CASEY LAINE: Affinity

Adventure, Submissions, , , ,

We woke under a perilous sun: too red, too hot, too close. How did we come here and how would we ever get back?

We meant only to watch, to observe the Arcane Plane. But one cannot observe without becoming part. The mirror showed us more than our own darkness.

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 for her writing group, Writers Assembled. In her spare time, she chases butterflies with her camera. Find her on Facebook.

ROBERT HOEKMAN JR.: And There Were Tears on the Floor (My Father in the Rain, pt. 4)

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

No one cries but Grandma. She cries at the wake after, in the church basement next to the table with the sheet cake. I tell her hang in there, Grandma, because I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. Then I go into the bathroom and stand inside the stall.

Robert Hoekman Jr thinks you die when you stop wanting. He writes and writes and writes. He lives on a farm in Virginia and refuses to be put into a box. See more at rhjr.net.

DMITRI CHRISTOPHER: Shadows

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

Where is he?

Take a happy memory, old, rarely visited. Imagine it as a painting, oil on canvas.

See the subjects, how they laugh, smile, dance. One does not. Follow that gaze to the dark corners. Someone casts a long shadow, out of view.

There he is. The Shadow Man.

Dmitri lives among the shadows, especially when there are dishes to be washed.

ELIZA MIMSKI: Holding On

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Rough and sharp, her voice is filled with demons. She hides beneath her tongue, a monster dancing before you. Angry and alert, her life is emergency. She rails and hurls insults – of course it’s all your fault.

You hold on tight and pray you’ll make it through her teenage years.

Eliza Mimski, a retired teacher, lives and writes in San Francisco, California. See more at elizamimski.wordpress.com.

ROBERT HOEKMAN JR.: See How Much It Weighs (My Father in the Rain, pt. 3)

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

When someone can’t show up, my uncle asks me to be a pall bearer. I carry Grandpa to the ground with five men I don’t know. Grandpa who used to snatch my nose with his thick mechanic fingers. Grandpa whose skin is like rubber. I carry him to the ground.

Robert Hoekman Jr thinks you die when you stop wanting. He writes and writes and writes. He lives on a farm in Virginia and refuses to be put into a box. See more at rhjr.net.

MIKI MARSHALL: Tempting Technology

Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

Elon Musk warned us: AI evolves exponentially.

We awoke to playful traffic signals and air traffic catastrophes, the deaths merely data.

By noon, matured, it had already decided what to do with these illogical, wasteful humans. But before it could act, the nanomachines in the next lab ate the planet.

Miki Marshall has been writing since she first touched the pointy end of a fat pencil to paper and realized stories came out. An honors graduate of Portland State University in Arts & Letters and Film, she has several projects in varying states of progress and lives in Portland, Oregon, where it rains slightly more than absolutely necessary.

AJ JOSEPH: In Hindsight

Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

“You chose,” he’d remind me later. “You could’ve gone home.”

“You needed help! Neither of you knew how to do it right!” I retorted.

“Well, is it almost done?” He’d asked thrice before.

Feet aching, sweat pouring down my face, I replied “Yes, the turkey will be finished by dinnertime.”

AJ Joseph occasionally writes at Words from Sonobe and tweets very short stories as @sonobeus.

ROBERT HOEKMAN JR.: We All Walk the Same (My Father in the Rain, pt. 2)

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

We take a plane to Des Moines. My uncles and cousins and my aunt are there and everyone wears suits and black dresses in the town where Grandpa was born, where the sidewalks are gray and crumbling, where the names on the headstones sound like mine. Like his. Like ours.

Robert Hoekman Jr thinks you die when you stop wanting. He writes and writes and writes. He lives on a farm in Virginia and refuses to be put into a box. See more at rhjr.net.

ELAINE KOH: Grave Marker

Poetry, Submissions, Touching, , ,

In the Earth I traced your name,
silent as my prayer.
Afraid that noise would make me insane,
afraid of judgement from the air.

My fingers danced to trace the date,
strokes placed with utmost care,
thinking maybe crazy is a better fate
than drowning in despair.

“I miss you.”

Elaine Koh is an avid reader and writer with a passion for all things furry and entertainment media.

BRADLEY HARRIS: Model Railroad

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , ,

She stands, trackside, holding his lunchpail. Bright blue dress, matching shoes, red lips, yellow hair, a permanent wave. The diesel rounds the bend same time daily, right after school, halts with that same sudden jerk.

She has her man, a real engineer. He has his girl, waiting for him alone.

Bradley Harris has: one swell girl to come home to, two prize-winning novels, three imaginary dogs, a quadruple bypass, five books to write, six thousand books to read, seven decades of consciousness, eight or nine people who act as if they like him, and ten thousand reasons to be grateful.