After listening to long long tales of woe all day at her job, Karen Walker comes home and writes short short fiction.

Lonely Lou

Standing in Lou’s smoky, sweltering apartment, Officer Berg fanned his face with his notebook as his partner Munroe tried a new approach.   

“How are you feeling? Anything going on that’d make you hear sounds?” Munroe asked.  

Berg rolled his eyes, mumbling about the psychobabble being taught to recruits these days. 

Bubbles of saliva popped at the corners of Lou’s mouth. “I’m telling you there’s a wailing coming from next door. The sound gets loud, and then it stops. Like right now.” 

“And the three other times we’ve been here this week,” Berg said.

The old man dropped into his chair, jostling a little table. A remote fell to the floor. “I’m not nuts!”

“Sure it isn’t your TV? Some crime show?” Berg smirked. 

“No! Someone’s in agony in there. Maybe being held hostage. You have to investigate!”

Munroe spoke slowly. “Lou, we told you yesterday we found nothing next door. The place is empty. We don’t want to come back again.”

As the officers stepped into the dim hallway—“Wait! Wait!” Lou calling after them—Berg pointed to Munroe. “Take one more look that way. I’ll go this way past the ‘wailing door.’” Leaning in, his ear almost touching the door’s peeling red paint, he grumbled: “There. I’m investigating.”  

A long, ripping, tormented cry pierced the door. 

“Hello. Police. Open the door!” Berg yelled, pounding.  

The wailing rose to a scream. “Open it now. Police!” 

As Munroe sprinted back, calling for back-up on his radio, Lou peeked into the hallway. “You hear it!”  

Berg kicked and kicked the door. Crack by splinter, it weakened until, with two last booming hits by Munroe, the lock snapped. Guns drawn, they stormed into the apartment.  

Lou chuckled as he sat down with a tea. He listened to the wail and smiled. Then, picking up the remote, he pushed the device’s volume button and faded the sound away. Next door, Berg and Munroe were shouting. Outside, tires were screeching and sirens blaring as strobe lights whipped the building. Lonely Lou settled back. His show had finally begun.    

Kristen Langereis is a Dutch-American writer living in Amsterdam. With no pets or children, she still finds ample time to fall behind on daily tasks. She is of the opinion that a sandwich tastes better when made for her by someone else.

  Anatomy of a Cover Up

   I knew a lot about death, even then, including what a dead body smelled like. It’s a fun way to open a conversation. I could tell you what embalmed flesh looked like. It’s flaked skipjack.

     You see, Dad could only eat white meat tuna – albacore packed in water. He took it with bread and butter pickles and too much mayonnaise. He wouldn’t touch skipjack, nor would my mother. She wouldn’t even buy it because it’s poor people food. Dad said skipjack reminded him of the cadavers he worked on in school. He mentioned it every time she made him his tuna sandwich, which was every Friday, and he only finished about half before he’d get that look which said the good tuna had turned from safe to dead in his imagination. So, I always ate that extra half sandwich – thinking it would be a shame to waste it when my mother took such pains to open both a can and a jar.

     I was nine when I thought for sure I would know how a decomposed body might smell. When pilfering a third, or fourth popsicle from the back freezer I had left the door ajar. The majority contents, stuffed every which way next to Lean Cuisines, bags of party ice and popsicles of every flavor were the individually-wrapped remnants of a butchered whole cow. Dad had traded the cow for oral surgery more than five years prior. I remember thinking we were going to pick up an actual, living breathing cow when Mother drove us to the ranch south of the city. I should have been tipped off by the two big coolers she brought, I suppose. But I was young, and happy to be allowed in the front seat next to the air-conditioning. The cow traveled home with us disassembled.

     The steaks, tenderloin, and roasts had been eaten first and the remnants, garbage-meat as Mother called it, lived in our utility room freezer. My carelessness caused everything in the freezer to defrost and dozens of cherry-mottled white butcher paper packages, some visibly stamped Heart/Short-Ribs/Tripe, mingled their bloody juices with a corn syrup rainbow. Mom screamed and shut the door. She said we must to wait until nightfall, while Dad slept, to bring everything to the big black garbage can in the alley.

