The Crashing Crows – Steve Carr

Standing at the back screen door, the late autumn air carried the scents of dry earth and dying vegetation. Sandra leaned against the door frame and waited. The rows of dead, broken, harvested stalks of corn in the field beyond the back yard, trembled slightly, the sound of their brittle leaves being rustled in the breeze sounding like raspy old men asking for drinks of water. The scarecrows, each given a name of a dead president, nailed to nine-foot upright boards, stood guard over their quickly decaying charges. The tails to Lincoln’s ragged tuxedo jacket flapped in the wind. As hazy sunlight broke through the clouds, a small murder of crows arrived and began to circle above the field. She straightened up and watched them with rapt attention as they descended to the ground amidst the corn stalks. She placed the palms of her hands on the door’s mesh screen and closed her eyes. She imagined that her body had separated into microscopic sized particles and was passing through the screen and then turning into crows and flying off.

The whistle on the tea kettle sitting on the stove shrieked. Sandra opened her eyes and turned about. Her eight year-old son, Daniel – Danny – was standing in the doorway that led into the living room, gazing at her with his usual intensity. “Do you need something?” she said in a tone harsher than she meant it to be. “Is something wrong?’ she said, more softly.

The boy shook his head, turned, and went back into the living room.

Sandra turned off the flame beneath the kettle and then poured the boiling water into a cup in which an already used teabag lay limply at the bottom, the string attached to it drooped over a lip of the cup. She grabbed the string and bobbed the teabag up and down in the water several times, turning the water a pale shade of dark green before returning the kettle to the stove. She was about to smash a cockroach crawling across the stove top when a sound of breaking glass came from the living room. She rushed from the kitchen. A large stone lay on the floor in the middle of the living room beside where Danny was standing. The window was broken.

* * *

The rainfall began as a light patter against the bedroom window. Sandra raised the lid on the cedar chest that sat on a handmade rug at the end of the bed and took out the star-patterned quilt that her mother had given her as a wedding present. She closed the lid and tossed the quilt across the other quilt already on the bed. Felicity mewed softly, jumped down from the chair in front of the vanity dresser where it had been curled up on, sleeping, walked to the bed and jumped up onto the quilt. It walked about, kneading the quilt with its declawed paws, before finding a place to settle down. It quickly fell back asleep. The distant rumble of thunder caused Sandra to turn about and stare into the darkness beyond the window. A flash of lighting above the Badlands formations momentarily brought their irregular pancake-like layers of rock into view, and just as quickly disappeared back into the blackness. The howl of a coyote pierced the night.

Sandra removed her robe, slid under the quilts, pushing Felicity aside, and was just about to turn off the lamp on the bedside stand when Danny came into the room. “Did the thunder and lightning frighten you?” she said to him.

He shook his head and stared at her expectantly as he grabbed the elastic cord on his pajama bottoms and pulled it tight, cinching the waist tight around his abdomen.

“I can’t read your mind, Danny. At some point you are going to have to tell me what it is you want or need,” she said. She patted the bed. “Yes, you can sleep with me.”

Without taking his eyes off of her he got onto the bed and laid down next to Felicity and encircled the old cat with his arms and slowly hugged the cat, bringing it close to him. He closed his eyes. Within minutes his breathing slowed, mimicking the same sleeping sound – a gentle exhalation and inhalation of breathing – that the cat made.

She pulled a quilt over him and turned off the light. She laid back, her eyes on the trails of rain streaking down the window pane seen in the ambient light.

* * *

The school bus pulled away from the curb with Danny watching Sandra from the back seat where he sat with his face pressed against the window. She turned and walked down the long driveway towards the house, mud being added to the clumps on her boots that had already collected there. The grass that lined both sides of the driveway was noticeably bright and green, unlike all the other plants that had begun turning brown and dying off as soon as summer ended. Walking on it seemed like an act of carelessness, akin to walking on a clean carpet. The early morning chill had only just begun to dissipate, the increasing warmth leaving her to wonder if she had made Danny wear too many warm clothes before they left the house. His protests about wearing a sweater and heavy coat played out with the way he looked at her, like he expressed everything – with his eyes.

At the porch she kicked the mud from her boots and then climbed the steps while eyeing the broken window. She had duct taped a piece of cardboard retrieved from a stack of cardboard pieces in the basement over the large hole left by the stone, but only realized as she stepped onto the porch, that the cardboard was part of the box that had contained Hank’s urn. As if punched in the gut, for a moment she felt sick to her stomach and couldn’t breathe. She grasped the post attached to the porch railing and held on tightly, as if keeping from being blown away. It was then as tears began to stream down her cheeks that she saw the crows flying toward the field. They were arriving earlier in the day than usual. She ran down the porch steps and around the house, stopping in the back yard as her mud-caked boots prevented her from taking another step. Taunting a leaning Edward G. Harding, the crows descended to the rows of broken corn stalks that surrounded the base of Harding’s perch. She raised her arms and slowly began flapping them. And then she began to caw like a crow.

The birds weren’t disturbed by this at all. They continued to search the ground for kernels of corn and the insects the dead vegetation attracted.

* * *

Sandra emptied several ice cubes from the ice tray onto a piece of muslin and forcefully shoved the tray back into the freezer. She then slammed the refrigerator door closed. She pulled the cloth around the ice cubes, enclosing them in the pouch, and then tied the end. With the pouch in hand she walked over to Danny who was sitting motionless at the table, and momentarily gazed at the bright purple and red bruise that formed a ring around his right eye, before placing the pouch against his eye. “I know you can’t or won’t say who did this to you, but how can I protect you if you don’t speak up and tell me who keeps doing these things to you?”

He stared at her with the one eye, remaining as still as a statue.

She took his hand and pressed it against the pouch. “Hold it there,” she said. She turned and walked into the living room. She had stopped smoking when she found out she was pregnant with Danny, but the craving for a cigarette was overwhelming and annoying. She needed to do something with her hands, a distraction of some kind. She picked up the stone that had been thrown through the window from where she had left it on the coffee table and passed it back and forth from one hand to the other, feeling its weight, the texture of its surface. She closed her eyes and thought about people who could divine information about objects by just touching them and tried to force from the rock whatever it could tell her, what it could tell anyone. The silence was the same stony silence she received from Danny. She opened her eyes just in time to see a deer cross the driveway, slowing a bit as it stepped through the mud, and then bolt off when it stepped back into the grass. When the phone rang it startled her and she dropped the stone.

“How’s the boy?” her father-in-law said even before she could say hello after putting the receiver to her ear. “He talking yet?”

“No.”

“Hank’s mother and I think Danny should come live with us for a while.”

“Why?”

“We got a call from Danny’s school counselor who was inquiring about you. We don’t think you’re capable of giving him the care he needs. The boy’s father, our son . . .”

She slammed the phone down and walked into the kitchen. Danny was standing at the back door still holding the ice to his eye as he watched the crows that crowded the field around several of the presidents.

* * *

The colors of the twilight sky were the same as Danny’s bruised eye. With her shawl around her shoulders, Sandra stood in the corn field looking for signs that the crows had been there, but found none. They came and went every day like apparitions that vanished without a trace. She wondered where they came from and where else did they go. Her skirt flapped in the chilly breeze, snapping quietly at times like muted Fourth of July firecrackers. Nearby, George Washington hung precariously on his post, about to fall off, with his three-cornered hat sitting askew on his white hair made from yarn. The clothes for all of the presidents had been found in steamer trunks in the attic. The pants, coats and shirts were stitched together to make up the costumes by Sandra while she was pregnant. A lot of crows had come and gone since then and none of them ever showed the slight bit of awareness that the scarecrows were there other than as things to land on long enough to survey the corn stalks.

She tightened the shawl around her and turned to see Danny standing in the doorway, watching her. He had Felicity in his arms. The cat was struggling to be set free from his hold. As she watched, the boy slowly tightened his grasp on the animal, squeezing the aged cat until it began to meow loudly and hiss.

“Danny! Stop that right now,” she screamed as she ran to the house.

He let the cat drop just as she reached the steps. She opened the door, her hand up, preparing to slap him for scaring Felicity, and then he said, “The crows.” She froze. It was the first words he had spoken in five months.

* * *

“His father used to sit on the back steps of the house and shoot the crows with his rifle,” Sandra said.

Mrs. Huston leaned forward and straightened the brass nameplate that sat on the edge of her desk. It had her name and title, School Counselor. “Those were the only two words he said?”

Sandra sat in a fake leather chair in front of the desk. The shiny brass of the nameplate glinted in front of her. “Yes.”

“Does Daniel have a special affinity for crows?”

“Not that I was ever aware of.” Sandra paused. “Danny. Everyone calls him Danny.”

The counselor smiled as if a gun had been put to her head. “Yes, of course. Danny.”

Sandra opened her purse and took out the stone that had been thrown through her window. She placed it on the desk next to the nameplate. “There are no stones like this one on our farm. Whoever broke our window with it bothered to bring that stone from somewhere else.”

Mrs. Huston looked at the stone and grimaced. “You didn’t need to bring it. I would have taken your word for it.”

“I thought it was important that you see it.”

“The school nurse has reported that Danny has come to school on several occasions with unexplained bruises and small cuts. I needed to look into it, so that’s why I called his grandparents and why I asked you to come in.”

“I told you,” Sandra said. “Someone is out to hurt him.”

Mrs. Huston lifted the stone with one hand, and using her hand, brushed away the dirt left behind. She then placed the stone on a tissue. “Why did you want me to see it.”

“It’s a murder weapon. It could have killed Danny.”

Mrs. Huston glanced at the stone as if expecting to see it move by its own volition. “Your husband died from a tragic accident, didn’t he?”

Sandra’s back stiffened. “All deaths are a tragic accident of one kind or another.”

“Yes, I guess that’s true, but I meant . . .”

“I know what you meant. Danny’s father shot himself. Danny witnessed it.”

Mrs. Huston’s tone became softer, kinder. “I know. And since then he hasn’t spoken, except for. . . “

Sandra interrupted. “Have you ever noticed that when crows, or any flock of birds, are in flight, no matter how many of them there are, or what may disturb them, they never crash into one another?”

* * *

From her bedroom window, Sandra watched a large, dark gray rabbit, hop around Franklin D. Roosevelt. She scanned the field around where the rabbit was foraging, fearing that with the oncoming night a coyote wouldn’t be far off and have a readily available meal if it got wind of the rabbit. A coyote had gotten into the chicken coop killing most of them before running off with one in its mouth as Hank ran out of the house in the middle of the night, shooting at the escaping coyote with his rifle. It put an end to their attempt to raise chickens. She often wished that the crows had carried off the first seeds planted to grow the corn. The crows were easier to kill and he took perverse glee in doing it.

Upon feeling Felicity rubbing its side against her leg, she took the cat in her arms and cradled it against her chest as she swayed gently from side to side. It was Hank’s idea to have Felicity declawed despite her protests and the veterinarian’s reluctance to perform the procedure.

“Cats can be taught not to scratch you,” the vet had said.

Hearing Danny’s bare feet on the floorboards behind her, she turned and waited for several moments before saying anything. His silence made her stomach ache. The two words he had spoken gave her hope that he had regained the desire, or ability, to talk and he would do it again soon. He remained silent, staring at her blankly. “Are you ready for bed?” she said, at last.

He nodded.

