ANDY HEDGECOCK: A Sense of Perspective

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,

Paper crinkles as she walks over a mosaic of manila and white envelopes in her hallway – bills, warnings and notices.

Outside, on the way to the bar, she is ambushed by moonlight and reflects that banks, bosses and former lovers will all be obliterated before Neil Armstrong’s bootprints. She smiles.

Andy Hedgecock lives and works in rural Nottinghamshire, UK, close to an Iron Age earthwork, the remains of a Roman fort, a decommissioned coalmine and a disused railway line. It’s a place of scars, erasures and stories.

CLARE O’BRIEN: Give and Take

Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

“Sometimes, when I look into his eyes,” said Chloe to her sister, “I swear he understands everything I’m saying.”

“Don’t anthropomorphise,” replied Claudette. “They’re only human.”

Chloe licked the man’s hand as he scraped leftovers into their bowls. What did it matter, anyway? They were onto a good thing here.

Previously PR to a politician and PA to a rock star, Clare now lives noisily in Scotland, writing her first novel, Light Switch. Her work has recently appeared in Mslexia, The London Reader, Spelk, Cabinet of Heed, Northwords Now, and anthologies from The Emma Press and Hedgehog Poetry. Find out more at clarevobrien.weebly.com.

SM SAVES: Love on Fire

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

The touch of your lips
An intoxicating kiss
Cool as water
Calms my simmering heart

“When I was your age, those lyrics would have been about fire. Love was always on fire.”

“That’s morbid, mom,” she says. She’s at that age.

But that’s how it was before the world burned.

ADAM SIROVÁTKA: The Sheriff

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , , ,

Prague, 1941.

The boy finished reading his favourite book. It was a western novel with a sheriff and bandits, and he loved everything about it.

He looked at his coat with a yellow star on it. “Now I’m the sheriff!” he thought proudly. “Tomorrow, I’ll show it to my classmates.”

Adam is a 19 year old student. He’s living near Prague in the Czech republic.

CASEY LAINE: Demon at Day’s End

Adventure, Submissions, , ,

A summoning felt a propos when the moon fell from the sky and the sun blew out. To part the veil of the Arcane Plane had always been forbidden—a gateway to nameless evil, an invitation to the dark. But now? What was one more dark thing in unmitigated night?

Casey Laine comes from a long line of talkative women. She works as Fantasy Editor at Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, and publishes an annual anthology of fiction and poetry for her writing group, Writers Assembled. In her spare time, she chases butterflies with her camera. Find her on Facebook, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, and Amazon.

JANINE IWAYA: Mom’s Poetry

Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

My mother’s memory of the poems surprised me. I’d sit with her and listen to her recite, after years of never hinting that she knew any poetry. I wonder if she was reminded of the young farm girl she once was, standing in front of her father, practicing until perfect.

Janine lives and writes in Portland, Oregon where she can’t help but be influenced by the leafless trees shrouded in fog. Winter has its beauty.

JON KEMSLEY: Crypto

Amusing, Submissions, , , , , ,

I wrote it at my desk in a lunch break. Couple of things they hadn’t thought of. Open source code. Update schedules for anyone who cares to look. And a numbered bank account.

Secure by design? Don’t make me laugh. Back door on the latch is really asking for it.

Jon Kemsley has been published in Ellipsis, Ginosko, the Fiction Pool, New World Writing, Neon and others. He lives and works on the south coast of England, listens to old jazz records and occasionally remembers to call his brother about whatever it was he promised to do the last time.

ED N. WHITE: The Balloon

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

The child’s hopes are dashed as the balloon rises higher and further out of reach.

The question remains: is this what the balloon is seeking?

At the higher altitude, the rarer air and the heating sun cause the balloon to expand until it bursts.

Be careful what you wish for.

Ed N. White has recent stories accepted by The Scarlet Leaf Review and Wordgatherings (Dec. issue).

EILEEN MARDRES: Friendship

Poetry, Submissions, Touching, , , ,

Fifty years, my love, fifty years ago. We barely knew our outer selves, but joined at inner core.

From stolen moments in the fields, we followed separate paths.

The years grew long my love, with bodies wrinkled and grey. Now space and time have disappeared, sweet love evolved to more.

Eileen is a grandma twelve times over, who, now retired, has switched from writing as part of her employment for others to writing along her own creative path. She has a poem recently published in Mothers of Angels 2.