Category: Fiction

Fiction by Idle InkMay 6, 20239:28 am

Takeda by Christopher A. Walker

From the plane window, Tokyo yawns gray and endless. At this altitude, it all seems still, like a diorama. Despite the serenity of this quiet scene, I can’t shake this twinge of panic that haunts me every time I get on a plane.

It’s been some time since I was last in Japan. One day I’d like to visit without any interviews, no all-nighters spent hammering out a first draft, counting the difference between JST and PST on my fingers like a nervous tic. Among Tokyo’s millions, I hope to find one man. A man who doesn’t know I exist, but whose work and the questions it leaves unanswered have shaped the course of my life indelibly. I need to ask him how he made something that shouldn’t be possible.

The only problem is that Yusei Takeda disappeared twenty-three years ago.

Fiction by Idle InkMay 6, 20239:27 am

Like Two Bottlecaps Inside a Pellucid Head by Zoe Davis

Hello.

I have a problem.

And that problem is

that I

am cursed.

Fiction by Idle InkMay 6, 20239:25 am

I Found a Dead Body! by Robert Welbourn

I found a dead body!

I can’t believe it, I’m so happy. You read about these things, see them on the news, but you never think it’ll happen to you. I began to think it never would happen to me, and began to wonder why I even got a fucking dog in the first place. But now I remember why!

What a wonderful, glorious day!

Fiction by Idle InkMay 6, 20239:24 am

Loser by Riley Passmore

Jeffrey Rhodes, the actual quarterback for the Detroit Lions, punches me in the face with everything he goddamn has, and I puke all over my Levi’s. I mean, he really lets me have it. By the time he pulls away his fist, I see stars and the face of God.

“How do you do it?” he snarls, his fist held high for another blow. He’s tied me to a folding chair, and has my collar wrenched up in his other hand. He’s angrier than Bigfoot.

Fiction by Idle InkMay 6, 20239:23 am

Secrets by Lori D’Angelo

The blood drinking would not begin till after midnight, which was good because it gave Daphne time to prepare.

They say that your first experience is unforgettable, a gateway to everything else.

Daphne was 14, so she was old enough to participate if she wanted to. But she could also choose to wait.

“You don’t want to rush it,” Serafina had told her.

Serafina was older and a prefect and the only other girl from Daphne’s depressed farming town, so, by default, they were best friends.

Fiction by Idle InkApr 1, 202312:19 pm

Turn off Your Mind by Gary Duehr

Eddie hung a right onto Linden Court, a short dead end, and pulled over to the curb beside some blue recycle bins. He eased the Civic into Park, and the doors locked with a clunk. He checked the rearview mirror. His daughter’s girl, Mia, just 10 months, was still conked out in the car seat. Her head and right shoulder sagged against the seatbelt, as if she were an astronaut buckled into a capsule. The fuzzy straps of her gray knit cap dangled beside her ears, framing her look of serious concentration.

Fiction by Idle InkApr 1, 202312:16 pm

A Shred of Decency by Kate Bergquist

In between wracking coughs and long, thirsty swigs of Jim Beam, Bessie takes a good hard look at Burt’s face. “That storm. It’s brewing again. In your eyes,” she says, craning her neck to study his mixture of dark blue twisted with gray and green; changeable eyes that reflect his mood. Somber, with a pinch of angry.

“You can’t hide it from me.”

Fiction by Idle InkApr 1, 202312:15 pm

Surf Indulgence by Keith Buzzard

Hassan sat on the bench and looked out over the water. He wondered what it would be like to be lost at sea. The view of the water was obscured by all of the boats, but he focused on the one clear patch that stretched out to the horizon and imagined being adrift. A single human soul in an ocean entire lifetimes have been spent upon without seeing all there is to see. He was filled with the low grade, buzzing sensation of nascent awe. With something so immense, words don’t sound big enough, so he made due with emphasis. The ocean was just so big and constantly moving.

All of the boats bobbed in the endless ebb and flow of the waves. Some sat low in the water, barely registering the lift and release of the tide. Others seemed to rest on the top of the water like a leaf, obeying every twist and pull, every rise and fall, every whim of the water that had existed billions of years before the boat and will be here billions of years after. And always moving! Always in motion! Always in–

“Excuse me.”

Fiction by Idle InkApr 1, 202312:13 pm

Welcome to the Starlite by Katy Goforth

Everyone has a limit. I hit mine on a picture-perfect Saturday in late April. I had resigned myself to being alone. Unlike my mother’s generation, I didn’t need a partner. I didn’t need a marriage contract. I did fine on my own. Or so I thought.

The loneliness set in after I started perusing the online dating sites. It was as if knowing what my prospects were made it worse. My profile was overflowing with potential mates that had perfected the bathroom selfie. The few times I accepted a match I quickly realized the dating software had failed me. I had no gracious way out. My “thanks but no thanks” message was most often greeted with, “Whatever. You’re an ugly bitch anyway.”