She placed Felicity on the floor, knelt down, grasped Danny gently by his upper arms, and stared into his eyes. “Do you want to go live with your grandparents for a while?”

His eyes widened, his cheeks paled. He shook his head.

She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close. “Caw, caw” she whispered into his ear before picking him up and laying him on the bed. He curled into a fetal position as she stroked his corn silk-like hair.

* * *

It was early Saturday morning when Sandra carried the sewing basket that contained Felicity’s body out to the corn field as Danny followed behind carrying a small shovel. The crows hadn’t arrived yet. The air was almost balmy and filled with the scent of prairie grass. Near President John F. Kennedy, Sandra handed the sewing basket to Danny, took the shovel and dug a hole. She placed the basket in the hole and with tears flowing down her face, filled the hole with dirt. They turned, walked back. and had almost reached the house when the sheriff’s car drove up the driveway and came to a stop at the side of the house. In the back seat sat Jack Harley.

Sandra gripped Danny’s shoulder. “Go inside and call your grandparents. Their number is on the pad by the phone.”

The boy stared at her wide-eyed.

“You don’t need to say anything to them. Just make some kind of sound. They’ll figure it out that it’s you calling.”

He ran into the house as Sandra walked to the car just as the sheriff got out.

“Good morning, Sandra.” He pointed to Jack Harley. “His wife said you’ve been paying him to hurt your boy. Is that true?”

Sandra glanced back at the cornfield where the crows had begun to arrive. “Yes, it’s true.”

Genuinely surprised, the sheriff stammered, “Why would you do such a thing?”

“I hoped to scare my son into talking again,” she said. “His silence is killing me.”

* * *

Inside the house, Danny held the phone to his mouth. “Caw, caw, caw,” he screamed.

Steve Carr, from Richmond, Virginia, has had over 480 short stories published internationally in print and online magazines, literary journals, reviews and anthologies since June, 2016. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize twice. His Twitter is @carrsteven960. He is on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/steven.carr.35977

Image via Pixabay

Wait… What? – S W Campbell

Once there was a doctor who worked as a general practitioner at the local hospital. A hardworking and attentive man, he always got to work early so he would be fully ready to face the day when his first patient arrived at eight in the morning. His hair was always coiffed perfectly in a wave across his forehead and his eyes always had a friendly twinkle meant to convey to those under his care that they had not a worry in the world, he was one of the good ones.

It was on a Monday when the old man came in. He was the first patient of the day and he was there for his annual physical and checkup. There was nothing too remarkable about this old man. He was squat, wrinkly, and gray, just as most old men were before him, and just as most would be after. He had a bit of a cranky air about him, but when he smiled, revealing rows of gleaming far too white teeth, there was some strange sense of congeniality that sparked across the room, giving hints of a deep warmth and lifelong satisfaction hidden beneath the roughened burlap exterior.

Despite his smiles, the old man was not a patient patient. From the moment he was led back to the examination room he was checking his watch. The nurse warned the doctor of the old man’s impatient nature, so he was prepared enough to answer the old man’s demand of what the hell took him so long with his most professional greeting. This seemed to calm the old man somewhat, though not enough to get him to quit constantly checking his watch. Though curious, the doctor kept his queries to himself, knowing that when given time, most mysteries tend to result in solutions. His patience was rewarded, for as he examined the old man, prodding him with this and that and asking him to shift himself as needed, the grumbles were replaced by a placating tone mentioning that he had an important appointment he needed to get to at 9 o’clock.

The doctor of course politely nodded and kept about his business, again knowing that silence tends to produce more answers than questions. The old man of course did his part. He was supposed to have breakfast with his wife at the nursing home across the street. Indeed, he said with a great amount of pride in his crackling voice, every day at nine o’clock he always came to the nursing home to eat with his wife. The doctor nodded knowingly, but inside he was bursting with curiosity. Finally, as the old man was putting back on his shirt, he let the question escape his lips. What was his wife’s condition?

The old man frowned and looked at the poster showing the respiratory system on the wall. When he looked back the doctor noticed a tear on the edge of falling. Alzheimer’s was the answer, his wife hadn’t known his face in over a year. The doctor sat there, staring dumbly as the old man prepared to leave. The doctor, a lifelong bachelor, could not help letting his last question escape. Why did he keep coming back if his wife had no idea who he was? The old man smiled, though his eyes never lost their watery gleam. Because he still knew who she was.

The old man left to get to his daily breakfast appointment. The doctor sat alone in the examination room, unable to move until the nurse came in and told him patients were waiting. It was the first time in his career that the doctor failed to be on time.

Of course things began to change when the old man came back the following Monday, still grumbling about the time and completely unaware that his annual checkup had already been done the week before. The doctor quickly diagnosed him with early onset dementia, a diagnosis that shook the old man to his core. The doctor, in his gentle bedside way, tried to discern a next of kin, but in this the old man was less than helpful. A search through his records proved to be just as fruitless, so after sending the old man home, the doctor went across the street to enquire about the old man’s wife, in the hope that her records were more complete.

The lady behind the front desk was a friendly sort, especially when it came to dealing with good looking doctors who didn’t wear wedding rings. However, her flirtatious manner was quickly replaced by concerned confusion when the doctor mentioned the reason of his visit. She’s dead was the receptionist’s curt reply at the mention of the name. She’s been dead over six months now. The doctor didn’t know how to take this news, so he leaned down and rested his arms on the front desk. In response, the receptionist rose partly out of her seat, sticking her butt out a bit in case the doctor noticed, and reached up to place her ringless fingers on his hand. With a sweet voice, she asked whatever could be the matter?

The doctor, rising back to a standing position, pulling his hand away in the process, eliciting a quick disappointed look from the receptionist, explained the story told to him by the old man. The receptionist gave out a short laugh, more a bray than a laugh, which only accentuated her horse like features. The doctor was shocked by such a display, but the receptionist quickly calmed herself enough to explain. The old man did still come in every day to eat breakfast with his wife, but the woman he thought to be his wife was not truly his wife, but just another woman with Alzheimer’s. The old man had seemed happy enough with the situation, and the old woman never had any visitors otherwise, so the nursing home staff had just gone along with it.

The doctor left the reception area immediately after this revelation, never once asking for the receptionist’s phone number as she had hoped. As he crossed the street he went over everything in his head, trying to put together a puzzle, but finding himself wanting for a missing piece that would make everything perfectly clear. It all bothered him more than anything ever had before.

Of course he shouldn’t have let any of it bother him at all. After all, it wasn’t like he was even a real doctor. He knew no more about medicine than any other random fool on the street, just hints from his own visits to doctors and a wealth of nomenclature gleaned from years of watching medical dramas. This in and of itself might have been of concern if ever discovered by the hospital or one of his patients, but there was no reason to be concerned. Not only was the doctor not a real doctor, he wasn’t even a real person. He was a non-entity, a non-existent image so flimsy that it could be blown apart by an ill timed breath. The doctor hung there in the air, surrounded by a darkness so complete that it seemed to stifle even thought. Perhaps if he was real he might wonder about his predicament. Perhaps then he could realize the true state of his reality as nothing but the figment of an old lady’s fractured imagination. An old lady with Alzheimer’s laying alone day after day in a nursing home.

Such a revelation would probably bring up all sorts of questions for the doctor, at least they would if he was real. But of course sometimes it’s better not to dig into things too much, because sometimes the illusion is better than nothing at all.

S.W. Campbell was born in Eastern Oregon. He currently resides in Portland where he works as an economist and lives with a house plant named Morton. He has had over forty short stories published in various literary reviews in three countries, including Tin House, the Bellevue Literary Review, Entropy, and BlazeVOX. If you’d like to read more of his writing, check out his website: http://www.shawnwcampbell.com.

Image via Pixabay

The Forgiving – Tina Wayland

I saw you at the bus shelter and for an instant I couldn’t breathe. You said

Oh… Um, hi.

I said

I wasn’t… I wasn’t expecting to see you. Here, I mean. I wasn’t expecting that.

You took my umbrella from me and shook it out. Closed it carefully. Gave it back to me handle first, your fist around the wet part. Dripping on your shoes.

Did you move…?

Yes. Last week. Up the street? Near the bakery.

Then a silence that felt like drowning.

Have—

Did—

No, no, you go ahead.

Sorry. This is awkward. Not bad or anything. Just… awkward.

I saw your ring, a thin gold band that almost covered the dent around your finger.

Are you—?

Yes. We bought the house together after the wedding.

I nodded. Looked down at my own hand before I could stop myself.

You?

Not married. But we own the house. Bought it together.

You smiled but it didn’t reach your eyes. Just a tilt of mouth corners and a collection of wrinkles.

I couldn’t stay anymore. I just couldn’t.

I know.

It wasn’t you—

I know.

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. A trail of steam that disappeared.

I carry it around with me all the time. I wanted it to stop. Even a little. Just stop.

It never does. It just… you kind of forget for a bit is all.

A passing car hit a puddle, spraying water against the shelter window. We watched it drip down the glass. I said

You had to go. I get it now. I do.

But I left you. Alone, I mean. And then I couldn’t be alone.

I’m not mad. I didn’t have any room left to be mad.

I reached out to touch your arm and you let me. You said

I look back sometimes—

It’s OK. I promise, really. It’s OK.

And it was. I could see you believed me. Believed beyond the words and down into the space that haunts you. Haunts us. You said

So, have you had any, um… did you…?

No, no kids.

Me either. No kids. No.

I rocked on my heels. You rummaged through your pockets.

Does your wife—?

No. I mean, we talked about it. But she, uh, understands.

I thought you wouldn’t say more, but you said

Once she brought home this—like a little hat?

Yes?

A small one. Knit. A baby hat. It was green, I think. She had, um, tears in her eyes.

Oh.

She said she couldn’t resist. Like a puppy, I guess. Or maybe more like an empty leash.

You met my eyes and knew. You knew that I knew. You said

Sometimes it’s the smallest thing.

Yes. I saw a crow on the grass soon after. Just sitting there, digging. Remember?

She thought she could find worms, too.

I held back tears, a practice I’d almost perfected. You said

I often think about that song. You know, with the rabbit?

With the hand gestures. Hopping. Like this.

In a cabin in the woods!

A little old man at the window stood.

Saw a rabbit hopping by—

Knocking at my door.

Help me, help me the rabbit said…

And it hit me and I gasped, and you looked panicked, and we stood for a moment with our hot, shattered breath fogging the windows. I wanted a hole to open up. I wanted to dig my way away. You said

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. What was I thinking?

It’s always there. You think you’re OK, and then you’re not.

The rain fell harder. Drops angling into the shelter, bouncing off your shoes. I said

I’ve been dreaming a lot lately. The cottage, our car. That vacation we took to the beach.

That was good. It was fun.

Except in my dream the water is black. It’s not night or anything. The water’s like ink.

Oh.

And she’s way out in the waves. But my feet are stuck in the sand. Not even deep. Just stuck.

Your pause was long, far away.

Some days it plays on a loop. It never stops starting over.

I traced a circle in the foggy window, round and round and round. I said

Sometimes I can feel her. The sleeve of her sweater. It was red, with little ducks on it. Your mother made it, I think.

With the big round buttons down the front.

It was so wet from the water. Wet wool, with that smell.

Like a barn. A lamb in the rain. You said

You didn’t mean to—

It was just a minute. I just stepped inside…

I know.

