Dust by Anthony Ward

[Durham, England]

Daniel dusted the shelves, picking up mementos that had accumulated over the years. Sighing at the endeavour, he wondered why he bothered to dust every Tuesday. It took him most of the day, as often when he was picking up the ornaments, he would become possessed by a memory. He picked up the wooden pinecone and was transported back to the holiday cabin at the forest edge. There are other things I should be doing instead of dusting. Let the dust settle, he contemplated, it doesn’t harm me. He sneezed at the disturbed dust whirling in front of him, the sun revealing the storm he’d brewed. He slid his finger down the spine of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.

He decided he would reread it and felt a little dismayed as he pulled out Swanns Way to find the corner of the cover had been bent. Although he romanticised the idea of borrowing dog-eared books from the library, he preferred them to be brand new, in pristine condition, as if the pages had been printed on fresh birch. He shrugged it off as he told himself that a novel shouldn’t be in pristine condition, it should looked lived in. The pages should be browned off, foxed, and marred with age. He scrutinised the back of his hands, thinking how they resembled scrunched up paper with liver spots that had grown like lichen upon his skin, as if he were a book that hadn’t been read in a long while. Life isn’t perfect, he went on to himself, you shouldn’t try to keep it pristine. Accept the imperfections as the detail of the story.

It had been over twenty years since he had last read the book. Before he was married, before his daughter was born. He wasn’t sure whether he was a different person in the same body, or the same person in a different body. Before he had even started to read, he put the book down and picked up a red bound photograph album that was lying on top of the books. He decided to have a look through as it had been years. As he tuned over the pages, he blew away the dust as he looked through the photographs which had become as faded as his memories. These days they would be preserved in pristine condition, stored on a digital portable memory, he pondered, as he watched the dust settle back onto the newly polished hearth.

Balancing Act by David Patten

[Denver, Colorado, USA]

The postponement had reached an unlikely third day, although the belligerent clouds were showing signs of shedding their pall.  Puddles held the rippling images of damp buildings, rainwater eddying on eaves before tumbling downward.  Despite optimism that the inclemency was finally petering out, the ropes would need an additional day or two before properly being rid of moisture.  Not unaccustomed to discouragement, Berlin would need to muster patience before hosting its vaunted event.

     As boys, the twins displayed unusual dexterity.  Supple and wiry, they would affix ropes across their bedroom and perfect traversing them.  They created challenges; balancing on one leg, handstands, juggling while on the ropes.  At fourteen they were separated.  Lukas had gone on a late summer trip with their paternal grandparents to the Baltic Sea.  Upon their return the wall had partitioned the city, stranding Lukas in the east, while Dieter remained with their father in the west.

     Separated by a half mile, the young men faced each other, their homeland cleft by ideology.  Lukas atop the towering Brandenburg Gate, the taut heavy ropes stretching beyond the Wall and secured to the roof of a warehouse in the west, where Dieter stretched out his calves and scanned the rooftops for snipers.  Some eighty feet below, the expectant crowds placed wagers and gazed upward.

     The shrill of a whistle punctured the air, signaling the start of the unofficial race, each side hoping for the moral victory.  The brothers stepped out into their element, feet anchored, brain and muscle searching for equilibrium.  A mile away, concealed among West Berlin’s mid-rise residencies, a man waited on a rooftop, its flat concrete hosting dozens of wooden crates.

     Dieter arrived at the Brandenburg Gate a half dozen steps behind his brother’s progress, who’d already begun the return.  Dieter gathered himself and reached back out into the void.  The man on the rooftop received word and opened the crates in quick succession, an orchestra of claw and wing as scores of racing pigeons reveled in the release.

     For the first time the crowd’s attention was distracted as the birds arced above the city, an arrowhead of symmetry.  Midway during the return the brothers drew level.  Remaining stationary not an option, they continued to inch forward as the birds’ turns became tighter, closer.  The phalanx sliced through the sky briefly obscuring the brothers with each pass. A complicit glance as the racing birds came again, the hum of so many beating wings.  Acrobats now, the twins sprang from the ropes, locking arms.  Several shots rang out as they plummeted toward the ascending chaos.