     When he started to snore she grabbed my hand and a roll of black garbage bags. We snuck out back to clean and dump it all. I think we both knew that even though there was slim chance our family would eat tripe, especially cooked by her, that he still wanted to hang on to it, just in case. I was sworn to silence. But, as it goes with crime, eventually someone finds out. Weekly garbage collection had just happened a few days prior. Everything we hoisted that night into big black garbage bags festered, cooked, and decomposed further within the big black garbage can. Our across-the-alley neighbor called 911 because he thought someone had dumped a dead body. Since he was a cop, I figured he should know. I figured that a dead body smelled like old, dead cow parts, cherry popsicle frostbite and panic.

     I tell that story to this day, never mentioning that now I really know what is the real smell of death, and adding that Dad never thought that the huge amount of dumped meat which had caused a minor neighborhood ruckus was indeed his. Even at the end, we kept that from him too.

James Barr is a freelance writer who created TV commercials, radio spots and ads for a variety of clients. He now loves writing these stories without a client peering over his shoulder or trying to fit 60 seconds of copy into a 30-second spot.

Another Star is Born

All Andy wanted was a quiet night at the movies. But you don’t always get what you want. Instead, what Andy got was a starring role in an acrobatic drama played out in front of a packed house. Andy also had no idea that the lady with the long blond hair seated in front of him, a complete stranger, would become his unwilling co-star.

On that fateful night after work, Andy stopped into the local cinema to see the latest hit. The theater was packed. With a long movie ahead of him, Andy hit the men’s room, and then stopped for the requisite tub of popcorn. All this made him late to the darkened, crowded auditorium. Crawling slowly down the main aisle toward the silver screen, Andy was almost to the very first row before he spotted a seat. Of course, it was inconveniently located in the middle of a very long row.

So Andy began doing the familiar stooped, slow motion sideways crablike shuffle to his seat. Along the way, juggling the overfilled tub, Andy dribbled fresh, hot buttered popcorn down the backs of people in the first row. Finally reaching his seat and just before he sat, Andy realized his fly was open. Somehow, with the tub now under his arm, Andy did a quick zip and began to sit, spilling even more popcorn.

Just then, the woman in front of him screamed and jerked her head back. It seems a long strand of her hair had become entangled in Andy’s zipper as he tried to zip it shut. The plot thickened.

Trapped in this frozen moment, the two unwilling co-stars paused in what appeared to be a very bad yoga pose. The woman’s head was tilted toward the ceiling. Andy was locked in a half seated position, not wanting to actually sit and risk pulling out half of his co-star’s hair. The house lights came on. Ushers rushed from every possible door. The audience stood and for a tiny moment, the whole world stopped.

Seeing the problem, one of the ushers arrived with scissors, but the woman was adamant. She was not having any of her hair cut by an usher. Therefore, a slow motion sideways limbo began. In perfect unison, Andy and the entrapped woman slowly shuffled step by step to the aisle, the hair being passed over the lowered heads of a row of seated moviegoers. With each step, the film stars maintained their frozen poses on their way to the aisle.

Then, they continued their easygoing limbo shuffle up the main aisle, out to the lobby and into the manager’s office. There, someone with adroit fingers and arcane zipper knowledge forced the zipper to release most of its captured hair. A perfect Hollywood ending.

After the police were convinced that there was nothing criminal about this event, the woman returned to her seat while receiving a standing ovation from her loving fans.

Andy, on the other hand, has never been heard from again.

David Henson and his wife have lived in Brussels, Belgium and Hong Kong over the years and now reside in Peoria, Illinois with their dog Annabelle, who likes to walk them in the woods.

Vindle

After watching the wriggling snake rise into the sky, Vindle went inside and noticed smoke wisping from Kangle’s fingertips. She thought she was imagining things, but when she saw tiny flames dancing behind her husband’s ears, she knew what she had long feared had begun.

“I have been feeling a might south,” Kangle said when Vindle felt his forehead. “Maybe some fresh air would repair.”