I was standing in a puddle now. Water pooling around my boots. You said

It wasn’t your fault. You know that?

I wouldn’t have blamed you if you blamed me.

No. How could I? How can I?

I plucked at my sleeve. Pulled a loose thread through the stitching until it came free.

I picked her up and she was so heavy. So heavy.

She’d been so light.

I reached for her and grabbed her sweater instead. Now it’s sewn into my own skin. The wet wool of it. It just keeps slipping away.

You stepped forward and for a moment I felt it again. The sphere of us. Our loop. A circle that, for a while, had been perfectly complete.

You were a good mom. I knew it. I’ll always know.

Your bus pulled to the curb, then, scattering puddles in an arc. Breaking the surface. You said

It’s still pouring out there. That rain’s pretty unforgiving.

Then you stepped onto the bus and paid your fare. Made your way to a seat by the window and didn’t look back.

And I said—

to the years that had sat between us, the ache that split everything, the weight that had held us underwater for so long, so long—

I said

Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s finally letting up.

Tina Wayland is a freelance copywriter by day and a fiction writer when the stars align. She has had pieces published in such spaces as The Foundling Review, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, carte blanche, and Every Day Fiction. When she’s not trying to hold down the fort, she can be found in some corner of the world or other, probably eating something new.

Image via Pixabay

Table Manners – Cheryl Markosky

People get a kick out of Miss Mochi Cakes getting a kick out of food. She sits on the deck, legs dangling. Squeezing a slippery mango, carroty juices trickle down her thighs. Resembling Octopus brains – so Miss Mochi Cakes surmises without any Cephalopoda expertise – the slick flesh will make spines tingle. Miss Mochi Cakes has power over those craving her mango sucking. She slurps forbidden fruit like a babe sups mother’s milk.

Miss Mochi Cakes washes off the gummy syrup. No one would know she wasn’t in the Caribbean; she’s in close-up with a potted palm on her friend’s boat in Hackney. Miss Mochi Cakes posts today’s mango fest on her Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response videoblog. Grown men will whimper, recalling their mothers coring peaches, husking sweetcorn, scooping ice cream.

Known as Miss Mochi Cakes, the siren of stimulation is Maggie in real life. A hint of Japanese exotica helps sell foodie-licious dreams.

Miss Mochi Cakes is a serious ASMR artist. Scrolling through comments from her 9.73 million fans, she revels in praise for scraping avocadoes from skins and whirling spiralised courgettes.

Yet, there’s one unhappy customer.

Magneto Man – once an ardent disciple – whines disapproval.

‘Your squelchy jelly isn’t squelchy enough.’

‘Your hand-ladled Stichelton isn’t supple enough.’

At first, Miss Mochi Cakes deflates like a Victoria sponge let down by baking powder past its sell-by date. Then, she fights back.

‘Okay, buddy,’ Miss Mochi Cakes announces. ‘I’ll give you livery and lathery. Squidgy and squashy. I’ll touch every one of your nerve endings.’

* * *

Maggie/Miss Mochi Cakes spoons soup into the stroke-slackened mouth of her mother, who’s in the flat’s only bedroom. Maggie sleeps on a futon in the kitchen, bringing her closer to invented Japanese roots. It’s not cultural appropriation, she reasons. It’s good marketing.

Her mother’s distressed. Maggie feels guilt that she doesn’t understand, and anger her mother doesn’t understand her either.

An orderly person, Maggie’s mom hates spillage. Maggie steers broth between her mother’s gums, but liquid trembles down her chin. ‘Hey, Mum, it’s okay if you dribble.’

* * *

When Maggie was young, she had food reveries, forking mashed potato into Close Encounters of the Third Kind piles. Sucking spaghetti fervently, smattering tomato sauce over the walls.

Her mother reprimanded her. ‘Don’t play with your food. And use your serviette.’ It was always serviette; Maggie’s mum reckoned it sounded posher than napkin.

Maggie’s preoccupation with food sculpture meant work as a photoshoot stylist, until she was fired for being too messy. Tablescaping was the next failed venture. ‘In your hands it’s table-trashing,’ declared the boss sacking her. Things finally came good with Maggie’s quirky ASMR films.

She wishes her father could witness her success. He laughed when she mucked about with food. But his sense of humour evaporated the day he left to attend a conference, from which he never returned. Like Magneto Man, she tries to put him out of her mind.

* * *

Despite Maggie’s mother’s presence and 10 million staunch followers, she’s lonely. The only person she sees regularly is Ocado delivery man Steve. She calls him Mr Substitution, because he brings lemon toilet cleaner instead of fresh lemons.

‘Today, it’s a stuffed chicken toy instead of a roast chicken with stuffing,’ he says.

‘Shall I tear it open and do crazy things with the stuffing?’ She realises this could offer Magneto Man something new to hate.

‘Keep the fluffy chicken. It might cheer up your mom.’

Steve’s a good guy. Along with lugging grocery orders up five flights, he helps Maggie with technical problems when she’s recording. He even regularly says hello to her mother.

‘What’s the dish of the day?’ he asks.

‘I’m going East European,’ she explains, hoping to regain Magneto Man’s adoration.

She presses on with perogies – dumplings stuffed with cheese and mashed potato. Glistening in butter, topped off with lardons and sour cream.

Steve polishes off two helpings before descending the graffitied staircase to his van.

Magneto Man isn’t as accommodating. ‘It’s nul points from me,’ he taunts, channelling his inner Eurovision Song Contest judge.

* * *

Miss Mochi Cakes goes into a frenzy creating Choucroute Garnie, apple strudel and American pancakes drenched in Quebecois maple syrup. Salmon en croute, lamb tagine with fragrant couscous, and pistachio macarons. Herb sauces pour lasciviously from on high, hollandaise smothers perfectly cooked eggs.

A week of world cuisine for blogs that Magneto Man disregards, his comments becoming more hostile.

‘Miss Mochi Cakes, you’re a washed-up cow.’

She’s so exhausted at the end of the ethnic blog sequence, she collapses next to her mother’s bed. Lacking energy to crawl onto her futon.

* * *

The next day, Steve arrives with items Maggie doesn’t recall ordering.

‘More substitutions?’

‘Time to rediscover the magic of ingredients,’ Steve suggests.

He places an egg in the palm of her hand. Its fragility touches her. She feels the reassuring weight of a potato. Rings of an onion bring a mathematical joy she’s lost in her ASMR fog.

Steve slices a fresh baguette, butters it and layers French jambon inside.

Maggie starts to switch on the camera. Steve grabs her arm. ‘Don’t record anything. Don’t make food crackle, scratch or ooze. Just taste it.’

Maggie bites the perfect collation: salty butter combines with pickle in the best ham sandwich she’s ever had.

‘Not bad for a trainee chef, eh?’ Steve divulges that he’s studying at Leiths School of Food and Wine. ‘How about we make food that people can actually eat.’

He greets Maggie’s mother from the bedroom door. ‘All right then, Mrs Mochi?’

Maggie’s mother smiles crookedly. She’s always happy to see Mr Substitution.

Her mother chokes in a small voice. ‘Take her out.’

Steve clutches Maggie’s hand and steers her away from the apartment.

Away from Miss Mochi Cakes’ food cornucopias.

Away from taunts from Magneto Man, who will soon be chucked off social media after he’s outed by other women he’s hounded, too.

Away from trying to please invisible ghosts in her life.

Maggie smiles, licking a blob of butter off her finger.

‘Manners, Maggie. Always remember your manners,’ Steve gently chides.

Cheryl Markosky’s a Canadian-born journalist of Italian/Polish origin, splitting her time between the UK and Caribbean island of Nevis. She’s written for various newspapers and magazines, and ghost-written two books. New to the world of flash fiction, she’s been attending workshops run by Jude Higgins, Nancy Stohlman and Retreat West.

Image via Pixabay

The Oranges Of Autumn – Reed Venrick

Summer’s citrus groves and
orchards offered us kids little for
snacks, no ripe fruit, until finally
autumn, and then we relished that
after-school, georgic freedom,
scrambling like colts and calves after

another numbing four-walled
week of classroom duties, so
we sought out those first oranges
of autumn, those softening, pliable
skins, digging deep, our dirty finger-
nails, deep into sneezing rinds, piquant

and green, ripping off the too-tight
wrap-around skins, sinking our unbrushed
teeth deeper into the sweet yet acid
flesh. I recall a local farmer once
calling out—those were not oranges,
but greens, immature like us, yet

like us, changing fast, even as we
spoke, doing what citrus does best,
uniting its sugar brix with sour PH,
that sweet and sour taste mixing
October’ s foggy days with November’s
cooler mornings that opened increasingly

chilly and sweater-cold, when the oranges,
the grown ups called “hamlins,” expanded
suddenly from golf-ball size to baseballs,
even as we clutched them in sweaty hands.
Yes, a whole orchard contained, an inland
inland sea, with baubles and bubbles like

like tropical Christmas trees, filling up
with sweet juice. We kids just called them
“Earlies” but we loved that citrus mix
that satiated the paradoxical palates
of adolescents—country kids growing up
fast under a lengthy sun-burnt south,

where we learned from stuffy schoolbooks
that fruit trees up north were called
“Deciduous,” those apples, pears, peaches
and cherries, yet in the groves that circled
‘round a winter haven’s chain-of lakes,

we could not imagine nature’s world beyond
the evergreen leaves of mild winters,
nor could we see inside the mystic spin
of nature’s evolving shades and colors,
nor understand the classroom biology

that explained why the rind of an orange
stays green until Florida’s temperature
falls near 40 degrees; therefore when
we woke on those first chilly November
mornings, we saw how the ethereal frost
powdered the skins and rinds with concentric

circles and created for us—kids running
in bare feet and cut-off jeans—the contradiction
of the natural world of a sandy ridge that
centered our peninsula, yet it would follow
us down the winding rows and glancing
blows of our lives. Was it just the steamy

climate? Or some juxtaposition of the sweet
and sour of a sub-tropical fruit, something
sharply contrasting, some concentricity
of rainbows ‘round the rinds of expanding minds?
Something gleaned in the cold-front snaps
of Christmas? Something in December mornings

when the green circles of childhood spun full-
circle into the ripe oranges of adolescence.

Reed Venrick usually writes poems with themes of nature.

Image via Pixabay

Crying At Work: A Guide For Managers – Dan Brotzel

Managers have to deal with many challenging scenarios as part of their role, from having difficult conversations about poor performance, to making someone redundant, to explaining to a team member that they have an unfortunate body odour. But for many, perhaps the most uncomfortable scenario of all is when you come across someone in floods of tears at their desk, or bump into them as they run sobbing for the nearest loo.

At such moments, panic is a natural first reaction, but as a leader and agent of change within your organisation, you know that people will look to you to set a constructive and respectful example. Fortunately, although the terrain ahead of you may be fraught with risk, others have successfully navigated it before you. Use the following set of best practices to formulate and implement the appropriate response…

1. Create a safe space

If someone is already feeling upset and anxious, the last thing they need is someone around them – especially a manager or leader – who looks awkward and unsure about what to do. And of course the last thing you want to do is to make the crying party feel any more uncomfortable than they doubtless already do.

So if you do see someone crying at work, the first question to ask yourself has to be: Can I get away from the scene without anybody realising I was ever here? Take a good look around, and if you haven’t been spotted by anyone, Get the fuck away fast.