Hide And Seek by Simon Collinson

[England]

A loud noise. It makes you jump a little.

“What was that?” you ask yourself.

Could it be that the threat draws near?

I bet every little squeak or crack sends shivers down your back.

I know what you're thinking.

‘The seekers are close by.’

Yes. They’re looking for you.

I can hear you checking all the doors and windows are shut tight. You check the curtains too. I know they’ve been drawn this past week. I’ve been watching your flat a lot.

Your stocks must be running low. A lot of your neighbours left the flat to get supplies.

But they didn’t come back.

Some neighbours opened their door when I came knocking.

How foolish.

They won’t be opening their doors anymore.

Your neighbours, the Robinsons, opened their doors. I left the music on. I hope that didn’t disturb you too much.

People hide. I seek.

Seeking hiders like you.

I blame it all on humanity’s desire to be part of a crowd, to be part of a group and follow the fads.

This month the fad is playing this game, ‘hide and seek’.

 I must say it's a better game than the last one.

In the past we had people doing the Rubik's cube or streaking.

But since the internet took hold and people became more bored, the crazes have become more extreme. And more violent.

So now it's ‘hide and seek’ and you are hiding in your flat.

I bet you're hoping to hold out until a new craze comes along.

Knock-knock-knock.

Not answering it, sensible. I wouldn’t either, if I was you.

Let’s see if I can try the handle, you never know.

You are keeping very quiet and still. But I think you're in there.

“Peter? It is Peter, isn’t it? Are you in there? Are you keeping well? Are you OK? I only want to be your friend.”

Knock-knock.

“You think this is all a trap, that I'm just pretending to be your friend, that I’m just waiting for the door to be opened to rush in and shoot you.”

Knock-knock-knock-knock.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“You're very quiet in there, dead quiet. I bet you're thinking I’m lying. And you’d be right.

Oh well Peter, I can see you're not in a helpful mood.

Hopefully you’ll be more cooperative tomorrow. Ta-ta for now, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

The corridors are filled with the steps of a seeker walking towards the stairs. As he leaves, he whistles the tune to ‘Oranges and Lemons’.

World Traveler by K.G.Song

[Los Angeles, California, USA]

​

Wayne finished dolma and ordered coffee and gata, sweet bread. He checked his tablet carefully and recorded his dining experience at a mom-and-pop Armenia restaurant. The feelings of sadness and pride tumbled inside as he reviewed the list. The meal would end his quest to sample one hundred different ethnic dishes.

     Reading each entry of ethnic dishes - Korean, Finnish, Oaxacan, Nigerian - reminded him of the people he met along his long journey. Almost all of them were quite excited to tell Wayne about their dishes. Some even offered free dishes for Wayne to sample.

     Moreover, Wayne didn’t even have to leave the Los Angeles area to achieve his goal. Yet he felt as if he transversed the globe many times.

Northbound Train by David Patten

[Denver, Colorado, USA]

​

The two approaching men were the same ones Armando had encountered in Saltillo, as groups of migrants jockeyed for position along the tracks, the horn from the slow moving freight train rupturing the humid, dusk air.  They had demanded weed or tobacco, their accents marking them as Honduran, and became hostile when Armando shrugged and shook his head.  The arrival of the train dissolved the tension, everyone scrambling to gain some kind of purchase on the brooding hulks of steel and iron.

     Slowed, the train echoed through an abandoned industrial area, a ghost town of flat roofs and broken windows.  Feral and reckless, the young Hondurans strode across the cars toward Armando.  He saw a flash of something metallic as the first one lunged at him.  The wrench glanced the side of his head, the assailant’s momentum toppling him from the train, a limb snapping on impact.  The second man fell upon Armando, pores seeping days’ old sweat and cheap liquor.  They grappled as the train picked up speed into open country.  Armando raised a knee, reaching for the knife in his boot.  He plunged it through denim and into the man’s thigh.  A hard thud as brush and clay claimed another rider. 

     He’d heard the stories; they all had.  Riders on lawless freight trains running the length of the country to the U.S. entry points in California and Texas, taking their chances at the border.  With Venezuela imploding into chaos, Armando had trekked west through Central America to the tourist towns of Mexico’s Yucatan.

