He’s going Wenera, his path winds endlessly. He’s finding the path hard to follow. It’s very narrow, and it continuously twists and shifts. Sometimes when he sits down and rests, he wakes up and discovers that his path isn’t there anymore. He’s trying to understand the order of things around him, but everything seems arbitrary. Boulders, rifts and high mountains suddenly appear along the way. Now and then he has to walk over them or around them. It’s frustrating, his passage is proving to be excruciatingly exhausting.
Category: Fiction
Well, Not Today by David August
Larry Sanchez, a father of two who worked as an operations manager for a pharmaceutical company, woke up at his usual time on Monday. Like every day, he sat at the kitchen table, drank his coffee and ate his bagel, but then, instead of getting up to go to work, he just stood there, thinking of nothing in particular.
He was startled when his sons stormed into the kitchen and grabbed whatever they could find to eat on their way to school. Larry usually left for work before the boys even woke up, although it was not unheard of for him to be a little late to see them off. In less than a minute, they said goodbye to their father and were gone.
God Will Be In Today by Olivia Payne
‘So no meat, including meat soup, no spreads–’
‘Not even jam?’
‘No, not even jam I’m afraid.’
‘Don’t we buy in the jam?’
‘Well–’
‘If I can just jump in there, Val? As we were discussing in the supervisor meeting last week, the cost of buying in jam is just too much for our budget at the moment. Jam is technically one of our luxury items that we don’t promise to people, it’s just nice to have.’
Rituals by Joseph Evergreen
Before every game, Dalton Kissinger would arrive early and run exactly three laps around the baseball diamond. Following that, he would take his hat and flip it in the air, attempting to move his neck so it landed directly on his head. It normally took around five tries. Last, just before the game began, he would buy an order of fries, sprinkle pepper on them, and eat every last fry. With these three rituals, Dalton Kissinger ensured that he would play a good game.
He got fries from a place up the street and brought them back to the locker room. Dalton kept a pepper shaker in his duffel.
Daddy by Anthony Imm
You complain that we won’t find Daddy’s Civic the entire way to the junkyard.
When we arrive at the lot of gutted cars, you lull behind me like a shadow. A sickle moon stamps the night sky, glowing pale white like my flashlight. The wind is cold; I zip up my jacket and put the hood over my head; I can feel my lips drying, chapping like the ridges of a dry desert.
Words Left Unsaid by R W Owen
1
“Hey Bill.”
“Hey, Brad.”
Neither one thinks of something else to say so each man takes to comparing the other to the ghosts of their youth that survive in their faces.
Brad’s waist has bulged.
Bill’s baby face is gone.
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.
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.
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.
Idle Ink 