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

One of my older stories, Lascaux, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site.

The story, which details the beginning of a heartfelt but otherwise questionable affair between two anthropologists, was originally published under the title Global, dangerous, on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association site in July 2009. This newer, retitled version has been expanded from its original form.

Check this story out!

**Microstory A Week is on hiatus until January 2013.

If I receive enough submissions to warrant resumption of publishing new stories, I will start doing so in January 2013.

Thanks for everyone who's supported this site via reading, submissions, or both. If you've published a story here, remember to keep me updated on your works as they get published elsewhere, so I can continue promoting your work on this site, the Reading & Writing By Pub Light site, and Facebook.

**Alvin Burstein has published a novella, The Owl, on Lulu

Alvin Burstein, whose work, The crawfish boil, graced this site last January, has published a novella, The Owl – “a riveting account of an academic swept up in divine war" – on Lulu.

Support an independent author/publisher, and check his novella out!

**One of my older poems, kicking the wrecker bent, was published on the Primalzine site

One of my older poems, kicking the wrecker bent, was published in Primalzine's Spring 2012 issue.

It’s one of my suckier poems (it was a write-and-immediately-submit piece), but it got published anyway, with a misspelled by-line. Such is life. =)

Wrecker bent is still worth checking out, in a relic-from-a-ways-back way.

Invention

By MorningAJ


He knew as soon as his boss told him the plan that it was a bad idea. Yes, the device needed to be revealed to the world, but this was not the way to do it. They wouldn’t understand the importance of the find. Thanks to some incontrovertible evidence in the tomb, it was possible to date the parts very accurately, and they proved that mankind invented clockwork millennia earlier than was previously thought. This was big stuff; but would the uninitiated grasp the significance? Of course not – and he knew he’d be the fall guy.

Dennis had spent two years painstakingly copying each of the cogs and wheels and creating a working model. It had been in a woebegone state when it first arrived at his workshop. The rest of the team of archaeological investigators had carried out all of the tests they could on the bits and pieces and then brought him the remains to interpret. Luckily, many of the sections were still intact, thanks to the lack of rain at the dig site, but connecting up all the Heath Robinson gearing had given him a few challenges.

The work had been tough, but the finished article was a triumph. The key mechanism had been the trickiest: making sure it connected all of the rotors so that, when the brake disengaged, the whole apparatus danced majestically. Ratchets engaged, spheres spun, pivots balanced and the two flagellate arms swept delicate arcs around each other, making a soft swishing sound.

It was inevitable that the museum director wanted to make a show and so a press conference was duly called. Dennis was given his orders to set up the machine prominently so that, at the right moment it could be switched on for the crowd to admire. After a gushing introduction, the director handed over to him to explain how it all fitted together. The journalists made suitably admiring noises and Dennis tried to give them every possible fact he could so that he could avoid the one question he dreaded: the one thing he could not answer.

As he reached the end of his talk and applied the brake to bring the mechanism to a gentle halt he hoped he had got away with it, but he should have known better. Just as the gentle machine hum ended a voice spoke up: “But what does it do?”


Copyright ©2012 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 March 18, 2012.

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If you like this story, check out these other Morning AJ stories, published on this site: Disguise, 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.

**Kate Alexander-Kirk has had three new stories published!

Kate Alexander-Kirk, whose Hit and run graced this site last month, has had several other pieces published recently:

Family Portraiture, about a troubling family photograph, on Mouse Tales Press

Say What You Mean, Please, a whimsical take on - well, read it and find out - on Winamop

Tea with Aunty, about a young girl's dream-downing relative, on Pure Slush

Check these stories out!

**One of my poems, Rain day, was published in the latest issue of Apollo's Lyre

One of my older, mainstream poems, Rain day, was published in the Spring 2012 issue of Apollo’s Lyre. (This poem also appears, in altered form, in my forthcoming mainstream poetry anthology, Almost there: poems, scheduled for publication in autumn 2012.)

Sinnerman

By dani harris

Ψ
SMACK... SPLAT... SLAP... SMACK...
Damn! They were going to hear the sound of his bare feet on the pavement even if they couldn't see him in the shadows of the old factory! What had happened to his shoes? His memory was a jumbled mess of blurry images... all he knew for certain was that "they" were chasing him!

CRACK... RUSTLE... SNAP... CRACK...
Running in the forest at dusk was too dangerous! He'd better stop until full dark if he didn't want to be discovered ~ every footfall crunched leaves or snapped a twig. Breathing heavily, he slid as far under the old tree root as he could get. He covered himself with the detritus of the forest floor and hoped that no animal would catch the scent of blood on him if he fell asleep.