     Like most northern border towns, Piedras Negras retained a frontier energy; equal parts optimism and desperation, a place where people hustled and made deals, and where trust had to be earned.  It’d been a week since the train shunted into the freight yards on the edge of town, spilling weary migrants into the gossamer light of a new day.  Armando found a cheap bedroom for rent in a rundown barrio and started plotting his next move.

     He chose the river.  Steady rains across West Texas had risen the level and quickened the current of the Rio Grande.  Armando leaned against one of the giant, stone pillars of the international bridge trying to gauge the distance to the other side.

A hundred yards, maybe a bit more.  Hard to tell as sullen storm clouds owned the sky, making a hostage of the moon.  Downriver, voices from the darkness; hushed, urgent. Others coming from out on the river, cajoling, advising caution.

     Armando walked about a mile to be clear of other crossers before he entered the river.  A light rain had started to fall; a world of water.  In the middle the riverbed finally fell away and he began to swim, limbs battling against the current.  Quickly tiring, clothing heavy and dragging, he surrendered to its will and drifted.

     The branch was serrated in parts and tore up his palms, but he used it to haul himself up onto the bank, soggy with mud.  Exhausted, Armando slumped against the trunk, the patter of rain on Texas leaves.

Melded Crid Rate Over The Score by Neil K. Henderson

[Glasgow, Scotland]

​

The seriousness of the current ‘melded crid’ build-up was literally brought to a head yesterday, when popular newsreader Myrmyda Threttispont was engulfed from above in a deluge of wet clay, stones and distressed topsoil while delivering a TV commentary on the very hazard she fell victim to. Apparently, her studio is located below street level. The pavement outside had been dug up for maintenance, leaving a build-up of common roadway rubble, known in the trade as ‘melded crid’, which slid through the window after a heavy-to-moderate rainfall.

          “It’s a question of aggregate,” said a labourer close to the scene. “I mean, ordinary mud is just mud. But melded crid is mud mixed with all sorts of hard, gritty substances. A degree of mineral aggregate can thicken the mix, but too much sharp gravel gathered in bunches can loosen it all up – and that’s when it’s liable to topple into basements and holes. Of course, if it falls on an ordinary workman digging a trench, nobody cares. But the minute it lands on some news-reading tart, everyone’s up in arms.”

          Already, a spate of emails and texts has come in, enquiring after Ms Threttispont’s wellbeing. (We are happy to say she is in good spirits, and her wardrobe is being refurbished.) TV garden makeover guru Terry Nupple, a close personal friend of Myrmyda’s, has gone on social media to “utterly deprecate and abhor the senseless disregard of public safety and visual decorum shown by the prevalence of melded crid.”

          We asked him if anything can be done by you, the public, to reduce the risk of further injury to much-loved media figures.

          “In a word, divots. Another sign of the current neglect of our roads and byways is the quantity of weeds left unchecked to clog the gutters. But clumps of grass, in particular, are easy to grab and pull up while walking past. Simply transplanting these sods onto the melded crid will bind the mounds together and prevent further disaster. Indeed, after a short while and sufficient rain, we can look forward to some pleasant grassy knolls where once unsightly crid dunes stood.”

          Our labourer was not impressed. “What about when I fill my holes back in? I don’t get paid extra for grassy knoll work.”

          “That’s the typical tunnel vision of today’s workforce,” says Nupple. “ ‘I’m all right, Jack, so melded crid to you.’ It’s time we took a stand.”

          The government is appealing for calm.

This Is Home by Amba-Aribisala Blessing

[UK]
 

We are stretched out on the back porch, Sal, and me. The air is chilly, but Sal still wears his shorts. Even though I am wrapped in a thick bathrobe, underneath I wear a pair of jean trousers, a woolly top, and a neck scarf. I can’t stand the weather. Many times, when I complain about all the things I don’t like about this place, Sal’s response often is, ‘It doesn’t matter, Betty. This is home.’

