Ugly duckling

By Michael A. Kechula


Twenty minutes after Liz ingested the small blue pill, she was thrilled with her new appearance.

"I always wanted to become a beautiful mermaid," she said, peering into a mirror.

Heading to the Pacific Ocean in her rusted Yugo, she couldn't wait to join the mermaid community.

Unfortunately, they rejected her. "To be a member," they said, "you gotta be born in the ocean. You weren't. Get lost."

Fleeing with filthy curse words ringing in her ears, she spotted the Golden Gate Bridge. Climbing to the top, she decided to hurl herself onto the jagged rocks below.

While she tottered on a girder, passersby spotted her. A crowd quickly gathered.

"Look at that weird thing on top of the bridge," a woman yelled. "What the hell is it?"

"Looks like a damn alien to me!" a guy answered. "Jump you freak!"

The growing crowd chanted the guy's words dozens of times.

Liz was only too happy to accommodate them. As closed her eyes and spread her arms, she heard somebody calling. "Hey, up there. What are you?"

Looking below, she saw ten dolphins. One had a megaphone.

"I'm a mermaid. But I used to be a woman. I took a pill I bought through an ad in the Weekly Tattler. It turned me into a mermaid."

"You're very beautiful," the dolphin said. "Why are you jumping?"

"I can't live with humans the way I look. Listen to the nasty names they're calling me. Even the mermaid community rejected me. Nobody wants me. I'm gonna throw myself on the rocks."

"Don't. It'll hurt. And you'll end up a gooey mess. Go to the other side of the bridge. There ain't any rocks there. When you jump, you'll fall into the water. Then you can join us. We swim, and play all day. We're on our way to Hawaii. Then we're off to Tahiti. Come along. We're gonna have lotsa fun."

"You really want me?"

"Yep."

"You don't care that I'm a mermaid who used to be a woman?"

"Nope."

"Okay, I'll join you guys. You won't be sorry for taking me in. I'm a good cook. And I know first aid in case your fins get cut or something. I'm gonna go to the other side of the bridge, then I'll jump. Gimme a couple minutes to switch sides."

Her new friends swam to the other side and waited.

Soon, Liz was atop the highest girder on the opposite side.

"Before I jump, I want everybody to know I was an ugly duckling. Nobody ever loved me. I spent my life savings on a pill to become a beautiful mermaid. I thought once I became one, everybody would love me for sure. That didn't happen. Now I hate everybody. Especially all you bastards down there who want me to jump onto the rocks. People stink! But these wonderful dolphins care!”

She spread her arms and jumped.

Halfway down, she saw ten sharks shedding their dolphin costumes.


Copyright ©2008, 2011 Michael A. Kechula. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published in Clockwise Cat magazine (issue 11) in 2008.

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If you like the above story, check out this Michael Kechula-penned tale, Let's trade, published on this site in October 2011.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Michael A. Kechula’s flash/micro tales have appeared in 143 magazines and 43 anthologies. He's won eighteen writing contests. Four of his books are published as eBooks and paperbacks: A Full Deck of Zombies - 61 Speculative Fiction Tales; The Area 51 Option and 70 More Speculative Fiction Tales; I Never Kissed Judy Garland and Other Tales of Romance; Writing Genre Flash Fiction The Minimalist Way - A Self Study Book. Ebooks at www.BooksForABuck.com. Paperbacks at www.amazon.com.

**Jim Harrington published an interview with me on his Six Questions For. . . site

Jim Harrington, whose story, The good lie, graced this site, published an interview with me on his Six Questions For. . . site on December 26, 2011.

The interview was in regards to this site.

Here's the link for the interview.

Jim's site is a great resource for working authors. Check it out, if you're inclined and have the time!

Meat, spuds and turnips

By Rayna Bright


There’s Annie in the basement with the shovel. The six kids are locked outside ˗ left to play in the bare dirt with a splintered cricket bat and a piece of Quartz.

Annie stamps her bare feet on the dirt flattening the small mound. She spits, smiles, and drags planks of wood over it.

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"Supper’s ready," she shouts.

"What is it?" they chorus, their faces reddened by the early evening chill.

"How about meat, spuds and turnips?" she replies, a twinkle in her eye.

"Oooooh, meat," they chime, their eyes round like saucers. They never have meat.

"Where’s Dad?" the youngest one pipes up.

"At the pub."

Their father’s boots are lying near the basement door and Billy kicks them under the table before the younger kids notice. He didn’t believe his Mum’s stories about her black eyes. How could anyone fall down stairs so often?

"Look out for bones," she warns, calmly scooping spoonful’s from the simmering pot onto their tin plates.

"Dad’ll be surprised," the youngest one says to no-one in particular.

"Surprised alright!" She replies, sucking on a bone and brushing a wet strand of hair from her forehead.


Copyright ©2011 Rayna Bright. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Rayna is a keen reader and writer of short fiction with several stories published in Anthologies. She lives on the North coast of NSW with her husband, and finds inspiration for her stories while walking their Labrador on the beach.

Weber-o-lantern

By Thomas Michael McDade


Weber closed his eyes a moment then began picking apart his dead cigar. “They should have gotten a new stone instead of spackling my name and using the other side for the Vietnam dead.”

“They said they were short of money,” said Pat. “What were you doing out there today, anyway? Not much chance destroying it with a tack hammer and broken chisel.”

“Destroy hell, rebirth! I planned to chisel out the filler in my name and add “Jr.” He’s the hero. That’s why he’s beaming. Two of his victims were Legionnaires! He’s avenged me,” said Weber making a fist in the air.

“Bullshit, Weber, I know him too well to believe that,” said Pat, wiping his brow with his handkerchief.

“You don’t know shit, Pat,” said Weber, enraged. “All you know is what you’ve heard in confessionals and on your talk show phones. Did you know your shitty radio station fades twenty damned miles away? Your world was all talk until June introduced pussy. Did you ever think she might have been a whore in another life, learned all that good fucking in Babylon?”

Pat shot up and kicked Weber in the side. He gasped and curled up on the floor. Pat stood over him. A cop gazed through the bars. “Want a club, Mr. Hunter?”

“Not yet,” answered Pat.

“Better take it, Pat. Sissy Eyetie loafers won’t do the trick.”

“You’re pitiful,” said Pat. I don’t know why I wasted my time.”

Weber held out his rosary cross sword to Pat. “Carve your name in the wall, Father Pat. Everybody’s guilty! Doing time symbolically is better penance in a pinch. Even a name painted many times over will remain. Something of you will stay. It’s the palimpsest advantage. That word might pop up in a crossword someday: “‘Used Papyrus’ will be the clue.”

“Take your pop philosophy and shove it,” said Pat.

“I’m just a parrot, Pat. I learned it from one of your callers. You probably only remember what you say.”

“Didn’t help you, did it, scum?” raged Pat.

“Hey, Father Fuck-my-wife, tell Weber Jr. I’m the proudest daddy alive.”

Pat kicked Weber in the face and was gone. Weber cried for a while. He broke the crucifix off his rosary, made a belt out of the beads. The kick had knocked one of the teeth off his bridge.

“It’s a fucking Weber o’ lantern I am!” he shouted.

“Shut-up, piece o’ shit,” yelled the cop.

Weber tried to remember if he had whisky in his room over the Laundromat. He imagined showing up at his son’s trial in his Army uniform, some fat fuck of a judge on the bench who couldn’t get an ankle in his.

After three tries, he was able to stand. He wanted to pace the night away but he was in too much pain. He held the crucifix up to a fly buzzing the ceiling light and he saw a clear solution. Sitting down at the wall with the least writing, he carved a replica of the Vietnam Monument. He etched Weber Scanlon Jr. on it. He closed his eyes like a graveyard mourner.

In a burst of goodwill, he inscribed June’s name to the left of his version of the Memorial. What the hell, he included Pat, the dead Legionnaires and every Red Sox player he could recall.

Occasionally, he prayed a bead or two on his rosary belt. He truly believed that good works alone could not slip a man through the pearly gates.


Copyright ©2011 Thomas Michael McDade. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Thomas Michael McDade lives in Monroe, CT, married, no kids or pets. A computer programmer in Meriden, CT, he writes and maintains software used in the wholesale / retail plumbing supply field. He served two hitches in the U.S. Navy. He is the author of three poetry chaps: E Pluribus Aluminum, Liquid Paper Press, Austin, TX; Our Wounds, Pitchfork Press, also Austin; and Thrill and Swill, Kendra Steiner Editions, San Antonio, TX.

