It began with a fire.
‘Paranormal activity’, he said. ‘That’s what started it – ghosts, demons’.
The phone line crackled and I held my breath.
I heard him tut, and sigh, then say, ‘Or maybe you think he died of Spontaneous Human Combustion?’.
There was a pause.
‘I’m not trying to scare you’, he said.
Zingpow is a resort town, a seaside splash of glass towers, whitewashed villas, and thatched huts on a sparkling beach, with a harbor for yachts, an indoor shopping mall for luxury brands, and exclusive clubs in which to dine and dally. Zingpow is a playground for the elite, a getaway for the one percent. Zingpow is a jolt for the idle and a balm for the weary, a place to rev up and a place to relax. Zingpow accepts major credit cards, wire transfers, and pure gold.
Slender moments
Slender touch,
Blue eyes seeing red
A freckled face in the mirror
In a battered apartment room
Where tears are commonplace
Where aromas of sex and wine
Intertwine.
A single teardrop draws a bright line down the old man’s dust-smeared cheek. Its slow passage further marks a face weathered by time and toil. This dystopia, this burning Earth, has claimed his kin. It seems that now, finally, it is his turn to die.
Baker coughs, his raw throat screaming for relief. He’s on his knees, this once proud man, and the tear he sheds is not born of the pain or the humiliation that he’s being subjected to. It is for his friends, the two young travellers who not so long ago accompanied him, the two who were killed instantly by the band of raiders who’d ambushed them.
We begin again likewise,
we look to end the stutter
we want to start laughing.
Review by J.L. Corbett
Writer: Cooper Anderson
Artist: A.C. Ironside
Publisher: ArrowKey Studios
Release date: 3rd March 2020
Price: £10 (plus p&p)
Inner Workings is the first title produced by ArrowKey Studios, a comic book publisher based in Glasgow, UK.
The first week of the summer holidays was wonderful. I finally had some much-needed alone time, time to read books that I had accumulated since September. I lay down in my sunny garden with my dog, Fred. He’s half-Westie, half-poodle. A Westie-poo, the woman at the rescue place said when we bought him. He’s a mutt, said my now ex-partner.My ex didn’t like Fred.
My ex also didn’t like that I worked in a rough school. By rough, he meant “state”. He said I didn’t have enough ambition. I had ambition, I told him, I want to be a great teacher. I’d like more money, who wouldn’t?, but I was comfortable earning what I was on now. You need to get your life together, he said towards the end. I can’t go on living like this, as if we were destitute.
He tells the customer on the other side of the counter that I’m “good to stand and look at when it’s quiet, helps pass the time.” He says it like it’s nothing and hands over the boxed-up pizza. The customer stifles a laugh, scuttling out the door with a reptilian backwards glance.
I stay still and silent. He turns to the ovens and lifts a stack of greased black trays towards the sink, dropping them in. The belt that pulls the pizzas through is still rotating.
Joseph Sale is a writer, editor, content-creator and writing coach. I first came to know him when he submitted a wonderful short story, “The Heaviness of All Things” to Idle Ink in 2018, and since then I’ve followed his work (and there’s a lot of it). In addition to working with The Writing Collective and STORGY Magazine, he’s written a slew of novels and offers his services as a writing coach and editor. He is, in short, many things all at once.