How do you avoid being seen? Well, crying often happens quite late in the day, when perhaps the majority of people have already gone home. You might hear some quiet sobs emanating from a workstation, for example. Hearing before seeing is always useful, because in such situations it is often quite possible to walk very fast past the workstation and make it look like you are very distracted, or in a big hurry, or dreamily listening to something through your hastily applied earbuds.

Act as if you have heard nothing, perhaps emitting as you go a light airy whistle or engaging in some modest rhythmic tapping on your thighs, as if in time to some private melody that only you can hear. (A stretch target here would be to actually sing out loud in a way that might be construed as slightly embarrassing to you if overheard; the beauty of this move is that others will now be trying to avoid being noticed by you, in order to spare your strategic meta-blushes.)

Sometimes you might hear someone crying in a cubicle in the loo. Best to leave as quickly as you can, and go and complete your business on another floor. You can rarely be held accountable in such a scenario (unless you have an incredibly distinctive footstep) (or micturation style).

2. Practise active listening

There may be some occasions, however, where taking positive steps to avoid the situation altogether will not be the appropriate strategy. Much will depend on the context, of course, but the occasions we mean will all have one thing in common: you’ve been spotted. This scenario takes two basic forms: (a) where the crier has spotted you; and (b) where someone else has. A combination of (a) and (b) is also possible.

Now (a) might not seem such an issue. The crying person is in distress, you might reason, and will be too preoccupied to even remember your presence, especially if you slip away really sharpish. Not so. Remember you are a manager, and as such you are likely to enjoy a certain profile within your organisation; you are not, therefore, the sort of person who can pass unnoticed in your building. (See our guide, How to elevate your personal brand while appearing to be above such things.) Even if the crier overlooks you in the heat of their upset, there is a good chance that they will eventually recall that you were there. And if you fail to deliver any sort of compassionate or humane response, they are sure to tell others about it.

Scenario (b) is not ideal either, and for pretty much the same reasons. It would be just as damaging for a colleague or member of your team to notice that you observed the distressed person but failed to go to their aid – or even worse, to be spotted trying to sneak away.

In either of these cases, then, failure to act will see you marked down as callous, unfeeling, inadequate. The fact that there may be some justice in these epithets is of no value to you career-wise at this point. Indeed the whole point of the management track to which you have dedicated yourself it to maximise the virtues of your sociopathic tendencies without ever being penalised for the vices.

So don’t run. Don’t look embarrassed. Stand your ground. Understand that this is now a situation in which you will need to be seen to respond in some way. We’re very sorry, but there it is. Fear not, however: it needn’t be as bad as it sounds, and there are ways to turn this nightmare to your advantage.

3. Achieve through others

A powerful tactic in the event of being stuck next to a sniveller and having to pretend that you either care or know what to do is to find someone else to delegate the issue to.

Every workplace has an unofficial mother; this fact has been indisputable since the dawn of office time. Simply locate the appropriate person – it’s usually the office manager or the boss’ PA – and say in a quiet tone that conveys discretion, compassion and a panoply of as-yet-undefined finer feelings, ‘I think Jess is a bit upset; would you mind having a word? You’re so good at these things…’

Believe it or not (and we suspect not), there are some people in the world of work who actually get off on offering help, and they will be only too happy to volunteer. Indeed, their need to be useful and performatively compassionate in such scenarios is pretty much proportionate to your need to avoid the whole thing at all costs.

In the absence of such a Mother figure, it may be that the co-worker is known to be close friends with another co-worker. In which case, you might say to a bystanding minion in those same subtle, grown-up tones: ‘Go and get Caroline – tell her that Samira is really upset!’ The fact that you know Caroline is Samira’s best friend will score you emotional intelligence brownie points with anyone who witnesses this exchange; they will not need to know that Samira just whispered Caroline’s name to you through her tears.

4. Stay mindful and attentive

Let us turn now to the nuclear scenario, where you have not been able either to absent yourself from the incident without being noticed or to find anybody else to assume the burden of care. This is going to be one of those character-building moments that you will look back on one day as a defining milestone on your success journey. Fake compassion? Of course you can. Fuck it, you’ve faked everything else.

Sit near the offending party, but not too near. About half a dead body away. Say something pleadingly, self-evidently pointless such as, ‘Are you okay Maggie?’ (You’ll notice that most of our examples involve women; it’s usually them doing the crying). Do not on any account touch the offending party. Do make a modest amount of eye contact; 1-2 seconds every five excruciating minutes should be enough. Not that you want to be in there longer than five minutes: your key priorities here are to look and sound the part – and to get the fuck out of there as fast as you can.

Do not inquire after the cause of the upset. Do just look like you’re listening; simply saying nothing and not running away is a surprisingly effective tactic to apply to the emotionally incontinent, who will assume that you are actually thinking about them, rather than, say, mentally weighing up the pros and cons of that new Lexus hybrid, or crafting the opening lines of your witty but insightful turn at the upcoming Away Day. Do look down at the floor every so often. Do not manifest any signs of impatience. Do add in another pointless question every so often. Would you like some tissues? Can I get you some more water? Or tea?

Indeed, fetching liquid or tissues can be a game-changer: you can string this errand out for several minutes, and in so doing there’s always the chance that you’ll run into someone to whom you can delegate this whole nightmare. Indeed, you should see this as an important developmental challenge: if by the time you return to the scene you are still on the hook for its resolution, then you will have to ask some serious questions of yourself as to your leadership potential.

5. Lead by example

So you’re still stuck there, in consolation mode. The least you can do is extract maximum value from the situation in terms of profile raising and personal brand elevation. Necessity is the mother of invention, of course, but tedium and contempt are pretty cool too.

So here’s how it goes. Soon the crier will be feeling as embarrassed as you are (not showing yourself to be) by all the fuss, and will be keen to reassure you that your presence is no longer required. Are you absolutely sure? you’ll say. Is there anything else I can do? Of course there isn’t – but you asked and you have stayed to the end, and that’s the main thing.

In the absence of getting someone else to take over, getting the crier to dismiss you from the scene is the ultimate win. You have seen it through, you have brought the issue to a resolution. You were there for them, and it looks like you fucking care. Just make sure others have noticed.

6. Learn from the experience

The last question to consider is also the most important. Can you in any way, shape or form be construed as being in some way responsible for this crying? As you move through the stages of evasion, buck-passing and fake consolation, a series of key questions will no doubt have been running through your mind.

Is there any chance that you could be the actual cause of the outburst? Did you perhaps deliver to the crying person some very robust and perhaps slightly-too-personal feedback in front of every single other member of the team, perhaps failing to stop shouting even when they began sniffling and picking at a piece of skin on their arm in a way that another might have interpreted as extreme discomfort?

Did you berate them in a brutally intemperate email for a tiny error in a report, a report which they had just spent half the night putting together, so missing their child’s first school concert, because you didn’t get your feedback to them in time? Or did you perhaps, as you begin to dimly remember now, get all cheesy and gropey with them in the pub the night before, and their miserable hungover feeling is confused by the fact that they know they really ought to tell someone about your behaviour, especially in this day and age, they owe it to others too, but you are their line manager and generally considered to be a favourite of the all-male senior management team and they really like their job (apart from the shouting and the emails and all-nighters) and they really want to get on here, and they’ve heard that other complaints have fallen on deaf ears, so it’s all very complicated?

These are just hypotheticals, of course. Remember the old management adage: ‘There’s no ‘I’ in teamwork’? Sadly, all too true. But the good news is that there are two ‘I’s in impunity – and fully five in ‘plausible deniability’.

Image via Pixabay

Destiny – Jude Higgins

The young man sits on the sofa in yesterday’s clothes with the blind drawn and his energy drink untouched, smoking his first cigarette of the day, another one lined up ready to go. There are crumbs on the carpet, but he doesn’t notice. Sunlight filters in at the edges of the drawn blind. If his mother were still alive she’d tell him to get out and enjoy the lovely day. ‘Life will be over before you know it. So make the most of it, darling.’ There’s a photo of her on the mantelpiece, smiling. And sometimes he thinks she’s smiling at him.

* * *

The young woman stands under a shower in her shiny white bathroom and soaps herself all over although nothing has happened to get her dirty since last night’s shower. Still, restless agitation and little sleep produces sweat. This morning she’ll wear a clean tee shirt and a fresh pair of jogging bottoms although, as usual, she won’t go jogging. The cur-tains aren’t quite drawn and sun shines on that picture of her and her dad at the seaside, not long before he died. Both of them are smiling real smiles at each other, not at the cam-era.

* * *

I’d like to think something will happen to make these two meet. They live only streets apart, they are about the same age. They’re sad rather than deeply melancholic. Both par-ents died nearly one year ago. Even though the man is scruffy and a smoker, people al-ways smile at him when he speaks. Even though the woman mostly looks solemn and strained, her face lights up and she laughs if she’s teased.

* * *

We have to get them outside.

* * *

What if their parents died the same day and they meet in the woodland burial ground on the first anniversary, say hello and wish they’d said more?

What if a few days later it’s the end of the world? — the very last day — the man remem-bers what his mother said and runs to the Spa, to hug the beautiful woman he saw at the woodland burial ground, who most days waits outside the shop before it opens.

* * *

What if she has heard the news too and sprints along to the Spa hoping to meet that man she met in the burial ground when she put flowers on the young ash tree she planted for her mother?

* * *

What if she sees him outside the shop, holding out his arms, and what if she hugs him tight, laughing through her tears?

* * *

And what if they live happily ever after, even though ever after is only ten minutes?

Jude Higgins is a writer, writing tutor and writing events organiser. Her chapbook, The Chemist’s House was published by V. Press in 2017. She has been widely published in literary magazines and anthologies. She runs Bath Flash Fiction Award, directs Flash Fiction Festivals, UK and the small award winning press, Ad Hoc Fiction.

Image via Pixabay

The Substitute – Phebe Jewell

Maddie told me the woman has expensive tastes in clothes and booze, so after vacuuming the living room I go into the kitchen. Opening the liquor cabinet, I am dazzled by dozens of bottles. Squat, tall, round, square. Brown, blue, clear. I never knew there were so many kinds of alcohol. My parents only drink wine at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“Bet you won’t touch anything, especially not the booze.” Maddie laughed when she asked me to cover for her. “You’re too scared of getting caught.” Her dare followed me throughout the day. Looking up from my French test, I met Maddie’s scornful smile.

Alone now in this stranger’s house, I splash amber liquid into a shot glass. Burning almond. I check the bottle. The level has barely moved. The woman won’t notice. I lick my lips.

I open the bedroom closet to inspect the dresses Maddie says she wears as she cleans. Running my fingers over the soft fabric, I picture Maddie stepping out of her clothes, standing naked in front of the mirror.

Maddie says Jerry usually comes with her after school. “We fuck in her bed all the time. We’re careful.”

I see him pressed behind her, hands on her slim hips. Filled with tipsy bravado, I remove a silk slip from its hanger, laying it on the bed. Unzipping my jeans, I lie on the slip, rubbing myself with the cloth, picturing Jerry’s naked butt, his muscular back. I pinch a nipple, imagine Jerry deep inside me. I float back to the kitchen. The clear alcohol burns, so I try another. A sweet cherry flavored liquor. Too much like cough syrup. I pour it out, watching the dark liquid stain white enamel. I should rinse the sink, the glass. But I want Maddie to know I’m not the goody two-shoes from Mrs. Albright’s math class. For the first time I think about the woman who lives here. I can’t picture her in the house, but I can imagine her on the phone in an office high up in a skyscraper, only coming home to change clothes before going out on the town.