“Probably wouldn’t harm,” Vindle said, hurrying to the kitchen to pump a stream of cold water over her hand. They decided to take a ride to Clavdon Creek.

Vindle hitched up Old Treb, and she and Kangle climbed into the carriage. By the time they got to the creek, Vindle’s clothes were drenched with sweat from the heat radiating from her husband.

Vindle pulled off her shoes and stockings, hiked her skirt and waded into the water. She started to hold out her hand for her husband to join her then thought better of it.

Kangle removed his shoes and socks and rolled up his trousers. As he eased into the water, Vindle heard a soft hiss and saw steam rising where the water lapped her husband’s knees. “We better go see the Doc,” she said.

***

Kangle sat naked from the waist up, soft blue fire rippling along his arms and shoulders.

Doc Ral shook his head. “You should’ve come sooner. I’m afraid it’s too late.” The Doc took Vindle’s hand. “Try to make your husband’s remaining time as comfortable as you can.”

On the way home from the Doc’s, a breeze flared Kangle and spooked Old Treb. The horse bolted and nearly rolled the carriage at Strack’s Fork before Vindle reined him in.

At their place, Vindle pumped a tub of cold water. Kangle stripped and stepped in. As he lay back and closed his eyes, the water began thrashing around him. “Refreshing,” he mumbled, exhaling a long crackling flame.

Vindle pumped water the rest of the day and most of the night to keep the tub full. Finally she could no longer move her arms. She watched helplessly as the water boiled away and Kangle became engulfed, his face twisting into a scream she would never forget.

Vindle used Kangle’s ashes to fertilize her flower garden. The following summer, the roses were the reddest she’d ever seen.

One warm evening, she caught a chill. By morning, she was coughing up sleet, and frost coated her hair. She didn’t go to Doc Ral, preferring to reunite with her Kangle. She left a note asking to be buried near the flower garden. She thought she and Kangle surely would produce the most beautiful roses in the world.

Neighbors found Vindle a week later encased in ice. They dug up the floribunda when they buried her. Though her roses never blossomed again, when Vindle thawed, she watered and fed the weeds. They grew thick and tall, sheltering chipmunks, voles and, occasionally, snakes, which fattened themselves and made a feast for the hawks.

Holly lives on the Texas Coast with her husband, teenage son, and three giant dogs. Her adult daughter just moved out, so she must have had her when she was ten. When she isn’t writing, Holly works full time as a corporate photographer.

When the Swell Breaks

This wasn’t how I planned to spend my thirty-ninth birthday, but here I am.

I’ve lived a good life, I think. I never finished getting my degree, but I have a job I love.

Loved.

My home isn’t a mansion, but it’s comfortable and enough. Two children, one of each, boy and girl. Check and check. Loving husband, check.

He’s standing in the hospital corridor now, talking with two of the doctors while I’m supposed to be sleeping. His eyes swing towards the room, and through the hatched lines on the window I can see his face. The last few months have aged him, taken him to that place you can never return from. He doesn’t look surprised that I am awake.  I know it’s time. We’ve known for a few weeks now, that this is the best option, and I’ve already said goodbye to the kids.

At first I was selfish, and heartbroken that they might not remember me. They’re only two and three years old. But after I had more time to think about it, I hope they don’t remember me. Not like this. This sterile hospital room with beeping machines and harsh lights, drowning everyone who enters in its sea of hopelessness.  Away from all of this, and maybe years from now, they’ll be ok.

But William, sweet William. He’ll remember every bit of it, I know him like the back of my hand. He was such a joyful man, and I’ve taken that from him. Me, and this damn tumor that they said would keep growing, taking over my brain like a parasite until I wouldn’t know who I was anymore. Machines could keep me alive for a little while, but I don’t want that for William, or for the kids. They need to be able to move on, and one day they will.

Not today.

William comes into the room with a doctor close behind him. The one who has never done this before.

“What’s it going to be then, eh?” I try to smile but the weight of it all pushes the edges of my lips downward. My voice shakes. “Miracle cure or sleep potion?” I know there is no cure.

