Noises in the night.
Creature cries.
Sounds of fighting, of pain.
On the grass lies something leathery, scale-like, sticky with blood.
Every day a little bit closer to the house.
Where you keep new knives in unexpected places.
Including one under the mattress, not too far from your stretching hand.
Ian Hunter lives in Scotland and is a writer, poet, and editor.
According to legend, anyone who stepped on Spafford’s grave would never live to see twenty-one. And, sure enough, Robbie Johnson drowned at sixteen, and Willie Eckerson shot himself at twenty.
So the day Rita Snowberger turned twenty-one we had to celebrate, although I suspect even she shared our secret disappointment.
Tony Jasnowski teaches at Bellevue University, hoping to inspire in his students an appreciation for mystery in life.
I lost my face last night. No eyes so I looked by feel.
So many things feel like a face. A silk scarf, a mud puddle, a love letter, a string of kelp.
I found it and put it on. Then I saw it wasn’t mine.
I wore it anyway.
David Holloway lives, reads, and writes in northern Virginia. He’s had stories published in Gargoyle, The Mad River Review, and The Offbeat. His favorite invertebrate is the Nudibranch.
After two days, she was infatuated with the bright smile that followed her classmate’s corny jokes.
He conversed with her sister while she watched from afar. She was hit by the realization that he couldn’t tell her apart from her twin.
The next day he moved on to someone else.
Ann Kennedy is a high school student in Chicago, IL.
A bright pink moulting boa constricts her long and scrawny neck. His battered trilby sports bedraggled pheasant’s plumage.
Perfectly matched, they strut the High Street, clucking falsetto greetings at flocks of old biddies.
At dusk, they return to roost in the nest from which no chick was born to fly.
Karen Tucker has been reading since pre-school and a writer from an early age. She is delighted, so many years later, to have two published full-length novels and five short collections of short stories for sale, mostly on Amazon UK and Amazon USA. She lives in Tunbridge Wells with her partner, and has no children or animals, but a growing collection of interesting friends. Her website is karentucker.me.uk.
I love “people-watching” on rainy afternoons.
Some of them walk with a run, their collars up, heads in shoulders, hands in pockets, then they scatter into doorways and bus shelters.
Some look up into the falling drops with outstretched hands.
Some open their umbrellas and just get on with life.
Over the last few years, Michael has completed a YA psychological thriller and a couple of children’s (animal and toy protagonists) chapter books. He is currently working on a 1930s-themed sci-fi. Michael is living with heart failure, but confesses: “I love writing!”
It was only after Mrs. Fennelly’s prize-winning butter sculpture “A Day in the Life of My Family” had melted that the clean-up crew at the Iowa State Fair discovered the likenesses of her four family members were the direct result of her having actually used each of her family members.
Ran Walker is the author of sixteen books. He currently teaches creative writing at Hampton University. He can be reached at ranwalker.com.
Four boys parade the street naked, their dicks swinging this way and that. At first they try covering them with their hands but when the severity of their situation sets in, they fold their hands in prayer, pleading for mercy.
Behind them, cowhide whips cut through flesh, bone, and will.
Ifediba Zube writes from the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital Nigeria. When she is not neck deep in clinical postings she is in hiding with a good book. She has been published in Hektoen International Journal of Medical Humanities, Windmill Journal, Bridge Literary Journal, Kalahari Review and Expound Magazine of Arts and Aesthetics.
No one knows why color disappeared. Leaves browned. Flowers faded. Clothing looked washed-out. Even blood turned beige.
My son’s never seen a sunset, only gray skies.
The last green shoot attracted longer lines than the Mona Lisa. When I took my son to see it, he scrunched his nose. “Gross.”
Hannah Whiteoak is a freelance writer and poet from Sheffield, UK. Follow her at @hannahwhiteoak.
Time dripped away for Carol. A leaking tap. A drain. So much not done; and she turning forty.
No drink today.
Rain plopped from branches outside her window. Beautiful. Free-flow. Timeless. A wistful tear.
She dropped her bucket list, penned in outrageous swirls, out the window to soak in simplicity.
All Price has been published in Crannog Magazine and Foxglove Journal.