Mom will wonder why I’m coming home from school so late. I’ll tell her we had a sub last period, some old man who made us stay after the bell because we were too loud and disruptive. She thinks I’m her golden girl. Pure. Obedient.

Running my hands over the slip one last time, I notice a wet spot. I laugh and step back to the kitchen. The glass sits on the counter next to the bottle. One more for the road. I lift it to my lips as a car pulls up in front. Glass in hand, I slip out the back door.

Later as I undress for bed, the shot glass falls out of my pocket. I pick it off the floor, my fingers sticky with sweet residue. I can’t wait to see Maddie at school tomorrow.

Phebe Jewell’s recent flash appears in After the Pause, Sky Island Journal, Literally Stories, and Door Is a Jar. A teacher at Seattle Central College, she also volunteers for the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, a nonprofit providing college courses for women in prison. Read more of her work at https://phebejewellwrites.com

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Secrets – Madiha Ahmed

Even when Gregory’s Mum started finding his bed wet in the mornings, he couldn’t tell her about the Cloud. Or Jimmy.

What could he say? Mum, there is a Cloud in my pants pocket and Jimmy’s been tormenting me? Nope, he couldn’t tell her. But he never lied to her. So he only told her he was sorry, which was true.

The first few times she was calm and reassuring. This will pass, she said. It is just a phase. After a few weeks, she wouldn’t say anything to him; just quickly stripped off his pajamas and bedding to start the washer as soon as possible. He knew this meant she was worried but didn’t know what he could do. Telling her was not an option.

To tell her, he first needed to know what was happening. He didn’t know. He had found this…wispy mass…next to him one morning. Or maybe it was in the afternoon. He wasn’t sure. But it was certainly after the first time Jimmy had called him weird at recess in front of everyone.

The wispy mass had disintegrated when he had flapped at it. That was that, he had thought. But when he looked up from his book, there it was again. So he took it outside and left it in the garden. Some time later, he noticed it floating near his window. He took it out again and furtively buried it in his old sandbox. The Cloud was hovering on his bed when he came to his room after dinner.

He only briefly wondered how it was like this, why it was here, what it was. His mind was focussed on how he would keep his Cloud safe. It clearly wanted to stay close to Gregory. His pocket seemed the obvious answer as he could keep it hidden from his mother and everyone else. Especially Jimmy. Handy dandy, he thought, though, for what, he had no idea. A Cloud and secrets – the first time he had both.

Over the next few days, whenever he was alone, resting, or sleeping, he would take it out to examine it. The Cloud was soft, silky, and practically weightless between his fingers; floating, almost transparent. Like the cotton candy his Dad had insisted he try at the carnival last spring. Just not pink. It wasn’t even as white as it had first appeared. There was a hint of grey at the edges.

With the bedwetting, he struggled with finding a place to keep the Cloud away from his person. He tried several – the tabletop, his bookshelf, a wooden box, an empty jar, an empty jar with a lid, his top drawer, his middle drawer. Somehow it was always back in his bed by morning, and everything would be damp. He didn’t like it and he especially didn’t like burdening his Mum but what could he do? And anyway, he was more than occupied with Jimmy.

Like the Cloud floating into his life, Jimmy had suddenly developed a keen interest in everything Gregory – his scruffy shoes, his almost worn-out shirts, his lunchbox from last year, his teeth that were just a tad too big for his mouth, and even how he pronounced some words at Reading Aloud time in class.

During almost every recess, Gregory would hear his words and the raucous laughter that usually followed them. He would look at the gleeful, taunting faces. And he would turn around and quietly shuffle away, willing his jelly legs to keep steady even as his chest would feel tight. And he would sit hidden among the trees at the edge of the playground, his back to the rest of them and only the sound of woodland insects to keep him company.

And of course, his Cloud – which he would take out at these times to see it all ashen and quivering…angrily? He didn’t know. But Gregory realised that every time, his Cloud would be darker and trembling more intensely, and he felt an odd fear that the fragile little Cloud might explode.

The day Jimmy mentioned his Dad, Gregory really thought it would burst. His own blood was pounding in his ears as his pocket vibrated urgently. He was sure his Cloud would be pitch black if he looked at it. His rage fuelled him enough to stomp away to his headteacher and ask to go home as he was unwell. Right away. He refused to say anything else.

It took some time till he was in the car with Mum, strapped in, safe, and only then he finally spoke. He told her he missed Dad. He told her all about Jimmy and the peals of laughter he heard even in his dreams. He told her everything that had been happening, except about his Cloud. That was still something he couldn’t explain.

And as he spoke, he felt it calm down, felt the knot in his chest loosen. He didn’t mind the snot and the tears mingling on his face nor how hoarse his voice had gotten. This was Mum and now she knew everything. Almost.

As they drove home and she promised to help straighten things out at school, Gregory felt he was floating on a cloud and knew his Mum wouldn’t have to wash any bedding tomorrow morning.

A full-time mum, part-time student, and occasional writer, Madiha Ahmed is a pakistani who lives in New Zealand with her husband and daughter, as she dreams about sleeping and writing. She tweets at @Madiha_Ah.

Image via Pixabay

Dream Logic – Sean Cho Ayres

Typical story: alone on an island. New twist: whatever you dream
will come to life. Wanting company or to dare even leave the stagnant sand,
you tell yourself to dream of something useful: and the next morning,
you wake to seven flares. For a week, you shoot flares into the air,
no one comes. But each morning, you wake to a new delight:
Monday a bed to sleep in, Tuesday green bananas, Friday a pillow.
By Saturday, already-ripe avocados welcome you to the day. As expected,
you are getting arrogant, lonely, and want home. God-like,

with that filthy pride, no crowd to applaud. You want to go home.
So tell yourself to dream of a sailboat and strong winds. Almost home!
You wake and there’s a horse mistaking your hair for alfalfa, mistaking
you for his owner, and you know nothing about horses.

So you dream that you’ve already read through the encyclopedia
labeled H and have learned horses don’t really like saddles, don’t really
need apple water-soaked bridles to keep them content. Instead
you dream of a water trough and fertile soil to replace the sand. The horse
sleeps open-eyed and standing up, but you already know this has something

to do with fear. New day, no water clinking into the tin. New day, and the
grass seeds stay seeds. He looks at you looking at him, and both of you know
this is no place for a horse. The next day, you wake and the horse is gone.

Assume your dreams were filled with horse-eating creatures. The kind with teeth
that can rip through strong thigh muscles. Maybe wolves, maybe furless tigers—it doesn’t matter.
He’s not coming back. Or you dreamed of a field with tall grass and wildflowers
in a place where it’s always April. You dreamed of other horses, then you dreamed him there.

Sean Cho A. is the author of “American Home” (Autumn House 2021) winner of the Autumn House Publishing chapbook contest. His work can be future found or ignored in Copper Nickel, Pleiades, The Penn Review, The Massachusetts Review, Nashville Review, among others. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of California Irvine and the Associate Editor of THRUSH Poetry Journal. Find him @phlat_soda

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The Night Flowers – James Blanchard

In the Black Garden, the night flowers bloomed. The ghost roses filled empty eye sockets with pale petals, while the tiny blue-eyed snowdrops pushed through the spaces between the ribs.

The dead man’s bones were laid across the flower bed, loosely assembled in the right order. The Gardener knelt by him and inspected the pretty little plants that grew from his memories.

Antolin. The man’s family had called him Antolin. He’d been dead a long time, well over a century according to some great-great-grand niece, and was buried in an insanely large tomb on his insanely large grounds near the Purple Hills, in the shadow of his insanely large mansion. The century after his death was filled with nothing but bitter fighting between his heirs. They fought over lands, houses, jewels, and other tawdry things the Gardener had no interest in.

She told Antolin’s family as much, when they dug up his bones and brought them to her. They prattled on endlessly about needing to know his dying intentions, or the identity of his true heir, but she cut them short. “All I care about is divining the secrets from the flowers,” she’d said with solemn intonation. “All else is a mere distraction. But I will tell you what I learn.”

Some weeks had passed since then, though the Gardener could only tell by the size of the roses. Her plot was a small, cold, dark little place, hidden from the sun in the heart of the City of Light. The Black Garden could not thrive in sunlight; sunlight was anathema to the night flowers, which fed and grew on secrets.

“You’ve rather taken to poor Antolin, haven’t you?” She told one of the roses. Its stem had wrapped tightly around the bones of his neck, digging its thorns into the vertebrae and leaving long circular scratches. “What new tidbits have you found for me?”

Different night flowers thrived on different parts of the body. The black petunias massed around the knees and wrists, feeding on the traumas of old injuries. The sickly dusk daisies, meanwhile, bloomed within the chest, around the heart, and showed the Gardener such vivid non-pictures of brilliant dark colours and heart-breaking shadows. But it was the ghost roses that spoke the clearest secrets, growing around the spine and the skull and the memory of the brainstem. The opaque petals glimmered like the oily sheen over the City’s canals, and – to the Gardener, at least – appeared to see more than Antolin’s eyes likely ever did.

Gently, she cupped the rose’s head in her hand, careful not to scratch herself on the thorns again. It tingled in her palm, as though it emitted a gentle but searing heat, stripping away the layers of her skin one-by-one. The pink-grey veins of the petals seemed to merge with the veins of the Gardener’s hand, and Antolin’s memories flowed out of the flower and into her body.

“Show me…” She whispered. The ecstasy of the dead man’s secrets tightened her chest and left breathing a struggle. “Show me…”

The Black Garden fell away, fading, dying like the flame on a spent match. In its place, orange light flooded in, whilst golden-leafed trees seemed to sprout from nowhere.

She was a child, now. Or, rather, he was a child; the line between the Gardener and Antolin had been blurred away as she stepped out of her mind and into his memory.

He was perhaps seven, or eight, small enough for his eyes to level on his mother’s waist. Ah, yes, mother, who stood tall and slender, with long blonde hair that danced in the breeze, falling left then right then left again like the weeping of a willow. Light dappled and refracted from her tumbling curls, casting rainbows and fractals like a sparkling waterfall. Blonde was not the right word for her colouring, Antolin would realise in later life. No, his mother was a warm silver, a soft metal that could be bent by his bare hands.

Mother was standing by one of these Autumn trees, her ocean-blue eyes looking into the bark with intense concentration. With an iron knife, she was carving a love heart into the wood. Was this in the misty woods, the forest of scarlet sentinels that flanked the Purple Hills? Or was it somewhere else, one of the tiny rural villages on the outskirts of the City of Light? Antolin couldn’t recall, the details of his childhood dying like embers.

But he could always remember mother. She was rooted, planted into the earth, the strongest and most enduring tree of all. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost—

“Ow.” The Black Garden reasserted itself with a flash of pain. The Gardener had scratched herself; one of the rose’s thorns had cut across her knuckle. A tiny, lazy drop of blood seeped down her hand as she pulled away.

It wasn’t the first scratch. Over the years, the Gardener had collected many cuts, scuffs and blisters as she tended to the night flowers. Together, they formed long, winding tracks along her arms and legs, twisting into abstract little patterns. Every day new flowers bloomed from the scratches in her skin, and she looked – in her opinion – ever more beautiful.

