When the raindrops shimmer under the streetlights like the little balls of mercury you poked with one finger so they skittered across the desk even though the teacher warned you not to, but you couldn’t care less what she said, or about the rain soaking your hair and your clothes now; when the fire in …
It’s the taste of biting your tongue while riding a bike down a hill. Like that one time when you visited aunt Linda and uncle Harry and their neighbors had a ton of kids and let you borrow a bike, and even though you never rode one before it came to you like that, fast …
The Taste of Everyone Who Ever Failed You – Or Did You Fail Somehow? by Alexa Hailey Read More »
If you want to speak to the selkie folk, you must shed seven tears into the sea. It’s harder than he thought, to shed seven tears, and let them fall, like drops of glass, into the silver rush of water. The tears roll down and tangle in his beard, sting salt on his lips. He …
The Beginning The starting point is always the same. The page is always blank, the doubt undiminished, the question unchanged: can I fill this space with something worthwhile, something interesting? Three hundred words or ninety thousand. You’d imagine there would be a difference— and there is— but those first moments feel the same, a familiar …
A man once saw a rainbow and thought it the most magical element. He raised praises so high, Iris popped out her tangled yellow head and giggled at adventure, climbed on a llama’s back and drew her multi-coloured cloak about her. The man told other men of the mountains what he had seen and they …
The first time a part of you disappeared was a Saturday morning. You claimed your right hand had vanished. I thought it was some absurd attempt to garner attention. You cried that your hand was still there—you grabbed a pen as proof—but it could not be seen. I assumed it was an optical illusion. I …
The mother-moon bent down and kissed her sleeping child on the forehead. Her lips were hard and cracked and a little spongey, as if a fungus had grown behind the huge bark-like façade of her face and softened its cratered depths. The tide, the tide, she whispered, and blew a thread of sea air into …
The stage sits empty, the lights dim and dust dances in the bright stream of the spotlight. The audience is silent now, and the flutes have begun. From the wings, Alice is waiting. She holds the coarse black curtain tight between her fingers. Her palms damp. Is he there? Through the curtains she can’t see. …
The body was found by a man out walking his dog, although we must be careful not to attach any significance to the presence of the man at the murder scene beyond the fact it was a nice day for a good walk in the woods. ‘Why couldn’t you just leave me here in peace?’ …
May 11th, 12th Avenue. Home Invasion. Four armed suspects entered property, made off with valuables in a White Hyundai. I arrived with my bag full of dread and fear. I crept around this new part of the city like a kitten in a new house. I panicked at red lights if a passer-by stared at …
This Week’s Crime Statistics in Your Suburb by Gavin Weale Read More »
“Get that fucking candle out of your mouth. Jesus Christ, Scott.” Josh instantly feels bad for yelling at his younger brother, pulls a miniature candy bar out of his pocket, tosses it to him. Scott eats the whole thing, including the wrapper. Josh can only offer a crooked smile. He knows his brother has something …
I curl up on mum’s chair. I run my hand along the mahogany arm and my fingers discover little holes in the surface, small clusters of worm pricks within the wood. A shiver of disgust and fascination climbs up my vertebrae. The commode next to me displays a dusty graveyard of all things oceanic. Mum’s …