ISSUE 17 Archives | Page 2 of 2

SPORES by Łukasz Drobnik

February 20, 2019 · Fiction

The superhero needs to save the city, but there’s a drunk man in her kitchen. He’s eating a banana. The way he snaps off the stem and peels the whole thing in one brutal movement is all too familiar. She closes her eyes, just for a bit, and thinks of the cool forest air, her cheek against the damp moss, his coarse hands under her blouse. When she lifts her eyelids, the peel is already lying on the stained blue tablecloth, as lifeless as roadkill. Outside, the supermarket is being attacked by red-furred flying monkeys. They grab trolleys from the…

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CONNECTICUT VAMPIRE by Adrian Belmes

February 19, 2019 · Fiction

This is what we burn. The dead. Our ghosts. And illness, like a brand, held long above the fire. Our misunderstandings do become our monsters we admire, for fear is nothing if not love of sorts, obsession. The village men below this home implore upon my grief and seek solution, save their wives, forgetting mine, your sister, and my dying son. You are not a killer, my unrested child, but these men do not know you as I did: a daughter and a weeping lung upon a bed that lies an empty tomb. What sins do we exhume for peace…

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WHITE GRAVY by Marcus Pactor

February 18, 2019 · Fiction

Mother said the old man had never been touched. I didn’t know what she meant by “touched,” but I had heard enough. That afternoon, I leaned over the fence and grated cheese into the old man’s backyard. His cat licked every cheddar shred from the weeds. Its intestines must have gotten clogged, but it lived. The cat disappeared after city workers buried the old man. Months later, a storm buried the eastern seaboard in golden, blanket-sized leaves. Far south of there, we savored the peripheral breeze. Mother had taught me to savor, whenever possible, the small pleasures which occasionally attended…

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TROUT by Kaye Gilhooley

February 17, 2019 · Fiction

I took up fishing late in life. My husband says I fish too much. The smooth length of the rod in my hand is powerful. Did you know my Daiwa carbon 9ft rod is rated to 15 kg? 15kg! That’s the weight of a small child. I fish in the fast stream that borders the south of our farm. It’s the closest boundary to the house. It flows under the bridge and soon feeds into the river, wide and deep. I took up fishing when my daughter went missing. Trout. My brother called her that because when she was a…

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IN COMMON by Chance Dibben

February 13, 2019 · Fiction

Our heads were a perfect match for each other. Inside mine, a wasp that wriggled in and built a nest. It leaves periodically to get pollen, do wasp things, and then returns to the cavern of my ears. Initially, I couldn’t handle the itchy sensation the wasp made when it corkscrewed back into my head—my shoulders rising as if pulled, my spine wound in terror. Enough of anything, though, and you’ll get used to it. How the wasp has lived this long, is a mystery. Maybe it’s not the same wasp. Inside Amanda’s head is a thunderstorm. I thought she…

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dear the eartH by JP Vallières

February 12, 2019 · Fiction

dear the eartH sendar saying maybe the earth help sendaR sendar in quest of the earth habitatioN sendar from nodaN nodians now gone inexplicably removed from galaxY dear the eartH maybe help sendaR sendar last one current in nodaN big day of reckoninG only sendar livinG dear the eartH sendar an artisT before big day of reckoning fatherman saying sendar not be artisT dear the eartH when existing fatherman saying sendar achieve license for galaxy rideR sendar saying galaxy rider does not fit into artist incarnatioN dear the eartH sendar now shameful not knowing how to…

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