SPLISH... SPLOSH... SPLASH...
Running through the stream under the full moon left him too exposed. The glint off of the blade of the knife clutched in his left hand might catch someone's eye. He paused long enough to bury it beneath a pile of rocks in the shallow water.

CRUNCH... RATTLE... SPLASH... SLURP...
Running along the narrow pebbled bank of the creek sent stones skittering off into the grass and tumbling down into the water. His foot slid along with the tiny rocks and, before he knew what happened, his left foot was sucked into the oozing mud. He fell to his knees in the stream and thrust his hands up to the heavens.

"Help me, Lord!" he cried. "I haved sinned but I am asking for your forgiveness."

But the Lord God refused, telling him "GO TO THE DEVIL, SINNERMAN!"

HISS... SPLAT... SPLASH...
The smell of sulfur burned his lungs... sweat burned his eyes. Trying to take shallow breaths, he waded through the stream as it began to bubble and hiss at the edges. His bare feet were already blistering on the hot stones beneath the water.

"Lucifer! Lucifer!" he called out. "I beg sanctuary! Tell me what I must do!"

The Devil sneered and said "OFF WITH YOU, FILTH! GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!"

SHUFFLE... SCRAPE... SHUFFLE... SCRAPE...
They had set the wolves on him. He could hear the howling not too far away but his raw, bloody feet could not move any faster. Was it still the same night? Or had he lost an entire day like he had lost his clothes and his memories?

Blood spurting onto walls... onto the sheets... onto him...

Red, crimson, scarlet. What you called it didn't matter.

That bright vermilion spraying all over was the only clear memory he had.

Ψ
Clothed in naught but the darkness, ol' Sinnerman shook his head like a dog, trying to get the sweat out of his eyes. Not that it mattered if he could see. Rejected by both Jehovah and Beelzebub..... he had nowhere to go.
›·• Ψ •·‹
When e'en Lucifer
Has shunned ye..... Oh, Sinnerman,
Just what did you do?
›·• Ψ •·‹

Copyright ©2012 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 originally appeared in poetic form on the my heart's love songs site on February 16, 2012.

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

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

dani {not a boy} opened her poetry 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. She also writes sensual poetry and is attempting to write humorous prose and poetry.

**One of my stories, Vermilion Lounge: expunging, was republished on the Every Night Erotica site

One of my older, sexplicit and redemption-themed BDSM stories, Vermilion Lounge: expunging, was republished on the Every Night Erotica (ENE) site.

It was originally published on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association site in February 2001.

Check this story out!

**Microfiction writers: I will be guest-editing the Leodegraunce site in April 2012. Submit a story or three!

I am the guest co-editor of Leodegraunce’s May 2012 issue – normally that honor is Jolie Du Pre’s – and the theme for that issue is cinema. I will be co-editing with my good friend and Leodegraunce associate editor, Gary Russell.

The deadline is April 30, 2012.

If you’re interested in submitting a 200-word-or-less story, and want to get an easy pay $5 (as well as get your work anthologized next year), check out the guidelines. Get your entries in as soon as possible, as this site receives a lot of submissions, but only publishes three or four.

Here, again, are the guidelines. I look forward to reading your work!

Assembly

By Sandra Davies


He had seen their like before. Hungry men, men beleaguered by the harsh words of their swollen-bellied wives, the thin cries of their ailing children. Men beset by exhaustion, who had given every year of their strength and knew that it was never going to be enough.

He understood, his future once was as theirs had proved to be; his boyhood had after all been spent with them.

But he had escaped, had known what was needed and had done it, done it all and yea, he had thrived, while they had not.

He emerged from the doorway, took three paces to the top of the steps, and as the light from the cressets identified him he both heard and saw the winnowed murmur of recognition, of hope pass from the front to the rear of the crowd. Saw that they regarded him as their demagogue, one who would know what was due to them, would know where to lead them.

Silence fell. He raised his voice, and spoke a single word.

‘Tomorrow.’


Copyright ©2012 Sandra Davies 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 Sandra's site, lines of communication, on February 16, 2012.

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If you like this story, check out Sandra's other story, published on this site: In days of olde. . . when knights were absent.

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Sandra Davies is an artist printmaker and recently-emerged writer of fiction, who regards flat estuarine and sea-edged horizons as essential for well-being. Regularly published on MuDSpots, Thinking Ten and Six Sentences, less so Camel Saloon, Pygmy Giant, Pigeon Bike, and currently working on her fifth novel – a romantic detective tale. More writing at lines of communication and prints at Print Universe.