Ignoring the question, William lowers the bed rail and climbs in next to me, holding me in his arms. We stare at each other and the swell breaks, pushing tears down both of our faces. He places his hands on either side of my face and kisses me softly. I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with him forever.

I turn to the doctor and nod.

Jack Wildern is from the UK. He writes short fiction and lives in Hampshire with his wife and two children.

Moving on

She says ‘Thank you for cooking.’ Not, ‘thank you for dinner,’ because that would imply, we were meeting socially. This isn’t social, it’s an argument wrapped into six tortillas. Two for her. Four for me.

‘Did you get the email from my solicitor?’

‘No.’ I did actually but I’m being a twat on account that I’ve heard she’s fucking someone else.

‘Well he sent it to you yesterday.’

‘I’ll be sure to keep an eye on my inbox.’ She looks at me like I had spat in her fajitas. I’ve got the laptop open on the table and she knows damn well Yahoo is running in the background.

‘So, I made a list,’ I say through a mouthful of Old El Paso. She raises an eyebrow that is way more shaped than it was when we were together.

‘A list?’

‘Yeah. Well I thought now the house was sorted we should look at what’s in it.’ She takes a deep breath and exhales through her nose. Her eyes widen just a touch. She’s like a small angry bull but with perfect microblading.

‘We’ve been through this.’

‘No. You’ve been through it in your own head. Half of the shit in that place is mine.’

To confirm the fact, I turn the laptop around. A crappy spreadsheet glares on the screen turning the skin on her face a pale green. Columns with shit like, ‘cushions in spare room’ and ‘Shawshank on Blu-ray’, twitch left to right in her pupils.

‘This is a joke, right?’

I shrug my shoulders and stuff the second fajita down my throat. She hasn’t touched hers. Can’t say I blame her. I always make them too spicy.

‘I just thought it was the fairest way,’ I grab the sriracha sauce and send a couple of good thick squirts into a cavern of over spiced chicken. I want to make this one a proper bad boy. A real gut burner.

‘Fairest way?’ She slams the lid of the laptop down and pushes her chair screeching across the lino. I wonder if it will leave a mark. ‘You wanker.’

‘Now wait a second-’

‘How dare you. Is this why you asked me here?’

I’m acutely aware that my answer will define the rest of the evening. I contemplate saying something like no babe it’s because I miss you. Then again, she’s already pissed off over the email and the shitty dinner so-

‘Well… yes.’

Have you ever seen pure rage? It’s white of knuckle and still as stone. If you look closely it trembles ever so slightly.

‘What the fuck,’ she screams.

One of the two dinner plates I own splits in half as it hits the wall behind me. The guts of my Mexican compadres explode across a magnolia surface which I doubt is cloth friendly.

‘I just thought I could take the PS4 and the forty-six inch.’

‘The PS? You get nothing.’

‘That’s hardly fair-’

‘Then you shouldn’t have had sex with a nineteen-year old.’

It was a hand-job and she was twenty-two. But we believe what we want to believe.

‘Well what are you going to do with it?’

She’s about to go completely mental when her phone rings. The new bf. Has to be.

‘Hi.’

Her voice is suddenly like velvet. Definitely the new bf. I get up and start peeling bits of onion and red pepper from the wall, vaguely aware of my name being slandered in the background.

‘Ok. Yes please, I may need some wine first.’ She giggles and I feel a hot swell of tears behind my eyes. I push them away; I’ve always been good at that. She hangs up and watches me stack the broken porcelain on the work top.

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. You can have the PS4.’

I should be grateful. It’s more than I deserve. But then again, I liked that fucking plate.

‘It’s ok. Give it to your new boyfriend.’

I’m expecting an onslaught. I’m wondering how much damage she could do with a bread knife. Instead I get a look. It’s something like how you might stare at a dying dog that’s been in the family for years but won’t stop pissing itself. There’s sadness but it’s mainly frustration.

Her phone rings again three times and goes silent. ‘I’ve got to go.’

            ‘Ok.’