A scratch from a night flower was always deadly, though it was a death that could take decades. One tiny break in the skin, the merest chance for the flower to find a memory, and it would begin to feed and grow. They would slowly colonise the body, cannibalise the flesh, until nothing remained except a pile of plant life and reveries. The Gardener had fed an impressive crop on herself now, with ghostly-pale petals sprouting from her shoulders like an angel’s wings. The stems, meanwhile, twisted around her neck, growing a little tighter each day, thorns digging into the flesh.

Whenever she ventured from the Black Garden and walked the streets of the City, people would stare. Their faces were filled with pity, and they’d say things like, “There goes another poor soul, another Gardener lost to her flowers. Soon she’ll be nothing but memories.” But the Gardener didn’t care. Her night flowers were beautiful, her blooming magnificent, and her memories were the memories of hundreds. Her garden, the dark little place hidden from the sun, could be a world.

She stood, and left Antolin’s bones alone. She had other flowers to tend to.

Image via Pixabay

The Thumb – Russell Waterman

It was his thumb that caught my eye. Hell, if I hadn’t noticed it twitching, I’d a sworn he was a scarecrow. Like a weed this guy just pops up outta nowhere, standing dead still knee-deep in a crop of alfalfa. Being a long hauler, I drive this stretch of Interstate 5 all the time and see my share of hitchhikers tryin’ to bum a ride, and I ignore most of ‘em, but this one was different. This guy acted as if I owed him a ride.

Curious, I tapped on my brakes and slowed to get a better look. Dressed in a dark trench coat, he wore a Van Helsing hat casting a long shadow over him. I couldn’t make out his face—or if he even had one. He looked as if he fell right out of the Apocalypse.

Interstate 5’s Central Valley is flat and straight and has zero entertainment value. Just acre after tedious acre of farmland. If it were winter you could blame all the car mashups on the tule fog, but during the heat of summer, it’s the mind-numbing drive that lulls you to sleep at the wheel. So, to stop you from going insane, or splattering your brains all over the highway, when you see a stray thumbing for a ride you think of only one thing: company.

I slowed onto the shoulder kicking up gravel and rubbernecked my soon-to-be passenger. All I could make out underneath his hat was a scraggly beard. He had a disheveled appearance, or worse, like instead of riding in cars he’d been hit by a few.

Bringing my Peterbilt to a stop I kept reassuring myself he probably just needed a bath and a change of clothes. I opened the cab door and said, “careful of that first step, it’s a doozy.”

His odor preceded him. I reasoned it was because he was standing in a freshly fertilized field. Using the back of my hand, I wiped my eyes and said, “hello.”

He mumbled something and grabbed the door handle. It was almost sunset, but his hands looked discolored or stained with a distinct red hue.

Entering the cab his attention was immediately drawn to my bolt-action Remington mounted behind me.

“Don’t worry, it’s just for looks.”

His dark eyes flashed to mine before homing in on my rifle, salivating.

“C’mon, have a seat. I have an early morning delivery.”

Tight-lipped, the hitchhiker sat down and adjusted his hat further down his forehead. That’s when I got a good look at his hands and my grin disappeared.

Switching on my headlights, I pulled onto the highway and started second-guessing myself. Is this drive so dull, so boring, am I so desperate for someone’s company, that I should pick up any down-and-out who sticks out his thumb on the side of the road? Sadly, I was never one for thinking ahead.

Glancing over, I noticed how the dashboard lights lit his silhouette. An image from an old B-horror movie popped into my head. His eyes seemed to devour whatever light came near them like a black hole. I shook it off and drove.

After several miles stifling the urge to gag, I cranked down my window and let go with a loogie my childhood buddies would’ve been proud of. Like rotten eggs, my gut feeling about the stench coming from the passenger seat left a bad taste in my mouth.

“Where you headed?” I asked, wiping spittle off my chin.

The hitchhiker sat quietly, hypnotized by the white-dotted lines dividing the road.

Trying again, “You hurt yourself? Being a trucker, I get scraped up from time to time.”

A couple of minutes later the hitchhiker slowly tilted his head down, then slightly toward me before rubbing his hands like a major-league pitcher meticulously kneading a baseball. When he finished smearing the dried blood across his palms, he scratched his beard leaving behind several red specks dangling from his whiskers. Staring off into the distance as before, he hid his right hand inside his trench coat.

The miles dragged on in silence, until I said, “my name’s Frank, Frank Beamen,” and nervously offered my hand.

That’s when he turned, and I got the shock of my life. Etched between his eyebrows was a crooked line tattoo of a swastika. I figured he did it in front of a mirror using a dull switchblade. But it was his eyes that spooked me. They looked tired and empty, hollow. Honestly, he gave me the creeps.

“My family, they call me Charlie.” He deadpanned.

I quickly reneged on my handshake and clutched the steering wheel, digging my half-chewed fingernails into the black leather cover. Unfazed, Charlie had already returned his attention to the road, stone-faced. I began sweating. The taste of this evening’s diner chili began creeping up the back of my throat. I swallowed hard trying to chase it back down.

Breathe, Frank, breathe. I stared at the road trying to drive, trying to breathe, but my eyes kept darting over to him. My mind began playing ‘what if’ games. I lost everyone one of them.

When another speeder left me in the dust, I let out an internal cry for help. Pleading for them to stop. Please, help me! I just picked up a hitchhiker and it turns out he’s a lunatic!

Then it hit me. What if this guy’s a whack job? And I had no way of knowing, but what if the psych ward at nearby Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital was one patient short? What if this guy’s their man? I started having wild thoughts of Charlie hiding a knife or machete underneath his trench coat and was ready to gut me like a fish at any moment. What if he was the crazed escapee I read about in the diner’s newspaper? What if?

Then I decided to use the only weapon I had, my gift of gab.

“Where did you say you’re headed again?”

Nothing.

“Me, I’m hauling a full load of almonds down to Westley. Do this every week. I haul other products too, but I always seem to attract nuts. I mean, the folks in Westley really like their nuts. Not me, allergies you know. Anyway, where can I drop you? Next town’s Chesterville. How ‘bout there?”

Or, I thought, may I suggest a trip back to the Bellevue nuthouse? It was all I could do to keep my arms from shaking off the steering wheel.

Charlie didn’t bite. I rambled on for miles, making small talk about trucking and all the interesting folks I meet, hoping he’d come back to reality and opt not to fillet me and leave me for dead on the side of the road.

It was early morning with only the moon and stars lighting up the night when Charlie began fidgeting, moving his hand around inside his trench coat. I held my breath and got ready to slam on the brakes—I wore a seatbelt, he didn’t.

“Have a toke?”

My heart was beating double-time when I was relieved to see a joint he’d it was only a joint. I exhaled and mopped my gray hair sopping with sweat.

“N-No, thanks. If’n I do that, I’ll be saying Hail Mary’s for a week.”

Charlie lit up and took a long drag. He sucked in the smoke and let it settle deep into his lungs. Each time exhaling and filling the cabin with smoke. I thought there’s no need to take a hit, all I have to do is breathe. When he was done, he swallowed the roach and said, “Pull over.”

“But, we’re in the middle of nowhere?”

Charlie turned and sank his eyes deep into mine, “You’re not the one. Pull over. Now.”

I slapped myself for arguing the point. What do I care if he wants to be left out in the middle of nowhere? I made a hurried pit stop onto the dirt shoulder. Charlie opened the door which lit up the cab. Stepping out, his coat opened, exposing a large Buck knife, stained like his hands. It had been recently used.

Charlie took position on the side of the road. Dead still, he stuck out his arm and began twitching his thumb.

I popped the clutch and hit the throttle.

Russell Waterman is an Amazon published author, including his latest, “The Adventures of Dave Diamond,” a short story complication. His fiction has also appeared in Allegory, The Daily Drunk, The Blotter, Literary Yard, Jerry Jazz Musician, Potato Soup Journal and SIA.

Image via Pixabay

She Could Have Been My Grandma – Isabelle B L

She could have been my grandma, but she wasn’t. She was my neighbour who lived on her own. My mother left me with her when she had to run a few errands. My mother used to be gone all afternoon and sometimes, my mother would leave me with my neighbour between the evening news and Sale of the Century.

During the day, I sat beside her on the swing bed and she showed me a picture book and tell me what the story was about because I couldn’t read the words in the book. It was an alphabet I had never seen before. So many picture books and no one to read them to. The pictures would show children playing in the snow, wrapped up in long coats, red scarves and Ushanka hats. Whenever she saw snow on television or in the picture books, she would tell me how much she missed the Motherland.

She never spoke about the children in the filigree frames in between the wooden dolls. When I asked who they were, she walked to the wooden dolls, caressed them as if they were real, and said nothing about those memories in filigree frames.

Sometimes we would make Pastila together. I gathered the apples from her apple tree, then she let me step on a footstool to get the sugar and the eggs from the chicken pen. She made a drink called Mors, and I drank a tall glass with the Pastila.

“More Mors please, Mrs. Maria.”

We both laughed at the tongue twister.

The postman showed her how to use the self-timer on the camera. Once she got the hang of it, we created paper memories.

* * *

My face became spotty. I became very cranky once a month. I found it increasingly difficult to squeeze into school yard cliques. My mother gave me keys, banknotes, shopping lists and cleaning instructions, but I didn’t want to stay home alone. My mother worked until the break of day. She was the hotel receptionist, always there to make her guests happy and satisfied with their stay. Come again soon!

I teased my absent mother, but also attempted conversation when I couldn’t sleep. I rang the hotel.

“No woman by that name here, darling,”

I jumped the fence to Mrs. Maria’s, and we watched the four seasons go by. Watched the trees change colour and babies hatch and take their first flight. We named our feathery friends.

While Mrs. Maria, who became Maria, would sit near me while she read a book, I did my homework. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vsevolod Garshin were her favourite authors.

One day I noticed the filigree frames were no longer there. The wooden dolls painted in red, green and yellow seemed melancholy, just like Mrs. Maria when she spoke of her Motherland.

We continued to make Pastila together, but I didn’t need the footstool anymore. I could reach ingredients, use the oven and clean up. She would cut extra slices for my mother.

The camera changed. The self-timer was more sophisticated. We would get in position and created even more memories. We filled many take-up spools as if it were urgent.

I watched as people in grey suits walked out of her house one day after school. When I asked who they were, she walked to the wooden dolls and caressed them. This time, she played with them. Placed one inside another and repeated the action three times.

We were so much alike. We both liked the colour red, we both enjoyed reading and cooking, sugary treats and the warmth of eggs minutes after the chickens laid them. We had a disagreement about winter and summer, but I had never known her winters as I had never felt snow melt between my fingers. Objects and animals surrounded us. People were in short supply.

I understood the time together was ending when the doctor opened her blouse and I saw what looked like a speed hump on her chest. Her beautiful heart needed a little help from science. She had no problems loving, but there was an issue with rhythm. Even here, we were alike. I have no rhythm, but I had much love to give. The problem was some people have a no vacancy sign posted on their chest.

The men in the grey suit didn’t win. Nor did her heart. Cancer got the gold medal in the sport: How to kill people—fast. Hearing, I’ve read, is the last thing to go. I tried to fit so many words in. Small talk, mainly. The rain. The train strike. The For Sale sign between the shrub roses and begonias at number 46.