**I will be 'guest editor' on the popular Leodegraunce site for their May 2012 issue

For the month of May 2012 I will be guest editor on the Leodegraunce site (which pays $5 per accepted story). The writing theme for that month is Cinema, as in: movies.

Associate editor Gary Russell will be reading my 4-5 final selections, to ensure that the stories are exactly that – in short: don’t send scenes, make sure there’s a plot arc in your work(s).

The popular Leodegraunce, normally edited by Jolie Du Pre and Gary (thanks, guys!), publishes 200-words-or-less microfiction. And your work(s) must be 200 words or less (word count doesn’t include title and by-line). Any works, even an excellent 201-word story, will be rejected automatically, due to the high number of submissions the site receives every month.

Note that the site allows authors to submit as many flashers (200 word stories) as they want per theme/month.

Get those stories written and submission-ready – May will be here before we know it - and let your imaginations run riot: anybody who knows me knows I’m open to different ideas, wild, mild or in between as they may be. Make sure you read Leodegraunce's site and guidelines before you submit any stories.

In the meantime, Leodegraunce's theme for their January 2012 issue is freedom; the deadline for this issue is December 31, 2011.

Scarred

By Baird Nuckolls



I still have the scar. I think about it every year when the weather turns cold and the leaves start to fall. We buy a pumpkin and I help the boys draw spooky faces and cut them out. When they were very small, their dad and I did the work of cutting and sawing through orange shell and paler flesh. They got to scoop out the seeds. Their little hands were good for that and besides, they loved the slimy feel of the seeds in their pulpy webbing.

When they were old enough to hold the knives themselves, I tried to encourage thinking outside the box, to distract them from the knife. How about painting the pumpkins? We could decorate them with feathers and leaves, using the hot glue gun. It never worked. I don't know why that seemed safer to me than knives, but burns are better than blood. Because there can be a lot of blood.

I was four and a half. Old enough to keep a secret. My brother, six, thought he was old enough to carve the pumpkin himself. We were out in the garage; Mom was doing laundry and not paying much attention. Keith got the boning knife from the kitchen drawer. He let me draw the eyes and the nose, but he drew its jagged row of teeth.

I sat, in rapt attention, as he muscled the pumpkin between his bare knees, the black face leering up at him. His arm came up and in a flash, the knife descended, impaled in the middle of one eye. He sawed away, grunting as he turned his hand to make the circle. The knife slid through the flesh easily.

“I want to do one.”

“No, I'm doing this bit.”

I scooted closer, the toes of my Keds nearly touching his leg. I leaned forward, pushing my bangs out of my eyes. He moved on to the second eye. This one was larger; I wasn't good at drawing both eyes the same. Again the arm came high, again the knife was buried in the pumpkin. I imagined the tinny screams of the dying pumpkin, and giggled as he cut out the second eye, then the nose.

When he started on the mouth, I rose onto my knees. “Please, let me try.” I reached for the knife, but he held it above my head.

“Un-uh.”

“I'll tell Mom what you’re doing.” I rose to my feet, pretending I meant to get our mother. I wanted to do the cutting, not get him into trouble. But he didn't know that.

“Okay. But be careful.” He handed me the knife, handle first, and wiped his hands on his shorts.

Filled with my childish power, I bent over the pumpkin that still rested between his knees. I raised the knife over my head, like he did, but when I brought it down, it skittered off the pumpkin, not even scratching the surface.

Keith tried to wrest it from me. “You had a turn.”

I held it away from him. “I'm not done.”

Tongue caught between my teeth, I steadied the pumpkin with one hand and raised the knife again. The knife came down and I felt searing pain in my hand. The knife was buried in the pumpkin between my fingers, but things were not all right. I lifted my left hand to inspect what I'd done.

The knife had bisected my middle finger, down to the bone. I held my palm to my face and saw the white knuckle of the middle joint gleaming in the sea of blood that cascaded from my finger. I screamed. Keith jumped up and ran for Mom. I stood over the pumpkin, dripping blood, still screaming.

Our mother came running. She scooped me up and took me to the bathroom, where she cleaned and bandaged my hand. I don't remember being taken to any doctor for stitches. I don't even remember being punished for attempting to carve the pumpkin without adult supervision. All I remember, when I look at the thin white line crossing my finger like a ring, is the flash of the knife and the blood.


Copyright ©2011 Baird Nuckolls. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out Baird’s other stories, published on this site: Chickens roosting in the trees, He Preferred Red and Jet lagged.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Baird Nuckolls continues to cut herself occasionally with sharp knives; it's a known hazard, but it's worth the risk. She lives and writes in Northern California.

A hint of wind

By Erik Svehaug


The young priest cut the outboard engine half a mile from Horseshoe Bay off the Marin Headlands. He had no fishing pole, no crab pots. He spent most Mondays off from his stagnant ministry in this rowboat.

He tipped the engine up and back, put the oars in their locks, let the blades hang in the water. He waited, bow pointed across open water toward old San Francisco. Outside the mouth of the Bay, the barren Farallons called and the immense Pacific offered to take him. The boat drifted dully.

He closed his eyes. His seminary enthusiasm had met polite tolerance. He just couldn’t engage these natives with roots as old as the Bible. Power-Points were useless.

Small waves licked the side of the boat; the hungrier ones slapped it.

He had to do something physical. Every time he opened his mouth, platitudes came out. Tom, Rosa and the others knew it without saying so. They had learned something key, without schooling. He blushed. He had introduced Peter, the New Testament fisherman, certain the story would resonate with them. So wrong.

Eyes tightly shut, he pulled on one oar and pushed against the other, turning the boat again and again, until he lost internal count. He sat still. Where was he pointed now? Toward the shipping lanes? Toward home? Up toward Angel Island or out through the Golden Gate?

He had to give his mind away and trust his body to learn what these Miwok reflected in their calm, their touch, their eyes. He suddenly saw Jesus and His father Joseph in a new light. God Himself had put aside everything He created: Relativity, photosynthesis, amniotic fluids, angels and souls, to learn woodworking from a human carpenter. Before He ministered, He made furniture; before He gathered His disciples, He sharpened chisels. Joseph had shown the God of the Heavens, the I AM, something central about being fully human.

The priest had discovered that ages ago natives in reed boats had crossed the fog-filled Bay at night without getting lost. Eyes closed, he waited now as though in storm darkness, to sense the pull of the tide and the push of the currents, to differentiate the slap of the wind wave from the shove of the ground swells. Let me get this, he begged. Lead me to Lime Point. Show me.

The incoming tide was slacking. Since he was a quarter mile from the Point, the tide would eddy counter-clockwise. The wind had been out of the Southwest, so that would tend to take him landward. He felt the breeze in his hair and on his jacket, sensed his movement in the water.

He unfurled his tense brows without opening his eyes and rowed with deep strokes. Idiot priest runs into lighthouse, he thought.

After five minutes, he suspended his oars. The sea was trying to turn him from the bow. The wind was at the back of his head. Was that a rebound wave, starboard, off of the cliffs at the point?

He rowed again. His mantra was: Empty Me, Empty Me.

For ten more minutes of dip and pull, he was surrounded by blow, thump and sway. He suddenly stopped, shipped his oars and opened his eyes. He looked left quickly. Not too much open water separated him from a small rocky beach, a cliff, and Lime Point! He caught his breath; his eyes bulged.

He fished his cell phone out, wanting to tell somebody. After many moments, he slipped it back in his pocket. He could think of no one to call.


Copyright ©2011 Erik Svehaug. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Erik Svehaug works a day job at a picturesque Santa Cruz lumberyard and writes when he can seize the time. He loves his wife and two inspiring daughters. He was recently on patrol with Spanish leatherjackets in an anthology called Villainy, in ancient Greece with The 22 Magazine, and soon will be in Qarrtsiluni, Vagabondage Press, 2011 Binnacle UltraShorts, a Hall Brothers series, and on a Tales of Old podcast.

Contact him at esvehaug@gmail.com or eriksvehaug.wordpress.com

**One of my stories, Trust, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

Trust, a noir-nasty sex tale inspired by the work of Jim Thompson, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site.

Trust was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association site in June 2001, under the nom de plume “Qi Fear”. It was later republished under my real name in my 2010 anthology Charge of the scarlet b-sides: microsex stories & poems.

