Tag Archives: danger

NISSA HARLOW: What It Isn’t

Adventure, Submissions, , , , ,

It isn’t fog.
It’s white and inspissated, obscuring old questions with a new truth.
But it isn’t fog.
You went outside and breathed in.
You didn’t come back inside.
You didn’t breathe out.
I watch you from the window as you stand with all the others.
It definitely isn’t fog.

Nissa Harlow lives in British Columbia, Canada where she dreams up strange stories and writes some of them down. She is the author of a number of novels and novellas, all embellished with a touch of the fantastic. You can find her online at nissaharlow.com.

LARINA WARNOCK: Forecast: Wildfire

Adventure, Submissions, , , , ,

The weather report says low air quality. On the east side of the mountain, we bicker about the mundane: what’s for dinner, who’ll take out the garbage, why the Internet stopped working. We learn too late that the wind shifted, that the cell towers and more are in the way.

Larina Warnock is an educator in Oregon where she lives with her husband, three dogs, and a turtle older than she is.

JESSICA NATASHA LAWRENCE: Life’s Work

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

The scientist wasted his life trying to perform a godless resurrection. His wife, the poet, described him as “beautiful, like the kitchen light reflecting off a knife’s edge.” She used to run her fingers along the blade, thinking, you have to understand, you have to understand, but he never did.

Jessica Natasha Lawrence writes about chronic illness, realistic hope, and the beauty and trials of ordinary life. She can be found on Instagram, Twitter, and Medium.

TIM BOITEAU: Widowmaker

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,
Widowmaker noun
(‘wi-dō-mā-kər)
that rotten limb hanging off the lofty, half-dead white oak in your backyard, creaking in the wind, detaching fiber by groaning fiber, perched directly above your mindless husband as he chuckles along to his favorite comedy podcast, toiling away in the wormy and fragrant sod, planting forget-me-nots.

Tim Boiteau is a Writers of the Future winner and lives in Michigan.

JULIA KLATT SINGER: Boys I Knew

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Boys I knew worked at their uncles’ body shops. They’d take girls like me for a ride. Turning onto the highway, marveling at the power; part liquid, part solid.

Sometimes they’d swerve towards the ditch, always calculating the damage, which parts broken, whether repairable, and what it would cost them.

Julia Klatt Singer is a writer and painter, and the poet in residence at Grace Neighborhood Nursery School in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

CONSTANTINE KING: Night

Adventure, Submissions, , ,

A lot of things can sound like footsteps. A wind causing the wood to lightly creak. A rat scrambling up the drainpipe in darkness. I close my eyes again and wrap my arm around the empty pillow beside me. A lot of things can sounds like footsteps.

Just wishful thinking.

Constantine is a magician, comedian, and busboy from Boston, Massachusetts.

TED MILLAR: Clouds Over the River

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Where I’m seated finishing breakfast it looks like it’s going to be a gorgeous late-summer Saturday. That is until I turn to face the platinum mass in the sky over the river. It stops at the property line — reluctant, it seems, to come any closer.

Escape just might be futile.

Ted Millar’s work has appeared in two dozen publications, including Warp 10, Fictional Cafe, Little Somethings Press, Grand Little Things,, Reflecting Pool: Poets and the Creative Process (Codhill Press, 2018), Circle Show, The Broke Bohemian, The Voices Project, Third Wednesday, The Grief Diaries, Aji, and Chronogram. He was among many poets featured in the 2018 Arts Mid-Hudson exhibit Artists Respond to Poetry.

RITA RIEBEL MITCHELL: Fire of Unknown Origin

Adventure, Submissions, , , ,

Awakened by a flash of heat, I cough out unbreathable air. Light dances across my eyelids. They fling open and tears blur my vision. I blink and stare at flames crawling across the wall. Paint blisters and blackens. Curtains disintegrate into floating ash.

A smoke detector dangles, broken and silent.

Rita Riebel Mitchell writes and lives in the Pinelands of South Jersey with her favorite beta reader. See more at rrmitchell.com.

ROBERT MARKOVICH: The Shade Tree

Adventure, Artistic, Odd, Submissions, , ,

“Tranquil here, isn’t it?” said the voice. She’d met him after her divorce. Such a good listener! She felt a rivulet of sweat trickle down her back beneath her blouse. But the tree was wide, and his touch cool as he coiled himself around her and whispered in her ear.

Robert Markovich spent a lifetime in what is charitably referred to as service journalism, writing and editing stories about everything from cars to toilets, most recently at Consumer Reports. He is happily and gratefully retired.

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.