     Sal and I moved here three months ago. The unpleasant atmosphere back home was starting to affect our relationship. We’d been married three years with no kids, and our families wouldn’t let us be. The last straw was when Aunt Mariam suggested Sal take another wife. The following month we relocated.

     Adjusting to the unfamiliar environment is a bit difficult for me, but not for Sal. He understands the language and isn’t experiencing as much culture shock as I am. My parents had moved too when I was a child. Their new home was the only home I knew. Mama said it was rough the first few years, but when Daddy came, it got better. I was glad Sal, and I came together.

​

     “I saw a cat in the library today, Sal. I forgot what his name was. A cat in the library’s got to be at the top of the list of weird things I have seen and experienced here.” Sal chortles then asks between mouthfuls,

​

     “Can it read?”

​

     “I doubt. They say it often takes a stroll through the library. You know that can never happen back home.”

​

     Sal sips his tea. Back home is sometimes a touchy subject for him. 

​

     “You know Sal, I wasn’t expecting this place to be like home, but I didn’t expect it to be so different. I mean, some things are downright weird.”

​

     He eats his biscuit.

​

     “For example, there’s a vent in every room. That way, you smell what’s cooking. When someone speaks, you can hear it through the floorboards. I mean, the house booms with voices, and virtually every tap runs in both hot and cold water. It’s all really weird. We don’t have these back home, but neither do we have Daim chocolate and blueberry muffins. And I love those.”

​

     Sal goes to the kitchen for a refill. I call after him.

     “Oh, I remember now, Sal. The cat’s name’s Larry.”

The Last Spark by Kat Gal

[Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA]

katgalwriter.com

You were sitting there on the couch. 

Your blond hair looked like a haystack. You didn’t brush it after you woke up. You didn’t shave either. You decided to grow out a beard and didn’t care that I would swallow your facial hair every time you kissed me.

You were wearing your favorite blue shirt. You had it since seventh grade. It was ripped and worn out. But you didn’t care. You loved that shirt so much. It matched your light blue eyes. For some reason, I found that kind of sexy.

With a gracious movement, you put down the lighter on the table next to the candles that we were burning the night before. You glazed at me with loving eyes and handed me the joint. You didn’t smoke much anymore - just occasionally, maybe once a week. You took the last hit and looked at me. I felt loved.

You went to the kitchen to clean the ashtray. You did the dishes too - I heard the sound of the water.

When you came back, you laid down next to me and held me in your arms for a while. We were lying there, cuddling for hours, quietly. Then you - without saying a word - stood up, put on your shoes and your sweater. You kissed me softly. I remembered the day when you first kissed me - you were so scared that your lips were shaking. You caressed my cheek and said: “Shut the door when you leave and don’t let out the cat.” You kissed me again - on my forehead that time.

You had to go to work. I heard the door shut. I’d already missed you.

You never promised me anything. You never told me that it was forever. You never told me that we were for real. You never told me about your dreams or if I was a part of them. Maybe I never was. Maybe those dreams just changed quickly. 

We never talked about ‘us’. I felt that it was in the air and there was no need to say it. I want to believe that you felt the same way - for a while. But you probably didn’t say it because you never meant it or believed it.

One day you were suddenly there in my life, making everything look like spring. You were there and made me believe that life could be good.

Then one day, you were suddenly not there. You were distant and didn’t look at me the same loving way as you did before. I knew it was over.

There was no explanation for why you were with me and then why you disappeared all of a sudden. It took you a minute to fall for me and a second to fall out. It took me a while to trust you but a long time to get over you.

And even though I don’t love you anymore, I will never forget that morning as you were sitting on the couch…

Slow Dance by K.G.Song

[Los Angeles, USA]

​

A beautiful night. Perfect for dance. The strings of lights illumined the backyard quietly under the blanket of countless stars above. The ground exuded its warmth from desert sandy soil after a scorching afternoon. A small portable speaker threw just enough sounds to gently rise above the cacophony of desert wind and night animals – hunting, fleeing, hiding, and fighting.

Sam drew Maria close to his chest as they danced slowly on the baked desert ground, kicking up small puffs of dust with each step. Their eyes locked as they listened to the pounding of their hearts, ignoring the slow dance music that sought their attention with little success.

