Suggested by a song by Brecht and Weill
I sweep, I scrub and I work the grit from the nooks and crannies.
I see the evidence of your dirty couplings and weird indiscretions. Continue reading Pirate Witch Wench By Alex S. Johnson
The Bridge by Simon Maltman
Part 1
I opened the door into my small and let’s say minimal office at just after half nine that morning. As usual, I had made the short journey on the metro from Chodov to Pancrák, grabbing a take out coffee and the morning papers on the way.
I opened the blinds and sat down at my desk. I leaned back and felt fresh and ready for the day. At that time, we had lived in Prague for about three years and it still felt new and exciting. Continue reading The Bridge by Simon Maltman
The Gouger by Eric Westerlind
Martin Skyrelli draped a red cloth over the standing mirror in his house because he could not stand to stare at himself any longer, and he had been doing so for days. Before that, less. You’ll recognize his name. No stranger to public sin—Skyrelli was a corporate gouger who’d find small monopolies on life-saving products and charge enormous amounts to the desperate. Continue reading The Gouger by Eric Westerlind
Bingo Night, Part II by Vincent Zandri
Stan gets out, taps on the door, three distinct times. Continue reading Bingo Night, Part II by Vincent Zandri
Bingo Night, Part I by Vincent Zandri
“All I’m saying, Tony, is this. Those old people living out their days at the old folks home across the road got cash coming out the wazoo. They play bingo, they don’t play for small change. They got pots worth ten grand or more.” Continue reading Bingo Night, Part I by Vincent Zandri
ELC: The Universal Flood by Eric Westerlind
“I am Ernesto Luis Cardeñia, Argentine poet, an early dreamer. I sit at the edge and describe. The planes beyond, believe me—the disjunct in time here is huge at the edge of man’s space, where the wildness has been made farm and the farm has been made city and the city is dead within. Ah, our amniotic tastes ruin it.
My blood is easy and loose. My death is easy. ‘Poet Ernesto Luis Cardeñia is charged with poetic research on the surface of Mars. He studies the dung beetle and the prisoner. His final poems are addled and incoherent as though he’d become rabid; as if something were devouring him. He wrote, autobiographically, this description of himself.’”
– Forward to Thus Follows the Course of Empire, by Ernesto Luis Cardeñia Continue reading ELC: The Universal Flood by Eric Westerlind
GLASS CEILING by Frank Quinn
Money has a smell all its own. A flat scent of eager hands and disappointed dreams. Miriam loved the smell of cash. Not the flat crisp hundreds the ATMs spat out but the odor of well-worn bills. The battered twenties and tens that made their way through the club, eventually landing in piles on the corner of her desk. Continue reading GLASS CEILING by Frank Quinn
My Blue Mistake by Brian Morse
Will this be the one that gets me killed? I’ve asked myself this question no less than one hundred times before. I’ve also never given much thought to death, but now that I’m dead, I have all the time in the world to think about it. Continue reading My Blue Mistake by Brian Morse
Sanctuary! by J.M. Taylor
Tara and Chris had rented the Amvets Hall for the wedding. The room’s sliding partition was closed for the event. On the other side of the accordion wall, a group of senior women were holding their weekly knitting club meeting. Continue reading Sanctuary! by J.M. Taylor
ROTHKO’S DAUGHTER by Richard Godwin.
I followed her, having nowhere else to go. She was shining like a wax doll under the bus shelter lights, looking like she’d melt. I sat down next to her and lit a Marlboro, feeling the drops of rain crawl down my face like insects. Continue reading ROTHKO’S DAUGHTER by Richard Godwin.
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