Mosaic
In the damp alley, overrun by cockroaches, he lifts his hands in defence as the gunshots follow. In the church across the courtroom, he cries on his knees while the man in black caresses his hair. Under the highway overpass, muffled by overnight trains, screams dissipate. Pinned down, half unconscious, she is too weak to resist. Not far away, the blue siren rips through the darkness, a thick envelope in the back seat.
‘And they say we are filthy’.
Thousands of minuscule images converging into a single one; buzzing away into the gleaming vastness above, content with their alien heritage.
Andrea Damic (Sydney, Australia) is an amateur photographer and author of prose and poetry. She believes there is something cathartic about seeing your words and art out in the world. You can find her at https://damicandrea.wordpress.com/, on X @DamicAndrea, Instagram @damicandrea FB @AndreaDamic and Bluesky @damicandrea.bsky.social.
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My brother could identify any key by its teeth. In his 20s, he’d station himself outside the fairground and call people over. ‘If I can’t guess every key on your ring, I’ll give you a hundred bucks.’ He was so ordinary, they’d always come closer.
One by one, he’d stroke a key, name it shed, office, mother’s house, midlife-crisis car. The strangers’ eyes would bulge.
He’d always get the last one wrong and shrug. Hand them a hundred. Walk over to the hospital for his next treatment.
He was only three when Dad started making him do it for the customers. ‘Get out your keys,’
he’d say. ‘Show ’em, kid.’ The car lot did well back then.
When my brother died, the business account was dry. Dad still hasn’t figured out where the money went.!
Angeline Schellenberg is the author of the Manitoba Book Award-winning Tell Them It Was Mozart (Brick Books, 2016), the KOBZAR-nominated Fields of Light and Stone (UAP, 2020), and the forthcoming Mondegreen Riffs (At Bay Press, 2024). Her stories have appeared recently in New Flash Fiction Review, The Ekphrastic Review, 50-Word Stories, and Molecule. A contemplative spiritual director and writing mentor, she hosts the Speaking Crow poetry open mic in Winnipeg, Canada. Find her at angelineschellenberg.wordpress.com and @poetic_Angeline
Tooth Fairy
I stopped smiling to camouflage my loose tooth. If one of the chicklets wobbled, my father would wind string around it and yank. For days I depended on orange Jello to help me keep it in my mouth, but in the end it wasn’t enough.
The painted cat on the clock blinks its ruby eyes as my father, slips a quarter under my pillow and withdraws the tooth. He’ll feed me the rest of that Jello tomorrow to soothe my plush pink socket, but how much will he pay for the next piece of me he collects?
Cheryl Snell’s books include several poetry collections and the novels of her Bombay Trilogy. Most recently her writing has appeared in Gone Lawn, Your Impossible Voice, Necessary Fiction, Pure Slush, and The Odd Magazine. A classical pianist, she lives in Maryland with her husband, a mathematical engineer.
The Pig That Watched The Apocalypse
Through a series of events unrecorded by history, a pig – whose name was Barry - was the last living creature on the planet. As the apocalypse gathered pace, somewhere deep in his little porcine brain Barry knew his destiny was to watch the final embers of life burn from the world. Even had he been able to vocalise his thoughts, he could never have explained why such a responsibility would fall upon a walking side of ham. The Gods play games with all of us. The Gods love games, except Monopoly. Monopoly sucks.
As all around him went up in flames and the stars overhead exploded, Barry, snout wrinkled in determination, pulled his stubby pink carcass up a nearby hill. On reaching the summit he sat, grunting, as ash swept around the landscape and the burning fire encircled him. He found a few stray blades of grass, untouched by the ravages of the apocalypse, and chewed them as he waited for the end of everything. If he’d squinted, he might have been able to make out the faces of the Gods staring down at him from the dangerous magenta sky. But he didn’t. He simply kept chewing, then swallowed, and barely had time to register that there was no more before the fire engulfed him and the world ended.