**Richard Cody’s poem, Haunted, was republished on the Phantom Kangaroo site

Richard Cody, whose microstories – Alice and Lisa - appeared on this site, has republished another powerful poem, Haunted, in issue 13 of Phantom Kangaroo.

This poem was originally published in one of Richard's poetry anthologies, This is Not My Heart.

Check out his work, and these sites, if you’re so inclined and have the time!

The wizard of the airport

By Matthew Dexter


Ever since we lost our son, my wife won’t let me touch her sexually, so I have to satisfy my urges with pat-down body searches at the airport. Grabbing men’s junk all morning makes the hours pass so fast, like delicate flowers hungry for sunlight; I peel back the layers of each petal, longing for the peak holiday travel season as grown men bitch and moan about not using the metal detector instead. Ever since the TSA implemented these fancy machines that show the contours of the naked body, the number of daily searches has multiplied exponentially. This makes me more than happy to come to work on time.


I’m that creepy guy watching you take off your shoes and place them into a plastic bucket. Don’t forget that watch, I might remind you. TSA is a decent job, with good health benefits and manageable hours. The salary for airport screeners is not great, but I do the full-body searches. My standing is a step above those cretins. Stretch out your arms, I tell them. Advising passengers about the procedures often doesn’t make it any easier. There are rainbows and butterflies between their legs.

Sometimes little boys are a necessary part of my job description. They need to be patted down too. I’m not a pedophile. This doesn’t interest me. Only the older men do. I check under their arms, running my hands against their shoulders and backs. Lower, I creep, my hands upon their ankles, in the waistband of their pants sometimes, always running my palms up their inner thighs and I go nuts when I get the center of paradise.


Those new scans are real bad for your health. The radiation is harmful. My hands are innocuous, always clean and ready to go. I’m a professional. As soon as I snap on those blue rubber gloves, you know I mean business. Those x-ray machines are intrusive, but the person reading your results in that little room can’t touch your scrotum through the computer like I can. Sure, he can see whether a man is circumcised or a woman is menstruating…but so can I.


I’m the airport wizard waiting for you at the airport. My name is invasion of privacy. My name is lonely hardworking man whose wife is recovering slowly. I’m the future of air travel. See you inside.


Copyright ©2011 Matthew Dexter. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.



AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY


Like a nomadic Pericú, Matthew Dexter lives on a hunter-gatherer subsistence diet of shrimp tacos, smoked marlin, cold beer, and warm sunshine. His short fiction has been published in hundreds of literary journals and dozens of anthologies. He lives in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

**One of my erotica stories, Asia’s seasons, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

One of my older microfiction-quadrilogy stories, Asia's seasons, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site. It was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Assocation site, May - June 2003.

This sex-heavy, fast-moving, prose-poetic work is about a couple who engage in sexual experimentation, and learn their practical limits – as individuals, and as a couple.

This story also appears in my erotica story/poem antho, Charge of the scarlet b-sides: microsex stories & poems.

Check the story and/or the book out, if you’re so inclined and have the time. =)

**John Flynn’s poem, “Olneyville,” was published on the Gutter Eloquence site, November 2011

John Flynn, aka Basil Rosa, had one of his poems, Olneyville, published in issue #18 of Gutter Eloquence. (Great job, John!)

John, by-lined as Basil Rosa, also published a story, He held on and she kept saying time to go, on this site in October 2011.

If you have a moment, and are so inclined, check out John’s work!

Big cats

By Walter Campbell


“Oh please.”

“What, Jason?”

“These mountain lion warning signs. They’re completely useless.”

“How so?” I was digging through my backpack for my lunch. With more than ten miles of hiking left, my hunger was more important than a sign, and even more important than the mountain lions that the sign warned us about.

“Well, first, it’s entirely pointless to tell us there are mountain lions here. These aren’t burglars getting spotted by the neighborhood watch; they’re masters of murder, and if we see one, it’s only because he wants us to. All this sign does is unnecessarily scare us.” I turned back to my bag in an even bigger panic than before because I still couldn’t find my lunch and I had only two zippers left.

“Maybe mountain lions make mistakes. We all make mistakes; why can’t they? And if one does, and we’re on our 'A' game because of this sign and see him early, then the sign worked, right?” I argued. I needed more time to search my pack. Jason sighed heavily.

“No, it didn’t work. First, you’re wrong, they don’t make mistakes. Second, let’s say you’re right, and we catch the Dudley Do-Right of the mountain lion world. Even then, he’s still got us. What does this sign tell us to do? Look big? Don’t run? If attacked, fight back? Are you kidding me?”

“Why? What’s wrong with that?” One zipper had proven to be a bust, but I could feel something in the remaining pouch, and my spirits rose. Jason sighed even more heavily than last time; he refocused his predatory gaze on me, and not the sign.

“Uh, everything. Everything’s wrong with it. First, look big. Really? I’m going to scare a mountain lion by looking big? He has teeth, and claws, and the ability to jump twenty yards in one bound, and me, an overweight twenty-five-year-old white guy from the burbs, is going to scare him by looking a foot taller? No. Second, don’t run? Of course I’m going to run if this thing moves on me; it could kill me. Finally, fight back? That’s a losing battle if I’ve ever heard of one. ‘Oh man, this mountain lion better watch out, I’ve got a mean right cross.’ Please, Cliff, please.”

“I think that’s the point. All the advice is counterintuitive, and that’s why they need to put up the sign. It works even though we think it won’t work, so they have to spell it out for us.” The promising bulge in the last pocket had turned out to be a box of matches and a first aid kit, not lunch.

“I still don’t buy it. These mountain lions are hungry. It’s a dry summer, their food is dying off, and we’re replacement food. This sign’s not going to change that.”

“Well, maybe. But speaking of food, I forgot my lunch, so we should go back. I can’t go another four hours without any food.”

“Yeah, let’s go back,” he agreed a bit too readily. “Oh no…”

“What?” I said, trying to hide my frustration at having forgotten my lunch, and having him give up on our hike so easily.

“A mountain lion, Cliff,” he said, pointing to a spot about 20 yards up the ridge that extended from our trail. “Don’t run. Raise your arms to look bigger. If he comes at us, be ready to fight.”

“Jason, that’s just a bobcat.”

“Just a bobcat, Cliff? Do you have any idea how dangerous bobcats are? Any idea what…” Jason began as my stomach rumbled and the bobcat slunk away.


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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Walter Campbell is from LA, which you shouldn't hold that against him. He went to college in New England, which you should judge him for. And he currently lives in Philadelphia, and if you can figure out a reaction to that, please let him know, because he's failed to for the last three years. You can find some of his other work in Jersey Devil Press, Static Movement, and amphibi.us.

August at the Fair

By Natalie McNabb


August limps past the Ferris wheel, a cotton candy wisp stuck to her cheek. She stops, licks her dusty lips with a snow cone-blue tongue while deciding how to spend her sister Summer’s last dollar bill. Ring toss? Animal balloon? She squints at a cloud puff caught between the sky and bronzed hill.

Yes, Mom’ll blame the missing babysitting money on her brother, Patrick.

Or, Dad will.

They always do.

August limps off toward the tent of the two-headed boy instead, and when she sees him peak out from behind the red- and white-striped curtain—first his one head and, then, the other—she knows his parents would never blame anything on him either because they’re still too busy blaming themselves.


Copyright ©2011 Natalie McNabb. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Natalie McNabb lives and writes in Washington State. She loves red—red dragonflies resting on bamboo stakes, red wine in her glass, red flip-flops on her red-toe-nailed feet—and words that caress, tickle, irritate, or beat against her soul. Natalie has been shortlisted for several awards, including The Micro Award and Glass Woman Prize. Her writing appears in Norton’s Hint Fiction anthology and various other literary publications. Please visit her at www.nataliemcnabb.com.

**Several of dani harris' pieces will be published on the Spark site, November 8 - 29, 2011

dani harris, whose prose-poetic stories have graced the Microstory A Week site, has had two poems, moonlight sonata and passionflower, published on the Spark site recently.

Her verses work in conjunction with Ainsley Allmark's colorful photographs.

If you're inclined, and have the time, check them, and dani's website out!

**One of my stories, Wreck room, was published on the Every Night Erotica site

One of my less plot-oriented erotica pieces, Wreck room, a trashy, fun tale about a lesbian church quickie, was published on the Every Night Erotica site.