She left me a big box. I found an old Ushanka hat, the wooden dolls that she used to touch whenever she didn’t want to answer a question I had asked. Filigree frames without photos. The Polaroid and the 35mm. Photos tied in red ribbon, a couple stained with Pastila and Mors, photos that showed me getting taller, Maria getting smaller. And then this:

Deer Gran ma,

I luv you.

She wasn’t my grandma, but she could have been.

Isabelle B.L is a teacher and translator currently living in New Caledonia. She has published a novel inspired by the life of a New Caledonian politician. Her work can be found in the Birth Lifespan Vol. 1 anthology for Pure Slush Books and Flash Fiction Magazine. Her work is also forthcoming in Growing Up Lifespan Vol. 2 for Pure Slush Books, Flash Fiction Magazine and Drunk Monkeys.

Image via Pixabay

The Woman Who Turned To Stone – Elizabeth Smith

It was only by accident that he noticed she had gone from hot to cold, as his hand brushed against her skin in bed one morning. It was not the slight coolness that you would expect when ice licked the ground at night but a coldness which seemed to penetrate to her core. He was reminded of when he visited a wishing well whose waters petrified objects. Dozens of ossified teddy bears hung from nooses in the falling water as proof of its potency. He had still been young enough to sleep with a soft toy, too young to understand the desire to give something up in return for its preservation. His mother had plunged her hand into the well for luck and, after touching her chilled skin, which already felt to him like stone, he had refused to hold her hand for the rest of the day. Now, he felt the same mistrust and wondered if it was something in the water. Hadn’t he always told his wife that she spent too long in the shower?

When he tried to bring the subject up, she gave him a stony look.

The alterations in her appearance were gradual: a stiffening that could have been put down to age; a subtle sheen to the skin that could not. Her movements became slow, graceful even, and more and more he caught himself wondering at her beauty – it was still there, underneath the years that had trodden over and under her skin. Where had the years gone? He tried to remember the last time he had looked at her like this, sifting through distant memories which lay buried beyond the years of hard work and the chasm their children had created. Even the old photo albums could not provide him with any clues; once the children made an appearance, the visual evidence of his wife’s existence almost disappeared.

When had it started? When the last child left home? When he retired? Was it neglect? Inactivity? A protective shell? Perhaps, after many years of watching her dreams turn to stone, she had turned her gaze inwards? She did not seem worried, or at least she didn’t say anything to him. But he found himself looking at her more and more and wondered why he had stopped.

It could have been his mind playing tricks, but he suspected not. His friends commented on how well she was looking whenever they caught sight of her. Her skin was not dull, but gleamed and shimmered in the light; her complexion rivalled that of the bonniest baby. He took her to the golf club dinner for the first time in twenty-odd years and she was the belle of the ball. She declined to dance, not through lack of offers, but stood with a stately elegance while he hovered proudly beside her.

There were drawbacks. She now did a fraction of what she used to, leaving the housework to him. He had to learn to cook, although secretly he quite enjoyed it. There was some satisfaction in seeing a handful of raw ingredients become a finished dish, and the smell and sound of an onion sizzling with some garlic gave him a sense of comfort that he vaguely recalled from an earlier life. He anticipated the slow smile he would get when he presented her with something he had laboured over, and wondered whether he had ever given her such thanks in return.

He worried. Was she in any pain? Would she become completely immobile – unable to move around or even eat? Was it something he could catch? He took her to see a doctor, not long after the night he had noticed something amiss, but he couldn’t bring himself to articulate precisely what he thought was wrong and the doctor merely suggested they get someone in to help with the house. He delayed doing so, not really knowing where to look, and by the time he had thought to ask around for a recommendation he had got used to the looks of approval she bestowed upon his handiwork and to having her all to himself. He had to sacrifice reading the morning papers, and curtail his social life but, as the outside world was no longer able to hold his attention, this was no hardship.

The statue of his wife was all he looked at now, every line and crease chiselled so carelessly by himself and the children. It made him cry. He would do anything to turn back time so that he could do better. No sculptor gets it right on their first attempt, but he should have tried harder.

He tried now. Every day he tried with the sacrifices he made, the offerings he left at her feet. And he was rewarded with eyes which tried to smile, lips whose whispered words he couldn’t quite catch, embraces that no longer felt heavy. At night he drew close to keep her warm and listened to her heart beat steadily, louder by the day. It sounded like it was trying to escape. Most nights were spent tracking the rise and fall of her stony chest as though his own life depended on it, as she had done with each of their children.

After a while the husband realised there was no longer any change in his wife’s condition. She seemed to him happier, although he knew that the interpretation of art is always subjective. And when he looked at her now, he wondered whether she had really changed at all: her beauty had always been there if only he had looked; the slow deliberateness of her movements impossible to see until he himself stopped moving; her coldness, understandable. She had solidified into the person she had always been, there was no miracle.

It was he who had been sculpted into someone else, she who had achieved the improbable.

Elizabeth Smith is a full-time mother and occasional writer who lives in Scotland. She has been published in Firewords Magazine and placed third in the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2021. When she’s not chasing after her two young children she enjoys reading, running and daydreaming. She tweets @Smithinamillion.

Image via Pixabay

360° Review – Nicole Lee

I’d hate to leave
any uncertainty regarding our position:
yet if you still have
any questions in that department,
I’ll take them offline, as well as
your contemplative stare,
that pins me through with
something like love.

Something like love
that pins me through, with
your contemplative stare:
I’ll take them offline, as well as
any questions in that department…
Yet, if you still have
any uncertainty regarding our position,
I’d hate to leave.

Nicole Lee was born in Kuala Lumpur and educated at Malvern and Oxford. She has worked as a banker in Hong Kong and London and now lives in Wandsworth, works in Kew and writes poetry. She has been published in various online journals and long-listed in the National Poetry Competition.

Image via Pixabay

Black Boots And Barbie Dolls – Kay Rae Chomic

The rubber soles of Zora’s black boots issued no sound on the tarmac and eased the pressure in her joints. The cold December night had required layers of clothing. She’d remove the parka with the Beretta in its pocket upon entering her helicopter. Zora’s stride matched the pace of Santiago, the pilot, whom she had just met. His role was to fly her to a safe house, then deliver the body to a hideout.

Weeks ago, Zora had told her boss: “This is my last job. Cash up front. An endless flow of drugs to let me live pain free.”

“Okay, but you’ll miss it. Fifty-two is too young to retire.”

“My body feels 82, André. It’s time you lead, and without me. There are others who can do what I do.”

Zora had skills out of his reach: sharp shooting, languages, piloting, disguises. She excelled at disposing of bodies. André, the schmoozer, had contacts, and wrote contracts. He laundered money, and invested wisely. They had been an effective team.

As she and Santiago climbed into the cockpit, he said, “I’m glad you killed the bastard. That family needed to lose their only son and feel some of the pain they’ve caused.” He spat on the body bag zipped tight, and spread out on the back seats. She ignored that insult. What this pilot and her boss did not know was that Zora loved that family better than her own. Zora staged their son’s murder, placed a swimsuited Barbie doll—her signature—in the crux of his arm, ensured TV coverage. Her boss wanted the body for leverage—the specifics of which she did not want to know.

In the cockpit, before buckling, as she wriggled her arms out of her jacket, she flipped the gun’s safety off and said to Santiago, “Who is coming on your left?” He turned and probably felt only a thump to the back of his head before death.

Zora’s cheeks burned, a familiar flush after an assassination.

She rushed to unzip the body bag and free Luca Fontana. He kissed her neck and lips. “Grazie, mia cara.”

Together at last, but she had to keep a cool head.

“Dobbiamo aspettare, amore mio.” We must wait, my love.

His breath, a tang of garlic and cigar, made her think about her present for him—a German antique guillotine cigar cutter. She’d give it to him later along with a box of mints.

They hefted Santiago into the body bag, placed the Barbie doll inside his bomber jacket, and would later shove his body into the Ligurian Sea.

Fitting, she thought—that was her last Barbie doll of her childhood collection, and this was her last job.

When Santiago’s body washed ashore and the Barbie doll-murder publicity went viral, her boss—her brother—would know of her betrayal. Luca had even better access to the drugs she needed, and a talent for disappearing.

Kay Rae Chomic is a novelist (A Tight Grip), and writer of flash: Ellipsis Zine, Every Day Fiction, Hundred Heroines, Retreat West (shortlisted), LISP (semi-finalist), The Dribble Drabble Review, Storgy Magazine, Crack the Spine, Five:2:One, 50-Word Stories. Kay lives in Seattle dodging raindrops.

Image via Pixabay

Don’t – Aaron J. Housholder

John drove with the windows open because the night air was cool and because the countryside was quiet after the loud night at Bear’s Tavern. And because, maybe, he’d had a few too many. Probably shouldn’t be driving tonight, he thought, but the county roads were empty this late on a Thursday, and anyway there’s nothing out here but cornfields and he wasn’t drunk enough, not even close, really, to miss the turns he needed to take. The roads out here were a perfect grid, with crossroads every mile, all numbered according to their distance from the center of the county. John’s car veered only a little to the left when he gave a mock salute to the 800 West sign for telling him just where he was.

He admitted to himself that he may indeed have had too much Bud Light when he saw the next sign. He could have sworn it said 783 West, which made no sense at all. He pushed the brake pedal, belatedly checking his rearview to insure no one was behind him. The road was all his. He peered up through the windshield at the numbers on the sign, barely illuminated by his headlights. The sign did indeed read 783 West. It was not a cross road. The cornfield to his left remained unbroken. But to his right a little one-lane road moved off into the darkness, surrounded on both sides with corn yet to be detasseled and almost tall enough to cover the sign. John wasn’t quite sure how he had missed this road before. He had come this way every night for years, headed from his job at the junk yard to his house just off of 450 East. Again, he thought, maybe too much Bud Light, but I’m gonna drive down this road. He turned right.

Through his open windows John could hear the gentle rustling of the corn stalks as he eased down 783 West. In places the corn leaves brushed the fenders of his car, a gentle papery caress. The corn didn’t quite meet overhead, but even so, the road felt like a tunnel. He cruised at fifteen, hunched forward, his face level with the top of the steering wheel because he needed, for some reason he couldn’t discern, to see the sky. The road narrowed until the papery caress on each side was constant.

At the exact moment the road widened slightly, or rather the corn moved back from the road edges, John detected the aroma of cooking meat. Off to the right, in a small clearing, John saw the faint glow of what looked to be a campfire. In shadowy relief a man sat near the fire, leaning forward in the posture of one fishing. He held a stick over the fire, presumably cooking. There were dusky shapes and mounds and jutting black angles around and behind the silhouetted figure. John brought his car to a gentle stop and killed the engine.

There was no good reason to leave the car and approach the man near the fire, but John did. The smell of roasting meet was appealing, as was the quiet crackle of the flames. Bear’s Tavern had been a bit too bright and a lot too loud, the boys tying one on like usual on Thursday night to get a start on the weekend. John found the cool air and small fire inviting.

“Have a seat,” the man at the fire said. His posture did not change and his head did not appear to move. He did, though, rotate the stick in his hand, turning the meat. John could not see the man’s face in the flickering light, nor could he identify what was on the stick. He sat down on what felt like a wooden box.

