quite sure what it means.
The dreams always start with simple memories of my friends and me on so many hot summer days in the shade of the apple trees by the split rail fence that bordered my parents’ property.
From that vantage, we would watch Mr. Clutter complete his afternoon ritual. He’d pull up in his old, rusted-out Cadillac the color of old mayonnaise, open the arthritic door with a metallic squeal, and slowly extract himself from the driver’s seat. He was thin and stretched out with impossibly long limbs, and there was something inherently spidery about him. My little sister thought it was creepy and always went inside when Mr. Clutter drove up....(more)
The dreams always start with simple memories of my friends and me on so many hot summer days in the shade of the apple trees by the split rail fence that bordered my parents’ property.
From that vantage, we would watch Mr. Clutter complete his afternoon ritual. He’d pull up in his old, rusted-out Cadillac the color of old mayonnaise, open the arthritic door with a metallic squeal, and slowly extract himself from the driver’s seat. He was thin and stretched out with impossibly long limbs, and there was something inherently spidery about him. My little sister thought it was creepy and always went inside when Mr. Clutter drove up....(more)
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the etymologist uses his words by Sarah O'Kane Smith
The etymologist loved his work.
Although he’d be the first to tell you ‘love’ wasn’t the accurate word, really, to describe his feelings. The word ‘love’ is rooted in affection, desire, and adoration. He preferred the word ‘esteem,’ because it is rooted in value, worth, and respect—words he thought summed up his profession nicely.
But one could still say he loved his work. He loved words. He loved the deep buried history of words. He loved digging his fingers into damp soil and untangling the rotting roots of words. He felt triumphant when he located the places where the roots had fused together to create a new word sapling, but he felt something different when he found a snapped root, a broken seed—the effluvia of lost words.
Because he loved words, and their power.
But more than the power words held, he loved the power he held over words. He could mutate an apron into a napron anytime he pleased. He could sway a word in either direction, wherever he pleased....(more)
Although he’d be the first to tell you ‘love’ wasn’t the accurate word, really, to describe his feelings. The word ‘love’ is rooted in affection, desire, and adoration. He preferred the word ‘esteem,’ because it is rooted in value, worth, and respect—words he thought summed up his profession nicely.
But one could still say he loved his work. He loved words. He loved the deep buried history of words. He loved digging his fingers into damp soil and untangling the rotting roots of words. He felt triumphant when he located the places where the roots had fused together to create a new word sapling, but he felt something different when he found a snapped root, a broken seed—the effluvia of lost words.
Because he loved words, and their power.
But more than the power words held, he loved the power he held over words. He could mutate an apron into a napron anytime he pleased. He could sway a word in either direction, wherever he pleased....(more)
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The Corner Shop Visitors by Alexandra Molloy
Delicate droplets of rain beat against the shopís front window, creating a rhythmic hum, which lingers throughout the day. The blankets of greying clouds hang so low they are visible from my seat behind the counter. Occasional umbrellas glide pass the window, the owners scampering along underneath. Gentle sultry air escapes from the small heater and caresses my layered back and arms, frequently causing my body to blissfully shudder from the warmth. My cocoon-like world is only interrupted at sporadic times of the day, when the bell above the door tinkles, and I lift my chin from my hands, to serve a local customer. The cool afternoonís October breeze, enters the shop each time the door is opened, and flutters the newspapers that I have delicately placed in neat rows: tabloids, broadsheets, magazines. The red-bricked, corner shop is snugly sandwiched between the Bakers and the Queenís Head Tavern. As the breeze enters it brings with it the comforting scents of warm bread, real ale and salty peanuts...(more)
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A Vegetarian Homecoming by Reid Baker
It was warm meat that did it. The sight of steaming flesh eventually wore him down. It sent shivers through his jaw-line and tightened his throat, eventually working its way down to a tumor of a stomach. It started out with red meat; just no red meat, at first. But then he found a purple vein the size of a garden hose in his chicken cordon bleu, which effectively ended his poultry-only phase. Fish he blew through relatively quickly, because it was too hard to prepare and was getting quite costly. Eggs he could only make a few different ways, so there really was no point in not giving those up. So eventually, he was a full blown vegetarian. After a few weeks of training himself to resist meat, the mere sight of it would send a sort of quivering wave up his body, starting in his hips and slinking its way out of his head with a gagging reflex. Cold meat wouldnít do anything to him. He could ignore that. But it was the warm meat that killed him. Steaming wet meat that bathed on the plate, he couldnít handle...(more)
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Some content. Some content.
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I guess that’s why we need friends. I wasn’t crying; I was sobbing. The words I love you had become some kind of remedy for what couldn’t be fixed. It’s not as if this was a new emotion or a new revelation to me, it was just my life. Yet something inside me still wanted to believe that things could be fixed if I just kept forgetting about myself. I made a cup of tea—heeding my mother’s advice—but it sat cooling off on the windowsill as I sobbed. I had cried the previous night on the phone. I had cried to emptiness, to ‘well what do you want me to do?s’. I had cried to myself and for myself, into my pillow, as if the other two people in the room would be fooled by my muffled blubbering. There had been no fooling anyone but myself these last few months—and especially weeks. Why is it so easy to see the problem in others but never within yourself? I guess that’s why we need friends. ...(more)
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To the best of Annie’s calculations, it was exactly one year, seven months, and thirteen days when she found the emergency radio. To the best of her calculations, it was her twenty-fourth birthday.