If you’re so inclined and have the time, check it out, and leave a star rating/comment!

The good lie

By Jim Harrington


My mother sits across from me, a sliver of white slip visible beneath the hem of her wool skirt. She looks out the window of the single room that’s now her home, a question forming in her mind. It’s the same one she always asks.

My answer is the same each time, too. One she struggles to process, but eventually accepts. I can tell her the truth. She won’t remember what I say any longer than she remembers what she eats for lunch. But I don’t. Ignorance is less painful than truth.

I used to regret lying to my mother. Not anymore. The truth might do more damage, like when she shut down after my older sister, Susan, died. I tell mom the truth about Susan, though. A tumor the doctors found too late is more acceptable to a woman of mom’s upbringing than carbon monoxide poisoning, in Germany, in a car, with a married man, while serving in the army.

“Do you know how Kathryn died?” she asks.

I glance at the picture of my other sister, Kathryn, part of a family montage pinned to a corkboard hanging on the wall.

“No, Mom. They never told us what happened.”

I look her straight in the eye, sincere, remorseless, and thank God she’s the way she is.


Copyright ©2011 Jim Harrington. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.


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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jim Harrington discovered flash fiction in 2007, and he’s read, written, studied, and agonized over the form since. His recent stories have appeared in Flashshot, A Twist of Noir, The Short Humour Site, Thrillers, Killers N Chillers, and others. Jim's Six Questions For . . . blog provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.”

**One of my microstories, Evie, was published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association site

One of my more somber 200-word stories, Evie, will be published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website for the entire month of November.

While this R-rated, disturbing microstory, which explores childhood memories, death, emerging sexuality and hope, has brief carnal references in it, it isn’t what I, or most people, would call “erotica” – it reads more like a dark mature drama.

If this sounds like something that might interest you, check it out. =)

Let's trade

By Michael A. Kechula


“Can anybody hear me?”

“Yes!” exclaimed the radio operator for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, aka SETI. “Who – what – are you?”

“I’m the Emperor of Mars. I need your help. We have more dinosaurs than our planet’s ecosystem can support. Do you need any on your planet? We’d be happy to send you some.”

“Dinosaurs? I don’t think so.”

“Do you have any on your planet now?” asked the Emperor.

“No, they all died out long ago.”

“Then you don’t know what you’re missing. I’d be eternally grateful, if you’d take some off my hands. In fact, I’d be pleased to offer you an all expense paid, wonderful vacation on our planet if you accepted a few. This includes lodging at a suite in our best hotel, which is staffed by our most gorgeous and very friendly females.”

“Hmm. A vacation on Mars sounds fantastic,” SETI said. “What if we make a trade?”

“What do you have to offer?” asked the Emperor.

“Gorgeous rats.”

“What are they?”

“The most delightful creatures on Earth. You’ll love them. They’re quite delicious.”

“Sounds great! We’ll ship our dinosaurs tomorrow.”

The next day, six billion dinosaurs arrived on Earth in flying saucers. The same day, Earth dispatched six billion rats to Mars via UPS.

Earthlings were thrilled with their new, imported dinosaurs—until they discovered Martian dinosaurs had gargantuan appetites. They ate cars, airplanes, people, London, Africa, and everything else in sight. Then they ate each other. In six months, everything on Earth was gone, except for mountains of dinosaur dung.

The Emperor of Mars was ecstatic. He’d conquered Earth without firing a shot. And he’d received enough rats to feed his all his subjects for an entire year.


Copyright ©2011 Michael A. Kechula. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like the above story, check out this Michael Kechula-penned tale, Ugly duckling, published on this site in December 2011.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Michael A. Kechula’s flash/micro tales have appeared in 143 magazines and 43 anthologies. He's won eighteen writing contests. Four of his books are published as eBooks and paperbacks: A Full Deck of Zombies - 61 Speculative Fiction Tales; The Area 51 Option and 70 More Speculative Fiction Tales; I Never Kissed Judy Garland and Other Tales of Romance; Writing Genre Flash Fiction The Minimalist Way - A Self Study Book. Ebooks at www.BooksForABuck.com. Paperbacks at www.amazon.com.

**One of my poems, Our City of Darkness, was published on the Every Day Poets site

One of my mainstream (but bleak-humored) poems, Our City of Darkness, was published on the Every Day Poets site.

Check it out and leave a comment/star rating, if you're so inclined and have the time. =)

Nothing to be afraid of

By Cath Barton


It was a long way down. I didn’t dare go to the edge of the cliff like my friend.

“Come on, Sally,” Maggie shouted back to me, her words half-carried away by the wind. “It’s amazing. There must be fifty of them down there.”

A group of walkers coming the other way had told us about the seals down on the beach. There was no way that anyone could get down to that beach from the cliff path, and the seals evidently felt entirely safe. Unlike me. I was terrified. I’d never liked heights, and just the sight of someone else near the cliff edge gave me the jitters.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” As Maggie’s words reached me, she disappeared, over the edge. My heart juddered and my head spun.

I sank to the ground, shaking. I lay down and, fingertip by fingertip, dragged myself on my belly towards the point where the world disappeared. It was painful, slow. My body didn’t want to obey the instructions from my brain. I inched toward the edge, my eyes shut.

I have no idea how long it was before I opened my eyes. My blood thudded in my ears, a cold sweat lay on my brow. All the fears of all the worlds were in me.

Something shifted. The shift took the terror with it and I knew that there truly was nothing to be afraid of. The earth, the cliff, the sea and even the sheer drop below me were my friends. I started laughing in relief. Then I rolled, over the edge.

Nothing hurt, and I knew it hadn’t hurt Maggie either.


Copyright ©2011 Cath Barton. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Cath Barton is a singer, writer and photographer who lives in South Wales. Her work is published here and there, notably in Fractured West, the Leaf Books Anthology Pod and 100 Stories for Queensland. You can see her exhibition of photographs of Wales at www.camelsaloonwales.blogspot.com.

**One of Basil Rosa's stories, "Boss Visa," was published in new anthology, A Small Key Opens Big Doors

One of Basil Rosa's stories, "Boss Visa," was published in a new anthology, A Small Key Opens Big Doors - Volume Three: The Heart of Eurasia.

According to Basil, the anthology, edited by Jay Chen, "focuses on Eurasia, and is one of a four-volume series, with each volume focused on a different part of the globe, all of them celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. Sales of the book go to help fund the work of the Peace Corps in developing nations."

Check it out, if you're so inclined and/or have the time!

If you're interested in more of Basil's work, also check out his website and his haunting story, He held on and she kept saying time to go, published on the Microstory site on October 5, 2011.

guardian angel {sorta}

By dani harris


Once I was an angel
whose wings were so white
every color could be seen within;
my hair and halo shone gold at night
with lips of pink and eyes of blue ~
I truly was a heavenly sight.
{ahem… well, that’s what I was told.}

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One day God spoke to me: “I AM SENDING YOU TO EARTH TO BE GUARDIAN ANGEL FOR HUMANITY. YOU ARE NOT TO INTERFERE! MERELY SEND ME QUARTER-CENTURY REPORTS.”

“But Lord,” said I, “Do you really think I’m the right angel for this assignment? After all, I have no experience with humans.” {Peter and I had a thing goin’ on, you know?}

“TAKE THIS ROSE ~ SO LONG AS IT REMAINS PURE WHITE ALL IS GOING ACCORDING TO MY PLANS. IF IT TURNS DARK, I WILL HAVE TO VISIT ANOTHER FLOOD UPON THE EARTH.”

I didn’t even have time to give Peter a proper goodbye.

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God sent me down to Earth to keep tabs on
…I mean, watch over…
the Earth and humans and all ~
time passed quickly for I had much to discover.

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One day Peter came to visit but I would have none of it,
feeling he could have come earlier if he really cared a whit.

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“Rose” said he
looking aghast at me,
“It can’t be true…
is that really you?”
“Whatever do you mean?” I queried innocently.
“Where once your wings were white
they’re now as dark as night;
what’s happened to your golden hair?
I’d suggest a bottle of Loreal hair dye if I dare… (after all, you’re worth it!)
judging by the color of your halo, you’ve fallen short.”
{It was here I couldn’t help but snort!}
“My God, your reputation will be completely shred
if you return to Heaven with lips that red!
Pray tell what happened, my still lovely Rose,
please say that this is not what you chose!”

