Fiction by Idle InkMay 2, 202010:15 am

Plane Girl by Andrew Stiggers

Though she loves her best mate to bits, Rachel doesn’t believe her for one moment.

“Yes, someday soon, I’ll be flying planes,” Jeany had told her as they were observing from the bar an airline pilot crossing the terminal hall. He’s smartly dressed in his gold-striped uniform.

“Sure, Jeany.” Her friend could never stick with a job. She gets bored too easily, flittering like a moth from lamp to wall light. First there was the hairdresser’s, then the vet’s, and now more recently the dental assistant job. “That’s it—I’ve quit the practice,” she’d announced, tossing her keys on the benchtop after returning to their flat.

Poetry by Idle InkMay 2, 202010:15 am

Self-Portrait as an Inferno by Jane Burn

I saw the birthing of a crazy phoenix – saw it raise hackles of fire,

span its bright wings of pain, sear the night with a flock of sparks.

It made a spear of embers and flew its pyre into the night –

crackled with vicious feathers, spat its language of waste

Article by Idle InkMay 2, 202010:14 am

Psychedelic Existentialism in Rob Doyle’s “Threshold” by Declan Toohey

In one of the wittier moments in Rob Doyle’s latest book—a sprawling account of one man’s quest for meaning in the pharmacological era—the narrator visits the world-renowned Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. There, among other things, he searches in vain for texts by Maurice Blanchot and Pierre Klossowski, and repositions copies of his own novel to cover the works of rival authors. Observing that the Parisian bookshop is as much a tourist attraction as a place in which to acquire books, he bemoans the many patrons who visit the store solely to be photographed, and who shuffle off with a book or two from ‘usual suspects’ such as ‘Kerouac, Bukowski, Hemingway, and Salinger.’[1]

flash fiction by Idle InkMay 2, 202010:14 am

Duncan Chisel by Daniel Shooter

He introduced himself like a Yorkshire James Bond.

‘The name’s Chisel. Duncan Chisel.’

‘Polly Mantis.’

Firm handshake.

‘Do you do this often?’ he asked.

‘Oh no, I’m very particular,’ she said, and watched him grow taller with pride. He bought drinks and they found a corner table away from the bar.

Fiction by Idle InkMay 2, 202010:13 am

Disconnected by Lillian Brueckman

Savannah went missing on Thursday, or at least that’s when Ida noticed she was gone. Ida had missed work a couple days in a row due to a violent case of the stomach flu that had her puking in a trash can every few hours. When Ida returned to work on Thursday and planted herself in the swivel chair at her desk, she realized Savannah’s cubicle had been completely cleared out. Her telenet screen and in-desk keyboard had been removed and replaced with an outdated monitor and detached keyboard. A disconnect? They really hired a disconnect? Ida sighed and wondered why in the hell their HR manager would let this slide.

The disconnect, Ida soon discovered, was a man named Parker Kavanaugh. He replaced Savannah at the very beginning of the following week and soon enough she was a fragment of Ida’s imagination. She forgot about her quickly.

Memoir by Idle InkMay 2, 202010:13 am

I Taste Blood by Rebecca Portela

I forget where we got it from. I forget where we got any of our drugs from. Adrian would make a call. He would sometimes be hesitant to make a call, like maybe he had burned that bridge a few times before. Eventually it was 4 a.m. and we got a few hits of acid. We sat on a bench at the 23^rd Street subway station waiting for it to kick in. If you know anything about drugs, you know that after an hour, or what seems like an hour, you confidently decide that this shit is weak or fake because it hasn’t hit you yet. So you take more and then, immediately, the first drugs take over and you have a much longer night than you planned.

Starting an acid trip at 4 a.m. is not smart. And taking a second dose at 4 a.m. is what you do when you are with Adrian.

Poetry by Idle InkMay 2, 202010:12 am

Still Ill by Clara Roberts

I’m emaciated, wearing blue corduroy’s—sitting on the splintered wooden floor.

I look at the man, Kevin, who injects himself—the needle permanent as it pierces the skin. When I watch him, all I think of is when it’s going to be my turn. He’s used heroin intermittently for fourteen years and fights to find a vein.

by Idle InkMay 2, 202010:12 am

Solstice by N.R. Baker

You moved like a glacier through the best years of my life. Shaped me hugely, imperceptibly, until I’d forgotten what I was before and had become something that made no sense after you were gone, something carved and scalloped by a million unnoticed excisions. After the divorce I looked for myself in what you’d left of me, but saw nothing I recognised in the bleak, hollowed place where I thought I used to be.

Drip…… Drip.

Fiction by Idle InkMay 2, 202010:11 am

Minnesota English by Jessica Evans

Every prayer group meeting starts precisely the same. Men in shirtsleeves rolled to their elbows (when the temperature rises above seventy), or wool sweaters politely folded back against their wrists carry crockpots while the women walk behind in a single line, carrying lighter plates. They place the dishes down delicately and then slowly backstep away as if the food might suddenly demand their penance or refuse to participate in the weekly meeting. There is reverence in their counterfeit kowtowing (low and slow) as each woman tries her best not to bump into the other. The hot dishes become veiled in regency.