Later, the Gods took a stroll across the charred cadaver of the Earth, sending ash flying with each divine footstep. As they did so, the corpse of Barry the pig caught the eye of Zeus. He bent his colossal frame double in order to inspect the now charbroiled final witness to the apocalypse. He bowed his head in respect, and turned to the others.
‘Ribs, anyone?’ he asked. ‘Dionysus, did you bring any booze?’
David Cook’s stories have been published in Ellipsis Zine, Janus Literary, Splonk and many more. He’s a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. He lives in Bridgend, Wales, with his wife and daughter. Say hi on Twitter @davidcook100.
The Sex Lives of Centaurs
My aunt, the racist, used to come home from the faylands, where she was a very bad therapist, and dish on the gossip, on her observations, and on things that weren’t really fact at all, but seemed true enough to her estimation. I would sit at the end of the table and listen, but really it was a conversation between my aunt and my mother, my aunt talking, my mother casting in her opinions and asides. My aunt would tell us how the trolls would come to her because the husband was cheating (how predictable), how the centaurs tended to be vain about their hooves, and needed them to be touched during you know what (their hooves?), that a cyclops could sense depth just fine, and mermen were quite jovial, if you could get over the ooze of their handshake.
“And the unicorns?” I would ask, because in my child’s mind I needed there to be something beautiful and beyond her petty gossip.
“Poor dear,” my aunt would tell me, because this was something I asked a lot, no matter the topic at hand, “I’ve already told you before, unicorns don’t exist.”
JI Daniels is an Assistant Professor of English at Clayton State University, the author of the novel, Mount Fugue, If You Can, a collection of short stories, and other stories and essays.
Mother’s Little Helper
Betty forces a smile as she grips the mixing bowl. Whisk. Whisk. Whisk. Bob takes pictures. The kids tear open their Christmas gifts. The kids tear into each other. Bob says, “Easy does it.” Betty sneaks a yellow pill under her tongue.
Bob puts together a Lionel train set. Bob mutters, “This is the worst.” Bob says, “Hand me that screwdriver.” Betty says, “OK.” Betty thinks, ‘screw you.’ Betty dries her hands on the stupid apron Bob bought her for Christmas.
“Who wants pancakes?” Bob shouts. “I do. I do!” the kids scream. Betty reaches into the pocket of her apron, grabs a couple of pills, and mixes them into the batter. Whisk. Whisk. Whisk. Bob spikes his coffee. The trainset sputters around the fake tree.
The kids chant, “Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes!” Bob snaps, “What’s taking so long!?” Betty looks at her watch (not a gift from Bob), sets the table, and serves. Bob and the kids pick up their forks. Betty picks up the camera. Says, “Smile.”
Karen Crawford lives and writes in the City of Angels. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was included in Wigleaf's Top 50 Longlist 2022. Her work has appeared in Bending Genres, Emerge Literary Journal, Cheap Pop, 100 Word Story, and elsewhere.
Debt, Recovery etc.
Every morning I took the same street, the one snaking through the market in the village smaller than a football field, tucked under the snow capped range of majestic Himalayas.
I prefered horseradish or spinach, only vegetables I could cook quickly on my stove without spending too much time on careful plucking and precise chopping. Rotis, I made perfectly round and puffy because my wife had taught me during her pregnancy before Raja was born. Now my boy is 11nth and my wife is in Punjab, waiting for my reposting there. It's been a long wait.
I turned to burkha-clad Ameena with her cartwheel loaded with horseradish. She smiled as I picked a fluffy bunch.
"You are in luck. You don't get them as green and crisp in this season," she said. "Get ready to eat something else, summer shows no sign of arrival."
"I am five rupees short."
"Tomorrow," she said cheerfully.
The blast was deafening, followed by tratatat trat trat of machine guns. Rackless bursts of terrorists' Ak47 answered by the Indian military's semi-automatics. I fell to the ground and looked for cover through smoke and burning smells. Screams of panic. Curses of terrible pain. Mayhem followed as people ran, fell down, collided.