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“It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.
You said I’m lovely so I know you’re not blind ~
aren’t you attracted to my new earthly charms?
Don’t you want to take me into your arms?”

#

Shaking his head, Peter plucked the now-gray rose from my fingers.

“When Father hears about this, you’ll find no refuge!
Not on Earth or in Heaven or even in Hell.”
Walking away, I whispered “Après moi le déluge.”
{after me, the deluge.}


Copyright ©2011 dani harris. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the my heart's love songs site on August 30, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out dani’s other stories, published on this site: Bugged, Camellia and haboob {another creepy tail}.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

dani {not a boy} began writing poetry in January 2010, opened her blog my heart's love songs in February 2010 and is now venturing into prose, though terrified. It seems her terror manifests itself in much of the prose, becoming a short tale with an element of horror or fantasy. Despite her blog's title, Dani does not write only haiku. Her sensual poetry is never too explicit whatever the length.

**One of my microstories, Behind the wheel, 2006, was published on the Leodegraunce site

One of my mainstream microstories, Behind the wheel, 2006, was published on the Leodegraunce site today. It will be up on the site until next Sunday (10/16/11).

This story is a semi-autobiographical work, about an interstate road trip I took in February 2006.

Check it out, if you have the time and/or are so inclined. =)

He held on and she kept saying time to go

By Basil Rosa


The burn that is time, how it changes, lifts, empowers and forgives.

Simmering with her, flash after flash filling the sky over his valley, she buckles and creaks and sways with him. He remembers her falling against the best he could offer, the princely stir of his young bones.

She’d said, Hold me tighter, visit these caves within me. Discover what guides my Indians. Let me be, please, because the others, they won’t. If you love me, you’ll let me be.

He remembers holding her in a plague of nightmares. It was her sky that night, her valley home.

So much of her haunts him – the way her eyes filled with lightning at twilight. The way crickets rose in her sheets when she chirped against him. Winter carving them down to skeletal stillness. Spring swells, flood after flood, into their loins.

The times she leaned on him as if he was a staff. A biblical scope to epic tales they imagined together lost in silences found while watching the horizon alter.

Alone now, making the arrangements in his head, his eyes ease down a far slope to a blanket of green unrolling to the next line of spare hills, down a cow path sodden with hoof prints and manure. Through a gate, creaking. Silent line of shadow from a passing hawk. A few crows squawking into panic, fleeing their brown pasture edges.

He seldom knows deer are close until they flee, scenting him first, and this time is no different. How the doe faces him on the path. Young, it’s never been hunted. He faces the doe the way he faced her in the early days of their courtship, both of them in all innocence ready for winter to ice away evening soul in their eyes.

Lovers they were, and lovers they’d remain. Hadn’t a clue she’d be the one taken first, who’d eventually say enough, please, let the doctors set me free.

He lifts the rifle, holds the doe in its sight, recalling the way she held him, shivering in drafts from that window. Flickering rain pelting their tin roof.

I’m here, yes, this does seem a nightmare. But it will end.

Her quiet acceptance, his recalcitrance – dewy cheeks against his beard. What were these memories trying to teach?

He lowers the rifle. The doe bounds away. He hears her again: I have to let you go.

He raises the rifle. She told him one day he’d know pain was good, and necessary . Love is not an incomplete recipe of expectations, impatience, folly and lust. It’s so much simpler than that.

She kept his picture from when he was just a boy. He’d always be a boy.

He squeezes the trigger.


Copyright ©2011 Basil Rosa. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY


Basil Rosa is the pen name of John Flynn, who has published books of poetry, short stories, and translations from the Romanian of Nicolae Dabija. John's first novel, Heaven Is A City Where Your Language Isn't Spoken, is forthcoming this fall, 2011, from Cervena Barva Press. To read more of John's published work, please vist his web site at www.basilrosa.com.

**One of my stories, Nightwired, was published on the Every Night Erotica site

One of my erotica/romance fluff pieces, Nightwired, an homage to longtime love and black [occult] metal (specifically King Diamond), was published on the Every Night Erotica site.

Check it out, and, if you feel compelled, leave a star rating/comment!

Socks

By Jenny Catlin


He always put their socks back on. He found it troubling where they wore stockings, obscene and frustrating. He didn’t read the newspapers but would pass by their front pages at the bus stop sometimes. Those were the photos they favored, a well lit canvas of feet in clean socks. He was proud that he left them with dignity, imagined his father looking down at him and smiling.

He was a quiet man, respectful and kind to those around him. He had clocked in religiously five days a week at the same job for nearly twenty years, mixing paint and matching colors. It never bothered him that people thought him a dullard. He knew that he understood things that they did not. Things about the rapture, about peace. About the vulgarity of sockless feet.

He never bothered with any further clean up. He took precautions to leave no trace of hair or flesh. Fingerprints. Nor did he study the art of others. Each a private gift to be shared with the world in anonymously.

He was glad to perform his own humble work.


Copyright ©2011 Jenny Catlin. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jenny Catlin is a writer from Colorado. She operates scissorsandspackle.com and can usually be found on any of the dream streets of the Southwest.

Simple sister

By Kyle Hemmings

When our mama, who resembled Big Cass Eliot, died from food poisoning, my sis, a suspect in anything, took charge of me. Our father, who was always in danger of being swallowed by Big Mama, was always somewhere other than here until he became nothing but a story. My sister's name was Katy as in Katy Did Not and she resented taking care of me because now she was a bass player in some East Village Japanese band called Box Turtle Sex. She had this strange habit of taking me places and leaving me there: the art deco gallery on MacDougall, an S&M shop near Gainsevoort, a bar named Sid Vicious on East 3rd and something, on the laps of strange women at a hair salon that also did hot wax, the Lowe's Movie Theater where we saw The Postman Always Rings Twice three times (I never noticed Katy was gone until the lights went on), and the dry cleaner's. It took me three years to escape from the last one. It turned out to be owned by a white slavery ring specializing in selling children who have this "lost" look about them, like they could be the next Justin Bieber or something. A couple of men whose faces I couldn't see took pictures of me for posters. In strange cities I saw posters of myself, kids trying to imitate me with that hung lip and hungry eye look. Sometimes their older sisters would laugh, but I couldn't understand their language. Eventually, I found my way back to my sister who was now living with some Japanese dude in Chelsea. I had grown three inches taller and had the peach fuzz of a punkster on CD covers. After ringing the buzzard to her apartment building and being told several times that she doesn't know anyone named "Chip," she finally let me up. The door unlocked but the chain remained. One eye inspected me up and down. My God, she said, how you've grown. You look so much like papa. Well, I said, where to next?


Copyright ©2011 Kyle Hemmings. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Kyle Hemmings has been pubbed at Gold Wake Press, Thunderclap Press, Blue Fifth Review, Step Away, and The Other Room. He blogs at http://upatberggasse19.blogspot.com/.

**My new poetry anthology, Behind the wheel, is available for purchase at Lulu.com

My new mainstream poetry anthology, Behind the wheel: selected poems, is available for $10 (+shipping and handling) at Lulu.com.

The seventy-five dark humored poems in this collection span multiple poetic forms, moods and locations - it details the journey of a man, from youth to middle age, from joy to heartache and back to (relative) joy: interspersed in this road trippy mix are a few nature-appreciation verses.

If you order this anthology before September 23, 2011 and enter the code OKTOBERFEST you can "enjoy 15% off" of your purchase price. =)

Alice

By Richard Cody


Alice stepped into the room, filling the small space with her presence. Her eyes danced blue and beautiful, like waves crashing on a beach. She was vibrant, vivacious, barely contained energy rippling beneath almost luminous skin.

“I will never love you again,” she whispered, soft as gently falling rain. “I will never love you. . .”

I moved as if to catch her, confusion gripping my mind; my blood, replaced by cold fear, pumping through a heart withering toward oblivion. I needed to touch her, to feel the soft warmth that was Alice . It was too late, I knew. She was gone, forever. The air burned my skin, my eyes, with horrible realization. My heart collapsed in upon itself, forming a black hole of infinite density deep within the middle of me.

“I will always love you,” I muttered, the light of the room beginning to bend toward me. “Always.”

Alice stepped out of the room, leaving it completely empty.


Copyright ©2011 Richard Cody. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out Richard’s other story, published on this site: Lisa

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY


Richard Cody has been known to write poetry and fiction. His work has appeared most recently in Kaleidotrope, Red Fez, Askew Poetry, Daily Love and Eclectic Flash (including their best of 2010 anthology). His books are available at Lulu and Amazon.

