Tag Archives: fear

RS NELSON: Like Father, Like Son

Artistic, Submissions, , , , , ,

The boy applies the self-adhesive mustache. His mother holds back tears, registering the striking resemblance with his father. Someday, he might also fight in a foreign war, and his broken body might return to his wife and son.

“Do you like it, Mom?”

She smiles, caressing the rough, artificial fibers.

R.S. Nelson (she/her) is a Latina writer who lives and finds inspiration in Southern California. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, Every Writer, SciFiSat, Every Day Fiction, Twin Bird Review, and elsewhere.

HARMONY MOONEY: The Cost of the Bargain

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

I haunt my old house these days. Last night, as bats flitted through looking for a way out, I went to check my reflection in my entryway mirror for the first time since I made the bargain. No one was looking back at me. I asked the bats to stay.

Harmony Mooney is a teacher and writer living on the North Coast of California with her husband, two cats, and two dogs.

A GUHA DEB: Zealot

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

I don’t really pray. You couldn’t offend my god because I have never had one.

But now, I see it dying, to a thousand cheers, and likes and shares, and my rage feels almost devout, my wrath, suspiciously religious.

Art is the prayer we offer at the altar of humanity.

A. Guha Deb is a writer, a student and a chronic procrastinator who writes best on an approaching unrelated deadline. He is currently juggling a dozen hobbies along with the tiny problem of figuring his life out.

LITSA DREMOUSIS: Percy’s Grave

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

I lay flat on the cold, wet grass and looked up at the starlit sky. I worried security might catch me. I hoped his ghost, if it existed, might drop by. But the hours unspooled and neither appeared. I was alone, and by morning I knew I’d stay that way.

Litsa Dremousis (she/her) is the author of Altitude Sickness (Future Tense Books). Seattle Metropolitan Magazine named it one of the all-time “20 Books Every Seattleite Must Read”.

ED WALKER: Momentum

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

The astronaut’s tether breaks. She has suit air for several minutes and, tying her backpack to the remaining line, slings it away from the space station, hoping for the best.

A child sees a shooting star. Her father says, “Make a wish.”

“I wish mommy could be here with us!”

Ed Walker is a retired engineer currently living in Catalunya, Spain. His work can be found in The Arcanist, Blink-Ink and elsewhere.

BROOKSIE C FONTAINE: Night Mare

Artistic, Odd, Submissions, , ,

The nightmare visits me just before dawn, like clockwork. A horrid black horse, dripping night from her mane, eyes pale moons.

Finally, I’m tired of fear. I climb onto her cold back.

She carries me into the violet morning. Once fear sheds from her pelt, she shines in the dawn.

Brooksie C. Fontaine is a coffee addict who got into college at fifteen and annoyed everyone there. She is a teaching assistant, illustrator, and MFA recipient. Her work appeared in trampset, Bending Genres, Eunoia Review, Literally Stories, Aureation, Report From Newport, Boston Accent Lit, the Things Improbable anthology, and more.

ROBB LANUM: How to get Mom through chemo

Artistic, Submissions, , , , , , ,
  • Turn off your work phone.
  • Keep a wastebasket clean and within reach.
  • Pretend you’re hearing her stories from 1965 for the first time.
  • Help her look for a tasteful wig online.
  • Feed her like she fed you.
  • Hold her hand and tell her that none of this is her fault.

Robb Lanum is a failed screenwriter in Los Angeles who fell in love with the short form.

YASH SEYEDBAGHERI: New Roots

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

My sister says revolution has broken out back home.

Automobile horns honk, as if in congratulations.

I think of Cossacks’ whips. Tatiana shielding me. Pleading with factory owners for kopecks and mercy.

Time to plant new seeds. Smash tundra.

We embrace. Imagine our growth, roots rising into a new sky.

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time,” have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. His work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Ariel Chart, among others.

RÂNA CAMPBELL: The Only Voice I Hear

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

“I’m Will Landon and you’re listening to Night Train on KHJZ, Radio R&R. Here’s a little lullaby…”

Your chocolate-fondue voice yields to silken jazz, a mastery of sound so artful it hushes my debilitating phobia.

Maybe one day I’ll venture outside, into a world equally endowed with such gentle manners.

Râna is currently trapped in her home by snowbanks as tall as herself.

DEBORAH-Z ADAMS: Small Town Witch Has Perfect Vision

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

They froze my third eye, she tells me. She means Ajna chakra, the site of true seeing, the sight of the divine, taken from her as thoughtlessly as stealing hummingbird nectar. My own well up. Never mind she says, palming my heart. I don’t need eyes to see the light.

Deborah-Z Adams is an award-winning author of novels, short fiction, CNF, and poetry. You’re invited to visit her website at Deborah-Adams.com.