When the song was over, they danced to the desert night noises for a while, reluctant to part.

Maria whispered into Sam’s ears, her breath hot and sticky.

“You are the only person who stepped on my toes more than ten times in a slow dance.” She left and pinched him on the cheek before giving him a small peck on his lips with a knowing wink.

Sam bowed slowly and reached out for another dance from Maria with a beguiling smile. “I will carry you home if your feet hurt too much after the dance party.”

Maria shook her head, pointing her chin to her father who stood in the shadow of the house, with his hand tucked in the gun belt.

A sudden chill seized Sam, making him stumble and step on Maria’s dainty shoes once again. He danced faster as if he couldn’t wait for the song to end.

Mr Gatsby’s Suicide by Andrew Gooch

[Hull, East Yorkshire, England]

‘Why do you have to always treat me like I’m the Great Gatsby?’ I said, as I drove her home one evening.  ‘What would you do if I took a leaf out of that book? Eh? Just went home and ended it all?’

‘Don’t joke about things like that, Rik, it’s not impressing anyone,’ She tutted. ‘Anyway, Gatsby doesn’t kill himself, he gets murdered.’

‘Does he? That can’t be right. He’s in love with the girl, she rejects him, he realises that he’ll never have her then he commits suicide in the swimming pool.’

‘He gets shot in the swimming pool.’

‘I think you’re mixing it up with a different novel. I did English literature at college, alright, I’m an authority on these things.’

‘You could have studied under Noel Coward himself; it doesn’t change the fact Gatsby was murdered.’

‘Murdered himself more like!’ It was only at this point that I realised that I was shouting. ‘All because he was unhappy and unfulfilled.’

A severe voice suddenly spoke up in the back seat, ‘The lady’s right. He gets shot. By the jealous husband if I remember correctly.’

‘Well, I only read it the once.’ We drove on for another mile before I smirked and added, ‘There’s a car crash in it too if I recall.’

Two Stories by Cheryl Snell

[Maryland, USA]

Net

His wife has run out of butterflies. They are nowhere to be found, not in her stomach, or her glass case, not in her kisses. Not even the ones reserved for his eyelids.  Since his stroke, it’s harder for the man to jitter the handle-strap of his butterfly net onto his good wrist and steer his shadow through a field of bright wildflowers, but he does it for her. As a lure, he rubs the butterflies’ favorite leaf onto fingers that can still pinch a wing, and some butterflies fall for it. They come close, but lift away again before he can scoop them up. What will his wife do without her butterflies? Her spreading board and insect pins bare and wasted. Butterflies have always been her most reliable source of torment, much like the angels. He realizes he cannot contain either. One moment, petals trembling with wings accompany a bass-line of bees; the next, overridden by a ringing in the ears he would ordinarily recognize as a symptom, he simply crumples, his body folding like laundry onto the soft dirt floor.

Keys

​

I open the door for him, but he’s gone off with other guests. Calling for him to come back, I think I should whistle the way people do for their children or their dogs. I look around the room with the tablecloths all askew, breathe in the odor of dying flowers. The reason I misplace my man so often must be around here somewhere, but not necessarily in this hall embalmed in gold, shimmering with light that will whiten in a minute. Where are the keys? He has taken them with him. I slide down a wall to stare out the window where I witnessed the moon riding to the high point in tonight’s sky. Its fall earthward on a path of extinguished stars is as much a metaphor as the ruins of this room bathed in a weeping of sapphire light. Someday I won’t care where he is or what he’s doing. There is always some emergency but I will never be it. The echoes of the day wrap around me ─ I’d never have heard the metallic jangle if I wasn’t already locked away.

The Fishing Variation by Thomas M. McDade

[Fredericksburg, VA, USA]

“Do what, Son?” says Mark, placing a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue face down on the side table.

 “Greg, get off the bed,” orders Elaine. “Go to your room and get out of those dirty clothes, shower too.” He springs to the floor.

 “What do I have to do?” asks Mark reaching for the lighter and Camels under the magazine. He blows a billow of smoke.

“When’s my A/C going to be fixed?” Greg asks.