**One of my mainstream-ish stories, Night Burn, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

One of my brutal, mainstream-ish vampire stories, Night Burn, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site. (It was originally published, in a less developed and shorter form, on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association site in November 2001.)

This 1,984-word story has a brief spot of sex, but it could easily be republished, as is, in any mainstream horror magazine.

Night Burn is not recommended for Stephenie Meyer/Twilight fans. (You were warned, gay boys and sparkly-eyed girls!)

haboob {another creepy tail}

By dani harris

It was easy to slip across the border from Mexico into Arizona and a haboob was the perfect cover to get into the city undetected. The massive dust storms covered the valley at least once or twice every summer during the monsoon season. One news helicopter photographer caught a few seconds of the two lights moving in at the front edge of the mile-high wall of dust, but it was explained away as airplanes skirting the storm to land at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. People only see what they want to… especially those with neophobia. In today’s political climate, that was just about everybody. Arrangements had been made the week before via email offering a remunerative deal that a local street gang couldn’t refuse. It was just enough to cover what they could make in a month selling weed ~ any more would have made them suspicious. a small bag full of diamonds would be left at the landing site.

The two space ships set down unnoticed in the burnt-out block of South Phoenix where the drug gang had chased off all the addicts and homeless people. By then, everyone who could be was inside anyway. The haboob was an immense sand blaster made by nature with hurricane-force winds. Anybody unlucky enough to be caught unawares was stuck on the side of a road somewhere praying that their car wouldn’t be carried away like Dorothy’s house in the Wizard of Oz.

Ramps came down from both landing craft letting out a strange neon-orange glow. The eight-legged creatures made their way into the rubbish-filled back yard of an abandoned house. A modulated signal beyond human hearing was being broadcast. The haboob would also mask detection by any of the humans’ equipment designed to pick up sounds in that range. In less than a minute a strange scurrying noise could be heard. It seemed to get louder by the second. The creatures from the space ships opened the doors at one end of each of the cases they carried in their two front claws, laying them gently on the ground. In under ten minutes, the containers were being filled by scorpions of every size scrambling over one another to get into the large cases. The {illegal} aliens closed the containers and made their way back into their ships, cooing and clicking to calm their babies within. they had more than enough nurseries onboard the mother ship to allow their descendants plenty of room. All of the subterfuge had been unnecessary when they had made the last trip one hundred years ago. It had been quite a surprise to discover that the city had grown so quickly, invading their hatching grounds. The next brood would have to be laid on a deserted planet in another solar system.

The ramps pulled up and the two ships launched back into the haboob just before the tail end of the dust cloud passed through the area. When they reached South Mountain, the ships suddenly shot straight out of Earth’s atmosphere in the blink of an eye. if there had been any eyes looking.

Video footage of the haboobs always made the network news shows the next day. Only one local station aired a thirty-second segment the following week to report the abrupt disappearance of scorpions in South Phoenix. The residents themselves didn’t question it. They were just grateful to have the scorpions gone since no one in that area could afford an exterminator.


Copyright ©2011 dani harris. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on my heart's love songs site on August 8, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out dani’s other stories, published on this site: Bugged, Camellia and guardian angel {sorta}.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

dani {not a boy} began writing poetry in January 2010, opened her blog my heart's love songs in February 2010 and is now venturing into prose, though terrified. It seems her terror manifests itself in much of the prose, becoming a short tale with an element of horror or fantasy. Despite her blog's title, Dani does not write only haiku. Her sensual poetry is never too explicit whatever the length.

Disguise

By MorningAJ


“Perfect disguise”, Amanda said to her reflection in the cheval mirror. “No-one will recognise you.” The wig made her head look like a coconut and the mouth was a delightful touch. She gnashed her teeth and pulled back her lips, gurning at herself to get a better look. Yellow and crooked: what they call ‘English teeth’ in the US. Then, of course, there was the fat suit.

Amanda knew from bitter, adolescent experience that the best way to stop people from seeing you was to be overweight. She had suffered a long time to learn that lesson. All through her teens she had been the butt of the jokes, left out of invitations and spurned by her peers, just because she had a weight problem. Behind the size she was actually quite attractive but they never knew because they never looked. They deemed her invisible. Talk about the elephant in the room!

But when she reached twenty one she inherited some money and used it to change her image and her identity. Not because she was unhappy with herself, but because she realised by then she would have to play by ‘their’ rules to win their game. And she had won. Her face appeared nightly on TV as a respected anchor-woman on a national news programme. Every one of her old tormentors could see her now. She was relishing her triumph and planned to crown it with a visit to each of them to point out the error of their old ways.

Hence the disguise: the wig, the fake teeth and the fat suit made her look exactly like she did at school. That was the point. She wanted to make sure they knew who was responsible as she murdered them, one by one. It was the perfect disguise for the perfect crime. Only the victims could identify her and they did not live to tell tales. She had even been captured on security cameras a few times and earned herself the nickname of The Fat Slasher but no-one linked the obese image with the svelte news reader. She knew she would never be caught. She just had to remember not to laugh when she reported the latest killing to her eager viewers.


Copyright ©2011 MorningAJ. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the Jobbing Writer site on August 24, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out these other Morning AJ stories, published on this site: Earwig, Falling star, Helen's dilemma and Jetsam.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MorningAJ is a professional (science PR) writer/rebel who fends off the
restrictions of her paid-for work by creating short stories, poems and
microfiction in her spare time. She’s even managed a novel, thanks to
NaNoWriMo, and is currently working on her second.
She also paints watercolours.
Badly.

The sandwich murders

By Steve isaak


Jacqui the penguin nun waddled out of the address-crossed timespace portal.

Where the heck am I? This isn’t Disneyland –

She saw the eviscerated Sandwich aliens, their loins and bellies mutilated, peanut butter and jelly intestines everywhere.

Aghast, Jacqui dialed her cell phone. “Hello, police?”

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Using his tweezers, Intergalactic Agent Harrison picked up the brown paper scrap reading “42”.

“Douglas, Adams,” he addressed the uniforms behind him. “Any idea what this number means?”

Douglas snickered. Someone’s stomach growled.

Harrison turned. I hate working with local cops –

He saw the kitchen knife, the murder weapon, in Adams’ hand.

“Adams, stop licking the evidence!”


Copyright ©2006, 2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This was originally published in my book Charge of the scarlet b-sides: microsex stories & poems.

Compulsion

By Anna


Always her OCD got the better of her, always, always ruled her life. He had left her eons ago, moved on to a better place.

She had the clean thing and had this numbers thing – everything had to be repeated ten times; if her compulsion was interrupted she had to begin again

She had seen the earwig crawl across his forehead as he slept his alcohol induced sleep and fearful as she was of them, she had to clean it away, had to get rid of it. She picked up his beer glass and smashed it on his head, once, twice, thrice – he woke up then and began to gesticulate wildly, and she counted in her head four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

He had left her then – for good; left everyone.

Every time she saw an earwig floor or wall crawl in her cell, she thought of him – ten times.


Copyright ©2011 Anna. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story originally appeared on the puzzelicious site, on July 13, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out Anna’s other stories, published on this site: Industry, Retribution and Simkins.


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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

I'm a mother, friend, nurse, wife and lover! I think I have always been 'creative' drawing, painting, writing stories and poetry from an early age. I am moronically happy as I don't see the point in being miserable and find life - 99% of the time - wonderful.

**3 of my mainstream poems were published in the latest issue of Milk Sugar Literature

Three of my mainstream poems - Just checking; Z waves on the 1:09 bus; Mailbox stomp 442 - were published in the August/September 2011 issue of Milk Sugar Literature.

If you have a moment, and are inclined toward reading life-true verses, check them out. =)

**One of my stories, Hot Flicks, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

One of my adult-content stories, Hot Flicks, was republished on the Every Night Erotica (ENE) site yesterday. (It was originally published, as a shorter version, on the Divine Pleasures website in June 2002.)

This story has more plot, is more mainstream than most sex stories. It also has a background, series-recurring character, Katrina Sirkus, who later appears as an adult in a loosely-linked sequel, Kat and Mirah's Midnight Show (published on the ENE site on March 5, 2011).