‘Here.’ She opens her bag. I get a waft of perfume as the content of her life gets tossed about. All of a sudden, she’s in my bathroom for the first time. Bottled flowers and makeup overpowering the gym bag deodorant of my room. ‘You’ll need this. I had the locks changed.’ She puts a little silver key on the table. ‘Let yourself in. Take the PS4 and the bloody tv. But do us both a favour and check your junk mail. Sign the paperwork.’

She turns and heads for the door. I can hear her footsteps on the stairwell as I make my way to the window.

Ever seen pathetic? It’s a bloke in his mid-thirties wearing pyjama bottoms and watching the love of his life disappear. If you look closely it even trembles.

My heart sinks as she emerges and runs into the arms of a stubbled face. He’s all muscles. I can see his triceps through his shirt. I can feel my own puffy gut starting to creep out towards my slippers.

He holds the door of his car open and she gets in. I watch it pull away, adjacent to the promenade and the fairy lights that sway green, blue and red between the lamp posts.

J H Martin is from London, England but has no fixed abode. His writing has appeared in a number of places in Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Website: acoatforamonkey.wordpress.com

Marbàn

It is beautiful. Truly beautiful.

All I can hear is the cry of birds and nothing else.

No cars. No sirens. No planes. And no machinery.

Yes. It is strange to think that these rusted gates in front of me were the entrance to the private grounds of some-Lord-or-other. An enclosed and expensive wonderland of statues, swimming pools and tennis courts. A place which like so many others around the world, now looks like some obscene relic from an age of gilded ignorance.

Now the bath-stone walls of the mansion and this gravelled driveway are no longer home to a resource-rich family and its limousines but to vines and weeds and roots. Springs of green that are rising up from the earth to reclaim what is rightly hers.

Stood on the cracked patio, where children used to play with the latest toys, I see the tops of the canopy which has taken back the skyline from all that gruesome glass and steel. At nearly seventy-years-old, I never imagined that I would see this. It wasn’t prophetised or predicted in any of those books in the family library in the west wing of the house. They only spoke about breakthroughs, progress and development. An end to suffering. A cleansing of disease. A sterilised and synthesised vision of an artificial and manufactured utopia. All laid out in neat and tidy numerical equations, which never tallied with my own experiences on this and other continents.

I don’t blame my parents or my family for that. They only wanted what they thought was best for me. Their expectations were only things which they had been conditioned through their cosseted environment to expect me to accept and to achieve. Clearly, as the ruins of the city show, they were not alone in that.

No. My rejection of those expectations were not a rejection of their love. Nor was it a rejection of my love for them. Quite the opposite. Standing here now, after nearly fifty years away, I see and feel their true presence and not the one which the bubble of their society forced them to dress up and present. In those vines, I see their strength. In those lawns of wild flowers, I see their natural beauty. And in the moss, the lichen and in the mycelium, I see we are all one with infinity.

Yes. It truly is beautiful.

Hasta la primavera, para siempre.

William R. Soldan is a writer from the Ohio Rust Belt and the author of the story collection In Just the Right Light. His work has appeared is such publications as Neologism Poetry Journal, Jelly Bucket, Bending Genres, Gordon Square Review, and many others. You can find him at williamrsoldan.com if you’d like to connect.

Dust and Ash

Had there ever been a time, she wondered, when her shoulders weren’t bowed beneath a great weight, a thing pressing her into the dust that had come and would be coming? What wide spaces we scavenge, she thought, like gulls in the sand. The sky burns and here we are, pecking through shards for something to sustain us. How the dream of rain carries, etches the world, then rips into strips when we reach out our hands. What are trees are not trees, but these upright bones and gashed knees sunk in the ashes.

Anthony Palma’s work attempts to bridge the gap between poetry, music, and other forms. He teaches writing at several universities in the Greater Philadelphia area. He resides in West Chester PA with his wife and family.

Service

James slept better than he had in weeks, which was probably why he overslept. With the train leaving in 20 minutes, he’d have to move. He grabbed a protein bar and a banana, washed his face, threw on gym clothes, hid the mess of his hair under the first hat he could grab, and 12 minutes later he was out the door.