Both men sat quietly. John looked at the fire and breathed deeply, trying to clear his head. After a moment he glanced around at the slow-dancing shadows. The mounds and angles around him appeared to be the remains of a house. He could see a four-square window standing unsupported where he assumed there used to be a wall. He guessed that maybe the house burned down, though it was too dark to know for sure. Perhaps the fire in front of him was suggestive.

As though he read John’s thoughts, the man said, “Yes, this was my house.”

John nodded in the darkness.

The man turned the meat over again.

“Clear night,” John said, after a moment. The stars shone brightly as they only do in the country.

“Some are,” the man said.

The aroma of the meat took on the darker fragrance of burnt flesh. The man turned the stick once more.

After a quiet moment, the dark man said, “What do you do?”

The subject of work had been, as it always was, the subject of conversation and consternation at Bear’s. John was loathe to get into it again, but didn’t want to be rude.

“Work over at the junkyard,” he said.

The man nodded. “Ass end of the car food chain,” he said.

“I was saying that same thing tonight,” John said. “We get the dead ones, and we tear them apart and sell the pieces.”

“I worked there too,” the man said. He waved his hand, the one not holding the stick. It was his first expressive gesture. “Worked there forever. Long time ago.”

“It’s about all there is out here,” John said. Again, this was the subject at Bear’s. The new cars, the boys at the bar lamented, they’re sold and bought down on the north side of the city, a hundred miles from here. They’re driven to the second-rate towns fifty miles away, then sold as used junkers and driven out into the country, and finally dropped off at the junkyards. John had visions of people buying these shitkickers in these small farming towns and driving them straight to the junkyard, without even a stop at the Walmart in between. He knew it probably didn’t happen quite like that, but on a dark Thursday at Bear’s, that’s what it felt like. His job was to wait for the inevitable piece of shit to fall apart in his yard, a hunk of metal somehow worth less than the sum of its parts.

“Feels like vulture work,” John said.

“Honest vulture work, though,” the man said.

John shrugged.

“Not what I thought I’d be doing at this point,” he said.

“Tell me about it,” the man said.

The meat now smelled entirely burned, but the man still held it over the fire.

“You retired from the junkyard?” John asked.

The man waved that away. “Been a long time, as I said.”

“What happened to your house?” John said.

The man said nothing.

The meat on the stick caught on fire. The flare of flame startled John, gave him a retinal glare. The man sat still and turned the meat again. The fire crawled around the meat, fully engulfing it.

“I think it’s done,” John said.

The man was silent and still.

“What happened to your house?” John asked again.

“Don’t,” the man said. The meat sputtered and crackled. A small tendril of flame, maybe attached to some skin, fell from the stick.

John shifted on his box. He thought about getting up and leaving. Whatever Bud Light buzz he’d had was gone.

“They told us we’d never go anywhere,” the man said quietly. The stench of burnt flesh was strong now. “And they were right. What is there to do out here in these fields? Didn’t want to farm. So we started that junkyard, all those years ago.” He shook his head. “Replacement truck parts and tractor parts and all the rest. Ass end of the food chain. But that’s what we had.” The burnt piece of meat finally fell off the stick. The man held the stick in the fire for a moment, turning it every so often, charring the naked end. Then with sudden violence he yanked the stick from the fire and jammed it into the darkness beside him. John heard a sickening crunch. The man raised the stick once more and held a new piece of meat over the fire, still wriggling. Its shape was undiscernible.

John remained seated on his box but moved a few inches away. The darkness of the field or meadow around him had deepened as he looked at the fire. He could no longer see his car, could barely see the stars, could feel but not really see the debris around him. The man near the fire remained in stationary shadow. The aroma of freshly roasting meat once more filled the air, coupled with the smell of burnt hair and accompanied by the crackle of the fire and the sizzle of fat. John couldn’t think of a single word to say. He scooted away further.

“Don’t,” the man said again. “There’s nowhere to go out there.”

Then, after another moment of silence, he spoke once more.

“I got another stick here, if you want it.”

Aaron J. Housholder teaches writing and literature at a small liberal arts university. His work has appeared in The Molotov Cocktail, Cheap Pop, Barren Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, and elsewhere. He serves as the Fiction Editor for Relief Journal. You can find him on Twitter @ProfAJH.

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The Coward’s Apology – Mike Hickman

Only an idiot would think that this counted as an apology.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

Brendan Remnant’s trembling hand pushed up at the sash window. He might not have been altogether certain how he had got this far, but he had done his research. Mostly via movies on YouTube, none of which had featured driving rain or insecure drainpipes. Nonetheless, he wasn’t far off the action hero look he’d had in mind at the start of the evening. If said action hero had let himself go a bit in the girth department. And if he was very, very afraid of heights.

“Move, damn you.”

Parcel clamped hard under his armpit, its contents almost certainly compromised by the heat and the sweat and the rain, Brendan again failed to avoid looking at the ground. Below him was a swaying expanse of broken-up concrete filled with bins, bikes and abandoned shopping trolleys. He wondered which of these would cause the most damage when he landed, as he most assuredly would, any moment soon.

He had fallen before, though, Brendan told himself. Maybe it hadn’t been quite as bad as the literal fall he was going to suffer if he couldn’t get the window open, but…

Who the hell was he kidding?

Come on, Brendan, forget the height, he told himself. You’ve had worse.

You’ve been threatened with worse, too.

If I catch the bloody idiot responsible for this, I’ll skin him alive.

Like those words, for example. The therapists had told him, when he had let them tell him anything at all, to stop thinking about Bev. They’d told him that he was hurting himself twice over by fixating on her words when he’d sent the flowers and the card. They’d told him about the “second arrow”; and how, by replaying her comments, he was effectively firing it straight at himself. But, then, they’d mistaken him for someone who didn’t understand what they were saying, as opposed to someone who no longer cared.

No, Brendan thought, as his gloved hands slid once again from the paintwork. He did care. He cared enough to know that, whatever happened here, he deserved it. He’d take their second arrow, alright. And a third, fourth, or fifth if it did something to quell the pseudo-intellectualising about his many failings. If it just made everything stop.

Brendan shoved again at the window. For a moment, he seemed certain to lose his balance, certain to fall to the concrete below, certain to find himself looking up at the blue lights approaching. Because they were never very far away.

The parcel slid from its already uncomfortable position. If he lost it, he would have to climb the drainpipe all over again. Only an idiot would try this the once, he knew that. Twice and he was going to have to add a new label to the collection of insults he’d been awarded over the years.

The window really ought to have moved by now. He could see that the catch at the top of the frame wasn’t across. All he had to do was get some purchase – any purchase – and he would be well away. Or, at least, well onto part two of tonight’s shouldn’t-even-be-doing-this-anyway enterprise.

A third shove. A proper shove. Out and up. Reaching further than before, and why not? If anyone round these parts knew about overreaching, it was Brendan Remnant.

Only an idiot would think that this counted as an apology. That’s what she’d said. When he’d last tried.

Well, let’s see about that, Brendan thought. Let’s see how much of an idiot he was if he got through this.

“Oooof.”

14 out-of-condition stone of not exactly muscle collided heavily with the brickwork. One hand was now wedged into a growing gap between window and frame. The other grasped the drainpipe tighter still as he shifted his weight further towards the window. Towards the sill that needed to accommodate him and his bulk if he could just get his knees that bit higher. If he could just force himself through the fear.

“Please, just give me this much, God, and I promise I’ll never trouble you again.”

And up the window went. Brendan was now flat now against the wall, legs hanging free, cheap over-size shoes as ever threatening to slip straight off, and – for a moment – he was as worried about losing them as he was about falling. But then he found that his right hand was as firm as it would ever be on the perilously wet sill, and then his left stopped its frantic flailing and finally came across to join its partner in actual crime. There was a chance here. He might make it.

The parcel slipped again. A good few inches this time. Any further and it would drop. Brendan thought that his jacket, done up tighter than his former bail conditions, might well hold it if it escaped his armpit entirely, but he didn’t want to bet on it. His luck didn’t work that way.

He knew that now, and maybe part of him was banking on it failing him once again. The part of him that, even now, wondered how it would be to just let himself Fall.

Still, the quicker he was in, the better. In, across the bedroom, down the stairs, into the front room, and away. It all sounded so easy put that way. In bullet points, perhaps. On a PowerPoint. The kind of environment that used to suit him, and that he knew he could never return to. Not after what he had done and what had brought him here, clutching his precious box of Milk Tray.

The cheap apology to a woman he had never met. On behalf of the man in the pub who couldn’t say sorry to her.

And trusted the man who would forever be sorry, but could never apologise for what he had done.

Because Bev had never told him.

And he had never been brave enough to ask.

Mike Hickman (@MikeHicWriter) is a writer from York, England. He has written for Off the Rock Productions (stage and audio), including 2018’s “Not So Funny Now” about Groucho Marx and Erin Fleming. He has recently been published in EllipsisZine, Dwelling Literary, Bandit Fiction, Nymphs, Flash Fiction Magazine, Brown Bag, and Safe and Sound Press. His co-written, completed six-part BBC radio sit com remains unproduced but available to interested producers!

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This Is a Story About That Can of Tuna You Left on the Counter – Melissa Llanes Brownlee

Did you leave it for me to find? A trophy of your successful hunt through our bare pantry. Left for me to marvel at your ability to fend for yourself. Its jagged lid, torn away by the ancient ten cent can opener you bought at a garage sale trying to save money, propped up by a crooked sliver you decided wasn’t worth the manual labor to remove.

The spoon is where you left it too, the bowl half-buried in oil-soaked remains, the bent handle jutting out almost parallel to our marbled Formica counter, another cheap garage sale find. Why didn’t you finish it? I had made rice. Then again, I like tuna on hot rice. Not you.

You could have put the whole can in the fridge like you’ve done before. The smell permeating the shells of eggs, the sides of condiments, the carton of milk so much so that I had to clean the entire thing on the one night I was free, wishing I was on a beach back home with no worries or cares.

Now, the smell blankets our small kitchen with no windows to open as I dump what’s left into the over-filled trashcan you haven’t emptied yet. I wash it out, bending and straightening the lid to pop it off, as you knew I would, placing the split pieces on the counter to dry.

Melissa Llanes Brownlee is a native Hawaiian writer, living in Japan. She received her MFA from UNLV and has fiction published and forthcoming in The Citron Review, Waxwing, Milk Candy Review, Claw & Blossom, Bending Genres, The Lumiere Review, (mac)ro(mic), and elsewhere. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at http://www.melissallanesbrownlee.com

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Tangled In Scaled Tails – Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon

Last night, I dreamt of rats, rats white and grey:
some tiny, some as large as domestic cats.
Locked in my home, frozen in candlelight,
no sooner had one pair scurried off

than another entered – dropped down
with its pregnant mate –

from gnawed-through ceiling plaster,
narrowly missing my petrified head.
Incisors flashed: sharp and ivory-white.
Intelligent ‘we know you’ eyes
stared me out, pierced
my sanity.

I woke up sweat-soaked, heart pumping –
flung open my bedroom casement,
and bathed in ice-cold air.

Relieved, and strangely aroused, my hand soothed my body –

until I heard
rodent feet scratching
behind the skirting board,
skirmishing in my attic.

Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon, [MA Creative Writing, Newcastle 2017] lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and writes short stories and poetry. She has been widely published in web magazines and in print anthologies. She is a Pushcart (2019 & 2020) and Forward Prize (2019) nominee. She believes everyone’s voice counts.

Image via Pixabay