If you have a moment, and are inclined toward reading quality erotica, check these stories out. =)

Jet lagged

By Baird Nuckolls


I slept with my face in your pillow. I wore your sweater. I wandered the apartment, checking the clock. Eight hours difference and it seemed like my soul was out of phase with my body. You called at the strangest times, which pissed me off, but left me yearning for your voice the minute you hung up.

Now you are home, smelling of airports and stale coffee; the cat is hiding, and I keep tripping over your shoes. I need to press my breasts against your wet back in the shower. I want to fall into your kisses, forgetting myself until we are in the same time zone again.


Copyright ©2011 Baird Nuckolls. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out Baird’s other stories, published on this site:
Chickens roosting in the trees, He Preferred Red and Scarred.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Baird is a writer, living in Northern California, who has too many stories that want to be written. She multitasks as much as possible.

Alex and the zebra

By Steve Isaak


(for Eliza Rain Brecheisen)


Alex, six, playing with dolls in her playground, saw the light purple zebra, standing in the plains beyond the high cyclone fence bordering her backyard.

She dropped her dolls and watched the purple zebra.

The zebra appeared to be a colt – a male foal – rubbing noses with his mother, who happily made blowing noises through her loose equine lips.

His mother, like the rest of their herd, was white with black stripes.

He’s different from the others, like me, the adopted Asian girl thought. Why is he different?

Raising their long necks, the ostriches, who’d been grazing near the zebras, hissed warnings: predators approaching.

The birds hightailed it, their brown butterball bellies and wings shaking. Seconds later, the zebras, with accompanying whinnies and loud snorts, followed the ostriches.

Alex ran inside her house to tell her red-haired mother, Stephanie, about what she’d seen.

Stephanie paused in her vegetable cutting to kneel beside her daughter, smiling and pulling Alex close when the little girl, breathless, finished her tale.

“That’s great,” Stephanie said. “Why don’t you draw some pictures of them?”

Thus began Alex’s famous career obsessions: purple zebras and painting them.

She never saw a real live purple zebra again.


Copyright ©2011 Steve Isaak. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This was originally published on the Reading and Writing By Pub Light site on March 7, 2011.

Bugged

By dani harris


The first incident occurred when she was eight years old. She got head lice at school. Her hair fell below her waist and the school nurse told her mother it would be best to shave her head as the infestation was so severe. Even months afterward, Marie had nightmares of the lice squirming around on her scalp. She never let her hair get longer than a pixie cut the rest of her life.

When she was ten years old, her family went camping at Yosemite National Park. In less than an hour, Marie stepped into a red ant hill. The ants were swarming over her entire body ~ even her face ~ before her father could wash all of them off. It turned out that Marie was highly allergic to the ants and had to be rushed to the hospital.

Marie was almost fourteen when the small mid-western town she lived in suffered an infestation of grasshoppers. She was walking into the house when a grasshopper jumped into her eye. Not only did it scratch the cornea, her eye became infected. She had to wear a patch over her left eye the entire first month of high school.

A bee sting at her high school graduation picnic caused Marie's face to swell. Since her tongue and throat were also swelling, another trip to the hospital was in order. But not before the entire senior class had seen her disfigurement. The school mailed Marie her diploma.

Marie had a double dorm room to herself throughout college. The university was concerned about being sued for negligence if a roommate were to become ill from inhaling the fumes from the insecticide that Marie was constantly spraying. The janitor added weatherstripping around her door so that the fumes wouldn't escape into the hallway. Some said that living four years in a room full of bug spray caused brain damage.

At the age of 27, Marie was living a comfortable if uneventful life. Despite the insecticide fumes, she was intelligent and healthy. She set up a consulting business from her twenty-first floor apartment. The closest anyone ever came to her were delivery people ~ Federal Express, groceries, pizza, Chinese or Thai Food. You couldn't really count video calls since those were just two-dimensional images. Marie had her clients make electronic funds transfers directly to her bank and she did everything online. She didn't have a boyfriend {or any friends} and certainly did not want a pet. She had not seen so much as a fly the entire time she had lived there.

The newspaper article said that the venomous spider must have been in the soil of the rare orchid sent to the woman in the apartment above. It got into the ventilation system and came down on its thread through the vent above Marie's bed.


Copyright ©2011 dani harris. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out dani’s other stories, published on this site: Camellia, guardian angel {sorta} and haboob {another creepy tail}.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

dani {not a boy} began writing poetry in January 2010, opened her blog my heart's love songs in February 2010 and is now venturing into prose, though terrified. It seems her terror manifests itself in much of the prose, becoming a short tale with an element of horror or fantasy. Despite her blog's title, Dani does not write only haiku. Her sensual poetry is never too explicit whatever the length.

Earwig

By MorningAJ



Prison life really suited Jimmy the Wig because of his habit. Jimmy’s nickname didn’t come from any lack of hair; he had such a thick thatch of black locks that many people thought it was a rug, but no. He got his name from being a natural earwig. He couldn’t stop himself eavesdropping conversations. He was compelled to do it, just like that disease, that obsessive compulsive thing, you know, OCD. So being in prison was just right for him, surrounded by people with nothing better to do than discuss old exploits and plan new jobs for when they got out, and Jimmy became what they call institutionalised. He was happiest behind bars.

His only troubles came from the other side of his compulsion: he felt driven to pass on whatever he overheard. If he thought he was imparting a particularly exciting piece of news he would gesticulate a lot, so it left no-one in any doubt what he was doing. At first it ruffled a few feathers when he chose to reveal something to the hotter heads in clink, but an understanding Governor solved that by putting him in a cell with Clothears Jones: deaf in one ear and didn’t listen with the other. Wig could say anything he liked and Clothears would nod and hum and har occasionally to make Wig think he was paying attention. That went on for years and life looked settled.

Wig had a number of jobs around the prison. They’d tried him on library duty but it made him edgy because no-one was allowed to talk in there, so they swapped him to cleaning the chapel. He loved that because he often overheard juicy confessions about dirty thoughts. So one day when he was polishing the brasswork and Phil Skillett came in to talk to the Padre he thought he was in for a treat. He was; just not the kind of treat he was expecting. Phil’s nickname was ‘Fillet’ and it wasn’t just a play on his name; he was renowned for his knife skills and I don’t mean he was a good cook! Anyhow, him and the Reverend disappeared behind the curtain and Wig could hear the prayer bit as he dusted his way closer to the booth. He was comfortably in place when he heard Fillet admit he was the one who had shanked one of the screws two weeks ago.

Well that was too much for Wig. He dropped his cloth and dashed out to find someone to listen. Give the boy his due, he went looking for Clothears, but as bad luck would have it the cell was empty. Wig turned back just in time to come face to face with a chatty screw and he couldn’t stop himself from telling. He was still talking and waving his arms around when Fillet came back from chapel and saw him. Of course he realised straight away what was going on and Wig’s days were numbered.

They found Jimmy dead in his cell two days later and everyone assumed that Fillet had got to him somehow, even though he had been questioned almost non-stop since the secret was revealed. At the inquest, though, the sawbones reckoned there wasn’t a mark on him and there was no hint of poison. The coroner had no option but to call it natural causes, though I know he was wrong. I know what it should have said on the death certificate. To protect him from Fillet’s attentions the screws had Wig put in solitary confinement. I reckon he died of boredom.


Copyright ©2011 MorningAJ. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the Jobbing Writer site on July 12, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out these other Morning AJ stories, published on this site: Disguise, Falling star, Helen's dilemma and Jetsam.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MorningAJ is a professional (science PR) writer/rebel who fends off the
restrictions of her paid-for work by creating short stories, poems and
microfiction in her spare time. She’s even managed a novel, thanks to
NaNoWriMo, and is currently working on her second.
She also paints watercolours.
Badly.

**A review of Richard Cody's Darker Corners was published on the Reading site

I just posted a review of Richard Cody's horror anthology, Darker Corners, on the Reading & Writing By Pub Light site.

Last week, one of Richard's stories, Lisa, was published on this site.

**One of my stories, Periwinkle: Desire's Bloom, was published on the Every Night Erotica site

The third (and probably final) story in my loosely linked Periwinkle trilogy, Periwinkle: Desire's Bloom, was published on the Every Night Erotica site yesterday.

This story is more plot-heavy, odder than its monster-themed predecessors. It's also the least of the three stories, but I did the best I could with it, so I'm okay with that: we creative types can't nail perfection every time we sit down to create (though we should always try, of course)! =)

Lisa

By Richard Cody


I came home from work to a dark and quiet house, the front door standing sinister and slightly ajar. With a curious and creeping sense of déjà vu, I entered. Inside, shadows crept over the walls.