“Repair guys are busy with this God-awful heat,” answers Mark.

 “I’m plop my sleeping bag right here,” vows Greg.

 “Great,” says Elaine, happy to have him sleeping in their room.

“Greg, that thing I have to do?”

“You’ve got to take me and Davy fishing.”

 “I can’t guarantee it.”

“Yeah, yeah, Mr. Cox took us five times!”

“Get moving” says Elaine.

 “I wish you’d set up a firm date to take them fishing. Davy must have dropped a hint. I think Greg’s embarrassed.”

 “I will. Better if he’d stuck with baseball.”

“What does it matter, fishing or baseball, as long as it’s quality time together?”

“Ease up Elaine. When he’s older, I’ll take him out to Montauk, charter a boat.”

 “Maybe I’ll take him fishing,” says Elaine.

 “That’s rich. I’d love to see worm a hook. Maybe you can ‘tackle’ the dead light over the stairs and paint the walls white.”

“How about buying a new house?”

“Next Year, I swear.”

The following day after Greg cuts the grass; he runs upstairs and rests on his father’s side of the bed sneaking a peek at the Sports Illustrated. After Elaine finishes dusting, she suggests they pull a gag on Mark. She reaches high into the closet, gets down a hollowed copy of Gone with the Wind. She gives Greg eighty dollars. “Go to Gorman’s Tropical Shop; buy a five-gallon tank and whatever goes with it. Pick out colorful fish. We’ll tell dad you went fishing alone and that will be true! Ha!” Greg fans out the four twenties! “Great . . . holy crap – do they deliver?”

 “Take a taxi, stick your bike in the trunk, tip the driver like the rock star you are. The change is yours, sport. Hush, hush! Mother and son do high fives. She’ll gift Greg with an A/C fix too. She rings up Cool-All Associates; requests Ted who’s surfed at Laguna Beach. They’d done serious flirting at Gold’s Gym. “Have him come right upstairs.”

She pulls open a drawer of the dresser to take out a bikini she slowly puts on and models before the mirror. She switches on the radio, chooses an oldies station. She hopes for The Doors, “Touch Me.” She stands tall, one foot over the other, arms in the air and tosses her head back. She paces until she hears she hears the heavy footsteps on the stairs then a couple of thuds courtesy of the Sports Illustrated that fell from under Greg’s shirt when lost in the adrenalin rush of the fishing trip.

Scafell Pike by Sam Szanto

[Durham, England]

Website: samszanto.com

As the sun tinted the clouds school-bus yellow, I scrambled up to reach the summit. Although Scafell Pike is one of the most heavily trod paths of its kind, on that February day, snow dusting the ground, there was no one else in sight.

Except, I realised, for a man in a grey woolly hat staring down the mountain. I said hello; he nodded without looking up.

Panting slightly, my boyfriend was beside me. ‘You could have waited,’ he grumbled.

And you could have walked faster.

I passed him the bag of fizzy sweets and we sucked them in silence, gazing at the view as the wind whipped our skin. I wanted to quote Wordsworth, but could only remember the one about the daffodils.

When the sweets were finished, I saw the man had gone.

‘Let’s go back,’ my boyfriend said, tightening his rucksack straps. ‘Don’t want to be walking in the dark.’

Slipping over the loose brown stones, we descended. Rain came down like pins, and the cold made my hands hurt so much I cried out. My boyfriend put my fingers in his mouth and blew on them. I remember these small acts, fifteen years after he left me.
 

                                                                                             *

On the drive back to London, we sat in a silence the colour of stone. There was a news story on the radio about a man dying on Scafell Pike the day before. I wondered if that was the man I’d said hello to at the summit. My boyfriend didn’t remember seeing anyone.

I tried to describe the man, but he was indistinct as a dimming star in the night sky. I changed the radio station.

The Fighter by William Kitcher

[Toronto, Canada]

Crazy world. I was standing outside a bar having a smoke and some wasted street kid took a swing at me. Seems like that’s happening more and more these days. Good thing he didn’t have a knife or a gun. I was sober enough to still have normal reactions and I avoided the punch.