            The train that he took was a later one than usual, and the car was already full of commuters from the suburbs. However, his seat was still empty. It was turned sideways near the front of the car and had a clear view of both exits. He settled in and embraced his anonymity. The woman sitting in the row next to his seat didn’t even look up. Her attire told him she was on her way to an office. Someday, he’d get there.

            Two stops later, it was standing room only. It was then he noticed the man staring at him. He was about 4 rows towards the back of the car on the aisle, facing James. The man’s travel partner, maybe his daughter, played on her phone in the window seat. Every time James looked over, the man looked away. The man made James uncomfortable. He was, after all, sitting in a seat reserved for the physically disabled. Would the man confront him? James tensed. The train suddenly felt crowded, and he felt exposed. His eyes darted from exit to exit. The train slowed, and the man got up.

            “Sir…”

            James leapt into the current of people, spilling him out onto the platform. In his anxiety, he headed towards the wrong escalator. When he realized his mistake, he turned around and there the man was, girl beside him. The man reached out his hand.

            “Sir, I just wanted to say thank you for your service.”

            How…?

The hat. His friend had gotten it for him when they were discharged.

            The man stood there, hand outstretched. Everyone around the two men stopped. They, too, were waiting. Without a word, James pushed past the man. He went through the doors and rushed up the escalator, up the stairs, and into the street.

            Back on the platform, the man stood bewildered, his hand still outstretched. Passersby apologized for James, said he had been rude to the man, and scurried on their way. The man’s daughter sighed and looked at her phone.

James didn’t stop until he reached the gym. According to his self-appointed schedule, he was four minutes late. He passed the desk and the treadmills. Amidst the exercise bikes he came to a stop. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to become lost and forgotten among the whirring machines, and the sound of the weights that dropped to the ground like bombs.

Lacey Mercer lives in Buckeye, AZ.

Rule Number One

I looked through the branches of the Mesquite and could see him sitting on his horse just outside of the thicket of trees. I stayed perfectly still while he searched for me, his eyes shielded from the sun by his black, dusty hat. He had been chasing me since the flat top hill and his horse’s sides where heaving from the effort. At the base of the hill, he had managed to get close to me when I hesitated before jumping the wash. The rope I drug from my horns was the result of that hesitation. He had tried to dally around the horn of his saddle once he saw the rope tighten around my head, but I jumped the second I felt the bite of honda, jerking the rope out of his hands. So now, I waited. Nestled under a tree just inside a Mesquite thicket, shaded and mostly hidden by the sharp, low hanging branches.

His horse grew impatient, chomping at the bit and pawing the ground stirring up more dust, adding to what was already being whipped up off the sun baked floor courtesy of the desert wind.  The thorns from the tree where digging into the hide on my back, but still I did not move. My hide was tough, much tougher than this man’s skin, and I knew he wouldn’t come into the tangle of branches and thorns that was the thicket.

A spiked lizard appeared from under a bush and scurried across the ground before it shot out from beneath the tree I was hiding under. This brought the man’s attention in my direction and we locked eyes. We both stood silent, still for a moment, looking at each other and then he did the oddest thing. He got off his horse and started inching towards me. Why would he get off his horse? Was he stupid? Did he think he could catch me on foot? Then I saw what he was after. He was not moving towards me but towards the end of the fifty-foot rope that was jetting out from under the tree. He lead his palomino behind him as he kept one eye on the ground and one eye on me, making his way slowly towards the end of the long stretch of rope attached to my horns.

As much as I wanted to lunge forward, I did not move. I let him get closer and closer. Just as he began to bend down and pick up the rope, I exploded out from the stand of trees, head down, tail up. The man fell back and to the left while his horse reared, spinning to the right. He lost grip of the reins and the spooked palomino took off running in the direction of home. The man scrambled, back peddling, barely avoiding a barrel cactus as he fell. I stopped half way between the trees and the man, shaking my head at him while he got to his feet.

I knew this was my chance. I bolted to the south, past the thicket of trees and in the direction of the herd, that I knew should be at the water tank this late in the day. The man was far behind me now but I could still see him in the distance standing there, picking up his hat and watching me run away across the rocky ground. Maybe on his long walk back he can think about rule number one of working on the open range alone. Never lose your horse.