“Lisa. . .” my voice echoed through quiet rooms. “Lisa, are you here?”

She moved slow and furtive from swirling shadows, nothing but a vague shape in the murk before my eyes. I groped blindly for the light switch, nervous apprehension thickening my fingers as I fumbled and felt and finally flicked it on, bathing the room in electric light. Shadows fled like roaches into corners and there was Lisa.

She stood silent and still before me, pale blue eyes staring at some vacancy in the middle distance, slender arms hanging limp at her sides. It was then I saw the knife clenched tightly in the curled fist of her right hand, a smooth expanse of silver blade reflecting white light with flashing brilliance. She held it firm and deliberate, knuckles white with the pressure of her grip. I noticed the small scar on the back of her delicate hand, white and jagged even against the ghostly pale of her flesh. In a vivid flash I remembered the previous summer at the lake when she’d cut herself on a broken bottle.

“Lisa,” I ventured cautiously, “give me the knife.”

She remained still, painfully quiet.

“Lisa,” I began again, “give me the knife.”

She moved toward me slow and shambling, her feet dragging over the floor. Then she stopped.

“Lisa,” I commanded, “give me the knife.”

An anxious moment passed, the two of us standing there, waiting. Finally she moved forward . . and gave me the knife.


Copyright ©2011 Richard Cody. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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If you like this story, check out Richard’s other story, published on this site: Alice

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Richard Cody is a native Californian and a writer of poetry and fiction. His work has appeared in many print and virtual publications, most recently Red Fez, Eclectic Flash and a handful of stones. Look for his books, The Jewel in the Moment, This is Not My Heart and Darker Corners at Amazon and his Lulu page.

Retribution

By Anna


Alex was certain that there was a recessive nerd gene in his parents ancestry, and that he was the unfortunate soul in which the two alleles had paired and produced what he saw in the mirror - pure nerd! He eyed himself with disdain, sticky out ears, goofy teeth, acne and that damned kinky hair permanently charged with static.

He didn't mind having a wonderful mind, but minded very much the way he looked. No wonder he was the butt of jokes and his life was pure misery. That bastard Wilson was the worst - with his athletic good looks, his entourage of hangers on and his constant supply of girlfriends. Bastard!

Wilson had nominated Alex his gofer years ago and Alex had accepted his role as he hadn't the strength of character to resist. His life was sheer hell. The latest prank had seen Wilson dose his drink with methyline blue "Here gofer - a Blue Hawaiian for you!" Alex had drunk it readily hoping at last that he might have been accepted as one of the boys.

Next day had seen Wilson and his cronies follow him into the *bog and crease themselves laughing as blue-green pee gushed forth leaving Alex mortified. Second visit - it seemed like the whole school followed him and the chants, the crushing chants of "Alex! Alex! Mouldy phallus!" reduced him to tears. He had wished the earth to swallow him up.

It was that very afternoon in Greek and the discussion of the death of Socrates that an idea began to germinate in his mind.

That night he received the expected call from Wilson and the order for pizzas. Wilson and his cronies partied nearly every night in his brothers' penthouse; Alex, the manservant for the drunken, stoned bastards.

He already had the pizzas and had doctored them with conium - the little florets vaguely resembling broccoli and added more cheese and seasoning to mask the taste. Upon Wilson's call he had reheated and reboxed them.

They greeted him with derision and snatched the boxes off him. He sat and waited until the ascending paralysis played its game. They found it funny as they fell and were ecstatic about the 'good trip' - and then panic set in. As they fought for breath, one or two of them attempted to phone 999 and with great glee, Alex prevented them.

When they were all dead, Alex picked from his pocket the fat cigar he had bought at the kiosk outside and went out to the roof garden. The cigar made him cough and splutter - but he didn't care.

He flung the cigar stub over the parapet and watched it fall... and then he followed it.

The exhilaration he felt from the adrenaline rush was amazing and he was certain that if he attempted to fly - he could. He didn't want to - he wanted to splat another damn Wilson as he hit terra firma. He knew he would - because the world was full of them.


Copyright ©2011 Anna. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the puzzelicious plus site on May 19, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out Anna’s other stories, published on this site: Compulsion, Industry and Simkins.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

I'm a mother, friend, nurse, wife and lover! I think I have always been 'creative' drawing, painting, writing stories and poetry from an early age. I am moronically happy as I don't see the point in being miserable and find life - 99% of the time - wonderful.

Hit

By Thingy


I couldn't blame them when they stared at me with gaping mouths and clenched fists. I laugh when something bad happens, and this was very bad.

I didn't see him dart out into traffic. His head was half way in a pot hole, which really had me guffawing. Through my tears, I could see his little shoe blink on and off and like a flip of a switch, there was only the sound of his ragged breaths.

"Breathe, breathe. I will never get into a car again, I will never talk on my cell phone again. Please, little one, just live."

As the reds lights and white noise rounded the corner, I felt the first hit and heard a scream that could only come from the mother of this boy. I lay against the stink of asphalt and saw the rivulets of our blood mingle, the boy's and mine.

Like a bad cartoon that almost got me laughing again, the men in white bundled, folded and spindled the boy into the back of the truck. All I could see now were Jimmy Choo's and dusty Crocs face, then turn away from me.

"Looks like he'll be okay, ma'am. I'll need to get a statement from you."

I was going to ask the shadow if he wanted me to remain in my current prone position, but I was so drunk and tired.


Copyright ©2011 Thingy. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

I am a Midwestern girl, born and raised. Although I've been writing most of my life, I haven't taken my work too seriously, until the last few years. Writing short stories suits me, I think.

Thingy can also be found at her website, Pondering Life.

Jetsam

By MorningAJ


Eliza was a beachcomber - not that she made a living out of it or anything (nor was she like that weird old man who lived in half a wrecked boat at the shore). She would walk along the sand as the tide went out and pick up the jetsam that was stranded there, imagining how it had been lost.

She never picked up pebbles or a sea shell. She was only interested in the abandoned, manufactured items. She would take her finds back to her tiny flat in the middle of town and arrange them on ledges and bookcases and shelves around the walls. Then she would sit and look happily at her treasures, while she talked to the spirits of their previous owners.

When the building collapsed, the inquest jury agreed that the structure was never intended to hold such a weight of junk and the old woman’s eccentricity had contributed to her death. Her neighbours agreed it was an outrage that no one had done anything about it before.

The old man watched from his half-boat as the merpeople returned to the sea with their recovered possessions, then he headed up to the church on the cliff where he was the only mourner at Eliza’s funeral.


Copyright ©2011 MorningAJ. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

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This story was originally published on the Jobbing Writer site on June 15, 2011.

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If you like this story, check out these other Morning AJ stories, published on this site: Disguise, Earwig, Falling star and Helen's dilemma.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MorningAJ is a professional (science PR) writer/rebel who fends off the
restrictions of her paid-for work by creating short stories, poems and
microfiction in her spare time. She’s even managed a novel, thanks to
NaNoWriMo, and is currently working on her second.
She also paints watercolours.
Badly.

Tangier

By Nick Nicholson


On the morning of August 14, 1955, the novelist Vannevar Mann awoke from a dream in which he was spellbound by the tears of a beautiful dark-haired girl, although in the dream it was uncertain whether the tears were of grief or joy. The cryptic vision of the girl haunted Mann. He sensed that there was something important about her, that she possessed a secret truth of some kind. A week later, Mann spied a dark-haired girl darting through the crowded markets of Petit Socco. Convinced that it was the girl from his dream, he followed her. She led him through a maze of back streets and blind intersections, the labyrinth of the medina, constantly slipping in and out of view, always just out of reach. Then she vanished. In the months that followed, Mann became obsessed. The girl continued to infiltrate his dreams. She materialised numerous times and each time, he pursued her through the kaleidoscopic streets of Tangier. Years passed but he never found her. Vannevar Mann died from a heart attack on December 3, 1962. The next day, a local newspaper reported the story of an unidentified dark-haired girl who had drowned in the Bay of Tangier.


© Nick Nicholson 2010, 2011. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or in part without written permission from the author.

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This is the final part of Nick Nicholson's theme-adventurous, eight-part Travelogue.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Throughout his life, Nick Nicholson has pursued a variety of creative vocations: music, photography, painting and, in recent years, writing. He lives in Australia.