     I’ve never been a fighter – my last fight was Grade 5 – but I understand something about the concept.

Buddy had staggered forward when he missed me, and I moved my smoke to my left hand, then hit Buddy with an uppercut with my right, and it luckily hit him in the head as he passed by me.

     He hit the ground and rolled onto his back. I remembered a movie, and stood over him. “What are you gonna do now, punk?”

     He looked up at me with glassy eyes.

      I had a smile on my face, and I could tell he had no idea what my smile meant. I thought it meant this was a really weird situation.

     He got to his knees. I punched him again. I don’t know why I did that. It was probably because I’d never done that since I was a kid, and I had the opportunity. I felt a tingle on my back.

      Someone said to me, “What are you doing?”

     “Protecting myself. The guy attacked me.”

     “Sounds right,” the passerby said. He’d probably understood that I’m an old guy and the guy on the ground was young, so chances were I was telling the truth.

     People dispersed. The idiot got to his feet and wandered away.

     My face was warm. I followed him up the street. He turned a corner, and so did I. When he was past the first building on the street, I got closer to him, then punched him in the back of the head.

     Cheap shot, I know. I don’t care. It felt good.

     He hit the ground.

     Someone said, “Stop hitting that guy.”

     “He started it,” I said.

      “I don’t believe you,” he said.

     I turned to the guy. He was about my age and my size. I kicked him in the stones. That’s one of the places you hit people when you feel threatened. Eyes. Nose. Throat. But especially in the groin.

     An adrenaline rush washed over me and I itched. I went back to the bar, had two more beers and a shot, and told the bigmouths at the bar what I thought of them. Someone took a swing at me and I reacted more quickly than I thought I would.

     I think I have a new hobby.

In The Dark by Anthony Ward

[Durham, England]

He could feel his heart beat as he sat in the movie theatre watching the horror unfold on the screen. He had remained indifferent to many horror films but this one made him feel as if he were in actually in it. He hunched forward in his seat as he watched the hooded killer enter the foyer of a cinema that looked just like the one he was in. He felt the blood rush from his head as he watched the killer coldly slit the ticket collectors throat, overcome with nausea, not at the sight of the gushing blood, but at the fact that the victim looked like the same man who had torn his ticket when he came in. The hooded figure was now making his way through the lobby and was entering screen 6. The camera panned down to reveal the title of the movie to be the same as the one that he was watching. He tried to remember what screen he was in.  He searched anxiously for his ticket in his coat pocket and pulled it out. He turned it towards the screen, but it was dark, then the screen lit up with a flash and he read Seat 15, Row B, Screen 6. He looked back up to the screen and watched the killer walking down towards the front of the theatre where he was seated. He felt as if the killer was coming for him and pulled the hood of his coat over his head and stared anxiously towards the screen. He could feel the killer as if he were behind him. He wanted to turn around, but he couldn’t, and remained transfixed as he watched the killer raise the knife above his head. Then he shrieked out in terror at the thought that he was about to be stabbed and scrunched his eyes in anticipation just as another flash on the screen highlighted the killers face. His eyes opened wide as he gasped, exasperated. It was his own face. He was the killer. He stood up feeling a warm rush seethe through his body. He swung his head around but there was nobody behind him except a crowd of silhouetted heads looking straight ahead. He turned back to the screen to see who was sitting in front of him, but his face was not shown. ‘Who is it?’ he screamed at the screen. ‘Who is it?’ he screamed again. Then he grabbed the person in front of him who spun around and looked up at him in horror.

Top Deck Blues by Mike Taylor

[Plymouth, England]

The man three rows in front of me is swearing again. He’s quiet but insistent. I don’t think the woman sitting next to him is comfortable. Not at all. She’s got the window seat, probably got on first, and almost certainly feels stuck with him, as we all sit on the top deck of this bus going into town.

Although early evening, it’s still light outside. Of course, there are street lamps, anyway; but the road we’re on has a few trees and it’s actually quite a pretty part of the journey. But I can’t help feeling badly for the woman up ahead. I’m only guessing that she’s unhappy there but the couple sitting on the other side of the aisle have moved back to my row. It’s obvious that they didn’t want to stay next to the man who’s grumbling away.

