Tag: Magic

Flash fiction. by Idle InkApr 6, 202411:30 am

Witches, Inc. by Monica Sharp

Early lunch now. The café is packed with students and workers sitting on chairs and chatting across tables. People just finishing a morning in the office or in the classroom. The roar inside is like a seashore, rising and falling, laughter, a hissing Marzocco machine, tinkling spoons and cups, white plates streaming out of the kitchen.

I order the carnitas with watermelon radish, and why not, a glass of prosecco with lunch. Sunlight glints off the river. Pedestrians shiver outside, leaning against lamp posts coated in rust. The wait is long here. It always is. The place is too popular.

Fiction by Idle InkOct 7, 202310:39 am

Magic in the Digital Age by Patricia Ann Bowen

As I watch children scurry by my iron gate, I recall how I started doing the same thing when I was their age, nine, maybe ten, hurrying past this same house, pumped full of Halloween sugar, ready to jump out of my skin at any unexpected sight or sound.

At thirteen I summoned up the courage to open the creaking gate – rusty even back then – and knocked on the door, my pals cowering in the shadows. Their loss. The old crone who drew it open seemed pleased to see a brave young fellow coming to call. She put out her hand and, before I could grasp it, a dove fluttered from her gnarled palm. I stumbled backward as the bird flew up the stairwell, then perched on the banister.

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.

Flash fiction. by Idle InkMar 4, 202310:59 am

The Great Tadhia by Charles Prelle

I watch her reel against the crowd toward the edge of the bridge. She leans over the steel barrier, eyes hypnotised by the river below. No one seems to notice her, their faces fixed to illuminated screens. She raises a high heel onto the railing, then another.

Poetry by Idle InkAug 1, 202011:15 am

A Jewel For Esmeralda by Sarah Wallis

Past closing time and a huddle of heads peer

down into a velvet drawstring bag, a game

of chance, a game of luck, a game of stones

to be bingo called, by prospect and by plot,

three women of generational difference

cast about inside for a new cleaned jewel,