Empty Nest by Bill Merklee
Charlene and I had known each other for so long that by the time we were in high school, our attempts at being a couple seemed incestuous. But we promised each other…
Charlene and I had known each other for so long that by the time we were in high school, our attempts at being a couple seemed incestuous. But we promised each other…
A bony finger stands erect and aflame amidst whorls and swirls of frosting. The world’s most morbid birthday candle. Strawberry, probably. Maybe pink champagne, to be fancy. Either way, 300g unsalted butter…
Ben sits in a room that smells of iodine. A doctor in beige chinos and a checked shirt asks him serious, gentle questions: “Are you safe, Ben?” He closes his eyes and…
My grandpa whispered through life, puffs of conversation here, the scuff of a slipper there. During football season, he sank into the folds of his recliner, a battered transistor radio pressed to…
Nothing was out of place: her accounts and paperwork were up-to-date, and today, as always, Professor Kirschner’s clothes had been selected meticulously. She wore a burnt ochre wool hat, a cream jacket…
An email chimed into my inbox – an invitation to a charity garden party in aid of abandoned dogs. ‘Teas, cakes, mystery guest and raffle. RSVP,’ the email read. The invitation came…
Those who saw him, hushed. The great man, the revered director, whose blood-steeped staging of Titus Andronicus was so visceral they’d set up a first-aid corner in the Old Vic’s foyer for…
They had a wilting poster of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen on the wall, a dirty fish tank with blue LEDs, blue-green algae and no fish, and the lazy chin-strap stubble beards of…
At night, the neon sign above the storefront glows half-enthusiastically, so much so that most of the letters are completely burnt to their end. The remaining ones spell out “Land rat” —…
Good morning. My name is Miss Quinn. Q – U – I – N – N. Choose a pen that writes the colour of your curiosity, mark your books with your name…
There should, by rights, be an age at which you fully understand the relationship between your body and the world, rendering you graceful in all things, but there isn’t, so you drop…
When one of the zucchinis split in two, aliens stepped out. No taller than a fingernail, the first alien saluted the others, jumping up and down like an overexcited electron. “Get the…