The night smells wrong. Not merely damp, not merely cold—spoiled, as though the air itself has been left too long inside something dead and forgotten. Each breath coats your tongue with the taste of old coins dissolved in rot, metallic and sour, thick enough to cling. The fog doesn’t drift; […]
Today is the day it ends for him. Luther has his last meal, which is a cheeseburger, fries, and a soda. Luther looks at the men who watch him eat it, who look at him with disgust. Luther just smiles through his food as he eats. Besides, in a couple
By the time Jean-Luc finally arrives, the only things awake are the moon and me. It sits in the sky a perfect, silver half-slice, dewy in the way all things get around dawn. It’s cold out. My breath fogs around my cigarette, and I hear the bus before I see
1905, late autumn. The fog that rested upon Greyport Harbor was no mere weathered veil, but a suffocating presence that clung to the flesh like sodden wool, steeped in the reek of rotting kelp and the corroded breath of iron buoys long abandoned to the tide. Each inhalation drew it
The Lighthouse That Doesn’t Guide Ships Read More »
“Have you ever felt like you’re being watched?” It’s odd to be 21 and still checking my closet and under my bed. My friends teased me about it when I told them, but it’s a habit I can’t shake. I lock my door. Even when my parents are home. I’m
Isabella walked to the front of her grandmother’s casket. Her grandmother looked peaceful in her repose, wearing her favorite dress. Isabella guessed that she just didn’t understand what had happened. It felt as if she had just visited her grandma for afternoon tea not long ago, and then days later
The Brooks Brother’s Hardware store stood alone on its main street block. Chipped layers of white-washed paint contrasted the darkness inside the tall narrow windows. Faded posters advertising Case knives and hand tools hung in the ground level windows, but the only thing in the second story windows, was a
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I learned very early that people are softer than they pretend. Not emotionally—physically. Socially. A human being is a structure held together by habits and assumptions, and habits collapse under pressure. Mine just happened to be… efficient. Skin-to-skin contact. That’s all it ever took. A handshake held a second too
I didn’t choose the dead minute. It chose me.The first time it happened, I was twelve, hiding in my bedroom while my parents screamed downstairs. Plates shattered. Something heavy hit the wall hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. I remember staring at the clock, begging time to move
The month I had to spend every summer at a children’s camp was the most loathed period of the year for me. A place where children were supposed to rest, laugh, and socialize with their peers was, for me and the other wards of Clover Camp, hard labor. A tour
About one shift at Clover Camp Read More »
I felt it that day, something in the air wasn’t right. The morning heat was setting in, and the bugs were eating us alive. The men were tense as the sun rose on another godforsaken day. We had been up on nightwatch and hadn’t had a moment of proper rest
Things Best Left Buried Read More »
You think you know your family. What they look like, how they speak, how it feels when they pat you on the back and say ‘welcome home’. None of us truly know any other person; not completely, often not in the ways that matter. I thought I knew my family,
I Inherited the World’s Worst Genetic Condition Read More »
On March 1st, 1992, a co‑worker at a health insurance office in Sydney brought something into work that none of us had ever seen before. He came in early, before most of the staff arrived, and sat down in the break room with his personal photo book in his hands.
People have always said that I was good. Not nice, not kind, just good. Like it was just something they told me even before I could talk. People trusted me way too fast. It doesn’t even make sense how fast it happens. They look at me and something just clicks
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The fishing boat groaned under Raj’s boots as he tossed another net overboard. His hands were cracked from salt and years of hauling lines, but he didn’t complain. Out here, complaints sank faster than the bait. “Check this,” his friend Arjun muttered, nudging him with an elbow. He held up
We moved into the flat above the butcher’s two months ago. It was a step down from our old place; John lost his good job and we had to make adjustments. The place wasn’t exactly the Ritz, but it functioned. The wallpaper popped and flaked when you scraped a nail
The Floor is Sticky Read More »
I was born on a small cabbage farm just outside of Racine, Wisconsin on April 14, 1900. The lone son of two God-fearing German immigrants, I was raised on hard work, religious reverence, and teetotalism.My parents first moved to the United States in August of 1898 with the hopes of
Stacy and I switched the power on and sent ourselves to an early grave. I say an early grave, but I don’t expect there will be anyone left to bury us. It was an honest mistake, one we couldn’t have foreseen. To any who may read these words after the
A Thing of Flesh and Copper Read More »
Jason watched the hands of the clock ticking. The hour hand was moving to nine o’clock. The hour he dreaded so much. His eyes darted around the room. In the corner his blue lava lamp cast fleeting shadows that resembled dogs, silhouettes and long-fingered hands, prancing and clawing up and
The Eyes of the Angel Read More »
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin The road narrowed until it was no road at all, just mud and ruts that might have been paths once. The GPS had given up hours ago, but I kept
Where Trespassers Fade Read More »
As I sit here in this damp, dark cell, my only friend the warmth of the flickering candlelight illuminating this scrap of paper, I have to wonder how I got here and why I just couldn’t stop when I had the chance. Every few minutes, I find myself freezing, perfectly
The first time I dreamed of Rose, I didn’t think it mattered. I’m not the kind of person who reads into dreams. I’m practical, tired, the sort of man who forgets to eat and forgets to water plants until they die quietly. I don’t believe in signs. I believe in
Johnathan woke up in a daze to find himself all alone. The alone part was normal. The alone part wasn’t strange. What was strange was that he woke up in a graveyard. “What the fuck…” Johnathan pushed himself, sitting upwards, onto the wet earth beneath him. As he leaned back
Heather found herself in bed, unable to move a muscle—trying her hardest to shift her arm and wake her husband sleeping next to her, but to no avail. She was in sleep paralysis—a phenomenon she’d read about but never experienced until then. It frightened her to lie there helpless, but
