Month: February 2024

Fiction by Feb 3, 20249:40 am

This Witch is Burning by Teagan Fowlkes

I really don’t remember much of anything anymore. And people always get frustrated when I say that, but if I asked you about something that happened when you were a kid, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell me every single detail either. People forget that memories are slippery. Slippery like you and your friend’s sweaty grips on your bikes’ handlebars on a hot day during summer break. But you wouldn’t remember that. I’m going to try to explain to help you remember because I want you to understand why we did it.

For starters, we were ten.

Fiction by Feb 3, 20249:39 am

Port Hedland by Eesa Manzoor

From the top of the hill, in between the tailor’s and the old pound shop, Rahim thought the tall building on the horizon must be the Sydney Opera House. The geometric slants of the architecture were unlike anything else he’d seen before. He wondered how long it would take to walk there.

His brother took him home. One of the few books they owned was pulled from the back of the cupboard, where it was trapped by a copy of the Yellow Pages—itself several years old and sitting amongst the family belongings for no good reason.

Fiction by Feb 3, 20249:38 am

Monster Building for Beginners by Chris Carrel

In the morning I scrub myself clean with a quick, efficient shower. Ten minutes, no more, no less. Soap, shampoo, scrub and rinse. No repeat.

To build a monster, you must begin with clean skin.

From there it’s a matter of covering up the right vents and ducts. Leave no portals unobstructed. Build upward with layers of the appropriate energy patterns and attitudinal currents.

This is not as difficult as it sounds. Once you get used to the required adjustments, it becomes second nature.

Flash fiction. by Feb 3, 20249:37 am

Prodigy by Sara Dobbie

The piano arrives in a flurry of men pushing, pulling, and shouting directions. They heave it onto a dolly and up the front steps. They guide it through the doorway, then carry and lift and shuffle all the furniture to position it as the focal point of the front room.

In the back room, Clara hides in a corner and eavesdrops. She listens to her mother say, “This is what Clara needs. A hobby. A purpose.” Her father agrees, “Yes, this might help.” Help with what, Clara scoffs. Help diminish her propensity toward solitude? Help transform her into a different girl? Nothing could help Clara fulfill her mother’s expectations.

Creative non-fiction by Feb 3, 20249:35 am

(grand)mother tongue by Josafina Garcia

I am a mutant. A being living between two spaces I (don’t) know how to occupy.

I don’t know how to speak Spanish, a torment that pulls at my insides. A feeling that festers like anger like rage, it bubbles like tears as they slide hot down my face. I am reminded of this feeling when my grandmother is downstairs watching telenovelas after my brother’s graduation. When the voices drift up the sitars and pour into the crack of my bedroom door like a lullaby of sounds I can only piece together. When I laugh at the half-broken text messages my grandmother sends me on my birthday, an attempt to tell me that she loves me but the words just don’t line up right. When my grandmother calls my mother in the car and the conversation carries through the speakers, a blending of languages as they slip between worlds, the ease of a conversation I can’t follow.

Fiction by Feb 3, 20249:34 am

Homeless Devil Dolls by Cameron L. Mitchell

On the train ride home, I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened that day at work with my boss. Since she’s the director of our organization, I rarely have reason to interact with her at all. That’s my supervisor’s job, so being summoned to her office felt like a big deal. And it was, I quickly discovered. She chewed me out, all over nothing, really. A perceived slight she took personally. I thought she was going to fire me on the spot.

Fiction by Feb 3, 20249:33 am

Keeping Up With The Joanses by Margaret Cahill

You look like a Joan. That’s what Ciara’s flatmate Fidelma said to me one Friday night in The Round House. We’d gone out for drinks after work and Ciara had texted her to invite her along. Ciara’d gone up to get the first round in when she said it.

“Sorry, what did you say your name was again?” Fidelma asked, even though Ciara had only just introduced us.

“Joan,” I replied.

Fiction by Feb 3, 20249:32 am

The Unfortunate Kidnapping of the Accidental Imposter of the Artist by Paul Kimm

I didn’t move to Malta for The Beheading of St. John the Baptist, but it factored in when I decided to make the move. I’m talking about the painting of course, not the actual decapitation of the man. Valetta didn’t even exist when they were lopping off John’s noggin and the severing of said head happened in what’s now Jordan I believe. I don’t care about all that stuff, the history, the faith, that can all sod off. It’s Caravaggio’s colours, light, sense of space, the still action in the painting. The beauty and the violence. The messages. The blood. The signing in John the Baptist’s blood right there, on the huge, five metre canvas, that’s what gets me. Every time I’ve been to the cathedral, and paid the extortionate 12 euros entrance fee, it has got me.

Flash fiction. by Feb 3, 20249:31 am

Room by Alison Wassell

You are compact, says the estate agent, a glorified cupboard say your owners. You are the custodian of cardboard boxes and unwanted wedding gifts. You are magnolia.

You are papered in pink princesses. Cartoon character curtains hang at your window and a homemade mobile of cotton wool clouds and knitted rainbows is suspended from your ceiling. You are filled with laughter and lullabies, crying and crises, the gurgling, giggling growing of your girl.