I’d braced myself for take-off more tightly than usual; her cursory pre-flight checks, the way she flicked switches and tapped dials unnerved me. The ancient Piper Cub bounced across the grass, revving too hard, its skittishness mirroring her mania to see the wave. Continue Reading
I crane my neck looking over my shoulder, trying to see my back in the bathroom mirror. It’s hard enough normally, but I barely have room, what with the delicate wings sprouting from my shoulder blades. Continue Reading
Every night’s the same. The lights turn off, one by one, until there is nothing but a single spotlight above my cage. They use the light to stop me from ripping their heads off. Continue Reading
I grab a thick “Build-a-bod” pamphlet from the coffee table and mindlessly flip through, rereading material that I have been internalizing for the last few months. I mindlessly run my thumb over a before and after picture collage. Continue Reading
It was stunning, an absolute marvel, so much so that if Chrissy wasn’t already cold to the core from the rain she would have felt a chill run down her spine. The statue was uncanny. Too lifelike. Continue Reading
I approach quickly, thinking I’ve left my phone on the mantlepiece. I bump into the couch as I rush forward and at my yelp a whisper comes from the light. Continue Reading
The eyes of Medusa blaze.
Many come for the last of the Gorgons. All will fail. Continue Reading
On his deathbed, my father begged me to listen without interruption and whispered a tale I could scarcely believe.
This is the story he told me… Continue Reading
Alejandro held Elmer’s hand as they walked amongst the black pines. They reached the yew tree Alejandro had nurtured since childhood. He leaned Elmer against the black twisted bark, drained a kiss from his beloved’s lips, and produced a golden ring from his finger. Continue Reading
Captain Roone Cong flipped through the contract. A bundle of papers—old school—easier to destroy than electronic files. Roone stopped at a recent picture of a girl-almost-woman with lank black hair. She took after her mother. Still frail and lily-white, like a snowdrop after a late May frost. Continue Reading
Oxygen puffs through the perforation in my throat, piped in by the ventilator. A tube whisks my piss away; IVs and snaking drains proliferate like bacteria. Continue Reading
She delicately dips her toes in the darkening pool before her, and sheds her skin once more. The cool waters rush up to meet her, taking the last of her breath away. Continue Reading
The sun’s finally let go of the old window by the time Ema brings a chalky hand up close, so close, cupping the cheek and pressing dry lips against dryer ones. It doesn’t feel like how she’d imagined it with Angela and her smiling, always-chattering mouth, but Ema can dream and wish and hope. Continue Reading
In the gloaming of the year, when trees’ bark shrinks and holds fast to the mighty trunk; when the life-filled woods are stripped of those merry, clamorous sounds which bespeak a nature of anything but gloom; when all the shade-giving leaves are robbed from the canopy and replaced instead with an ever-present atmosphere of shade-ridden air, oppressive and dank… Continue Reading
I never meshed with the crew. That’s why they asked me to be the one to stay awake for the last leg of our journey. Continue Reading
The silence is absolute, as if time never began here and never will. How can I describe it? As if a wall of glass has been placed by the great hand of a God in the midst of the forest, and no living thing may pass. Continue Reading
Jiala made eye contact, and Barclay flinched. All sensation fell away but discomfort: stomach clench of a malevolent gaze, bone chill of a too-wide smile. More visceral than a person with insides of glass should feel, and that bothered him most of all. Continue Reading