A tear gas canister exploded not a few feet from us. Ameena ran with her four year old away from me and that was the last I saw her on her feet. Another blazing blast that shook the ground. When I could see through my burning eyes, Ameena rose in the air as if in slow motion, her mouth wide with surprise, burkha billowing against gray clouds of dust, hand still clutching her boy. She fell down with a dull thud.
Camouflage trucks stood on one side, smoke and flames all around. Siren was deafening. I felt the rush in my limbs, but my mind was numb. I crawled over, stamping vegetables and mud and plastic toys and shiny ribbons. Ameena lay there, breathless, her left hand was blown away somewhere with the blast. She opened her eyes, a trickle of blood rolled out from her nostril.
"Don't move, we will rush you to the doctor".
Ameena closed her eyes in pain and her head fell back to the ground. Her boy held her fiercely, his tiny hands covered with her blood.
"Ami no! Ami wake up, don't go yet!"
She opened her eyes and looked dreamily at the boy and then to me. She could barely breathe. The puddle of blood grew bigger underneath her.
"Yyyo….," she sucked in a long tortured breath and shoved her little boy towards me.
"I got him, your boy is safe!" I cried above the confusing din.
After a long moment, she turned on her side with the last of her remaining strength.
"You owe me.., he has no one…"
Her head fell with a final thud and she went far far away, beyond our reach as her boy held her, tighter than ever.
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Mahendra Waghela writes, directs and reviews stories/screenplays. His stories have appeared in Wordweavers (first prize for short story), Open Road Review, Orange Frame Literary Review, Woman's Era, Suite101 (55-word crime story prize), 69 Flavours of Paranoia, Apollo's Lyre (flash fiction prize), Vagabonds,, 47-16 (short fiction and poetry antholog inspired by David Bowie), Twenty Two New Asian Stories and Ancient Curse 2023. Quarter Finalist in Best Cinematic Story (SCREENCRAFT.ORG.). Missing, his short film as writer-director was nominated for Best Social Message Film category at International Microfilm Festival Kochi 2022.
Maz
Your lips are not wet from supping On Maseratis. Your lips have been lost from home. You never asked me to talk it through. Somehow the blackbirds sitting one by one on the telephone line understand me. Here I am alone in this gorgeous house.
How did you become a creature named Maz, Anyway? I think it was that damn trading school I put you through. I did not realize my own mistake. I was betting on your getting a clue and going for something bigger in life. You got interested in those ugly Maseratis. I could not pull you away. Then you started your own Maserati repair business. While I am still in architecture school.
The blackbirds chirping to themselves on the telephone line are getting bored with my conversation. They have come to believe that I'm just whining sour grapes. Nonetheless, now that you're famous. everybody wants a piece of you. And I have to say I'm left with not much.
Since you called me a whining queer bitch, my mental illness has been creeping back. PTSD makes me scared to be in a room with loud noise or a bunch of people. The disassociation is acting like it never laughed. I think the disease association never left. It's making French kisses with my clinical depression.
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Marc Isaac Potter (we/they/them) … is a differently-abled writer living in the SF Bay Area. Marc’s interests include blogging by email and Zen.They have been published in Fiery Scribe Review, Feral A Journal of Poetry and Art, Poetic Sun Poetry, and Provenance Journal. Twitter is @marcisaacpotter.
Blades
The old man peeked out the window then ordered his son to go disarm that crazy man wielding a Bowie knife whose kid would years later shake a crying baby to death but the old man had sired no hero just a disappointment who froze and what the hell the whacko just stabbed the ground and laughed at the moon that wasn’t even full and maybe all this is behind the failed son’s knife fights and scars and slamming his knife down on bars when the rotgut shots didn’t arrive fast enough and on the operating table asking the surgeon just before going under if it was his daddy who put the scalpel in his hand or if his highly trained mitts ever tried to shake coins out of a baby’s diaper
Thomas M. McDade resides in Fredericksburg, VA.
He is a Fairfield University graduate.McDade is twice a U.S. Navy Veteran serving ashore at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, Dam Neck Virginia Beach, VA, and aboard the USS Mullinnix (DD-944) and USS Miller (DE / FF-1091).