She’d been keeping track on a piece of wood that she hid in the brush on the south coast. She only updated it once a week, since Nathan would surely become suspicious if he knew she had her own calendar. She kept a discreet pile of pebbles in the crack between the bed and the rock wall, and since she kept that side of the bed, Nathan never knew. Every day, she’d drop a pebble into a slight depression, and whenever Nathan was out of the shelter, she’d empty the tiny hole and rush to the familiar patch of brush, where she would carve six, seven, eight slits on the right side, and, each month, a slit on the left....(more)
She’d been keeping track on a piece of wood that she hid in the brush on the south coast. She only updated it once a week, since Nathan would surely become suspicious if he knew she had her own calendar. She kept a discreet pile of pebbles in the crack between the bed and the rock wall, and since she kept that side of the bed, Nathan never knew. Every day, she’d drop a pebble into a slight depression, and whenever Nathan was out of the shelter, she’d empty the tiny hole and rush to the familiar patch of brush, where she would carve six, seven, eight slits on the right side, and, each month, a slit on the left....(more)
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By Way of Hot Springs, South Dakota by Gary Colin Bruce
“I’ve had enough,” he said, “You’ve made a fool out of me for too long.”
The spring evening was getting crisper by the minute. That time when the sun has just gone down, and the remaining heat sticking to earth from the day is pulled into the sky. He was sitting at the small round kitchen table, waiting for her to get home from work.
“All right, already. You’ve said this all before, but you can’t get away from me. We fit.” She was readjusting her long brown hair after taking off her jacket.
It was the argument they’d been having for years. Yes, their lives coexisted, intertwined like space is with time, but it wasn’t fair to drag him along. Since high school and through college, they were sweethearts. As the real world encroached, pulling them from the free time a student’s schedule endorses, she drew her commitment from class and pumped it into her career. They did live together now, but as roommates – she would insist. What she said to keep the rest of humanity from knowing they actually were intertwined like space and time.(more)
The spring evening was getting crisper by the minute. That time when the sun has just gone down, and the remaining heat sticking to earth from the day is pulled into the sky. He was sitting at the small round kitchen table, waiting for her to get home from work.
“All right, already. You’ve said this all before, but you can’t get away from me. We fit.” She was readjusting her long brown hair after taking off her jacket.
It was the argument they’d been having for years. Yes, their lives coexisted, intertwined like space is with time, but it wasn’t fair to drag him along. Since high school and through college, they were sweethearts. As the real world encroached, pulling them from the free time a student’s schedule endorses, she drew her commitment from class and pumped it into her career. They did live together now, but as roommates – she would insist. What she said to keep the rest of humanity from knowing they actually were intertwined like space and time.(more)
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When the red pond fills fish appear
When the red pond dries fish disappear.
Everything built on the desert crumbles to dust.
Electric cable transmission wires swept down.
The lizard people came out of the rock.
The red Kangaroo people forgot their own song.
Only a man with four sticks can cross the Simpson Desert.
One rain turns red dust green with leaves.
One raindrop begins the universe.
When the raindrop dries, worlds come to their end.
- Allen Ginsberg
The Barrier Highway is the longest straightest stretch of road in the world. That’s what I was told. It’s a line across the continent, from the east side of Australia to the west. The landscape it cuts through is barren in a way that seemed alien. There was nothing, just a strip of asphalt painted on the red dirt of the outback. Scrubby trees dotting the horizon. They danced and melted in the heat, down off the edge of the earth. We had an old station wagon, bought off some broken down lot outside Sydney. It was, at one time, all white, except for where the sun bleached
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Searching for Something Beautiful by Jennifer Westbrook
Silently, she slid out from under the hairy arm that held her close all night. Smiling, she collected her rumpled clothing off his carpet. Owning a limited number of outfits, she knew how important it was to slowly flatten out the skirt and top before folding them nicely and placing them into her pack. A quiet coo caught her attention as she zipped up the side of the bag silently. Her world, her sweet child, laid in a warm bundle of blankets. She cuddled him close, her lips softly brushing his small forehead. Gently she placed him down next to her before searching out a versatile outfit from her sack. As she dressed in the local bamboo silk, she often paused to smile or play with her little boy. His small smile melted her resolve to leave the tropical city quickly and replaced it with a desire to hold him. Much to her dismay, she had to get ready; they would both be leaving soon. Carefully, she dressed and fed her small boy. She happily held him close as he drank slowly from her. Only after all of the morning preparations were finished, did the man she left on the bed begin to wake. For a minute he looked around disoriented and half-asleep. Gentle fingers grazed his face, as she welcomed him to the day...(more)