Personally, I’m straining to hear him. I thought I caught him mentioning the government and wondered what he would be saying about it. Maybe some wild conspiracy theory. Or, these days, maybe that wouldn’t be wild. But now he’s talking about football. Something about the players; and then he clearly says ‘off-side’ but I can’t hear anything else.

As he said it, though, he physically jerked in his seat. That was too much for the woman. She stands up, looking worried and trying to avoid his gaze as she shuffles past him and down the stairs whilst the bus is still moving. I wonder if she will get off at the next stop or just hide at the back on the lower floor. I’ve seen that happen more than once.

Because I know this man. Well, he’s familiar. We’ve often been on the same bus and I know he’s no trouble. That’s why I’m moving forwards, standing beside him, waiting for him to shuffle over to be by the window. 

Now I’m sitting next to him. I’m fine with it, used to his narration as we travel, him quietly airing his thoughts and worries as we head towards the centre. I quite like his rhythm, the way he mumbles. I wouldn’t say it’s musical but it’s got something about it. And I don’t mind the odd expletive. It shows he cares, even if I’ve no idea what about.

I used to think that maybe he was the elder brother of someone I used to go to school with. That may well be wrong, though, and doesn’t really matter. Now he’s just my sometime bus companion, someone I feel a strange kinship with, even as everyone else moves away from him and now both of us.

But we’re all right together. It saves other people sitting here and maybe it suits me, too. In some strange way, we’re comfortable with each other. I’m sure of that. And that’s not something you get with everyone.

The Persephone Plan by Simon Collinson

[England]

Are you an A or a B?

That is the most important question.

At birth I was given the names I am known by and then given the letter B.

This letter follows you to your grave.

It dictates the life you lead, more precisely where you live and where you die.

I know that the world has become vastly overpopulated.

There wasn’t enough land to build flats to accommodate all.

It was decided that half the population would have to live and work underground.

Naturally, living in such a dark and hellish place was not a prospect anybody relished.

So, it was thought the fairest and most bearable solution was to have one group live above ground for a year and then swap and live underground for a year.

So, all the “A’s” would have their time in the daylight and then they would go into the dark underworld and the “B’s” would have their year in the daylight.

And so it would continue. They called it “the Persephone plan”.

I am thinking of this while I await in a crowd of lines all at one end of the stadium. Me and all the other local B’s.

Not that I’ll be getting many chances to watch any sport over the next 12 months.

Or watching anything at all.

Really trying to see things is a waste of time where we are going.

But it will be worth it to catch sight of the fair Rosalind.

We met at this exact point in this stadium last year.

You just know when you catch someone's eyes and you both connect. Like electricity.

It's like telepathy. Two minds with the same thought. Two sets of hands touching through the holes in the wire.

We whispered our names to one another.

She was amused that mine was Gaius Octavius Ceasarion.

We were Separated by an 8 foot green wire fence. For she is an A as are all the other people on her side of the wire.

My heart leaps as I catch sight of Rosalind. I wave giddy like a silly schoolboy. Her smile beams back and she waves excitedly. I blew her a kiss. She returns two from the other side of the wire.

We both jostle our way so we can face one another by the wire. Fingertips touching.

Not much is said. Some thoughts are best  left unsaid.

I know where Rosalind has come from.

And she knows where I’ll be going.

But such meetings were fleeting and the whistle of the security staff soon had us moving. Rosaland with the rest of the A’s to the gates that led out of the stadium and daylight, I and the other B’s down the seemingly never ending steps into the ground where the darkness devours the light.

The stars must be laughing at the fates dealt to the likes of me. A B who has fallen in love with an A.

But I am consoled by the thought that I’ll see Rosalind again this time , at this spot next year. Even if it's only for a few minutes.

I know this cannot be love in reality, for she is an A and I’m a B.

Two Stories by Mehreen Ahmed

[Australia]

Waves

It was a darkly day. The rain hadn’t fallen any darker in the armpit of the country—densely beautiful. The inhabitants were few but many. They had not become walled out. They had become white-washed as they stood in solidarity like a wall. They feared the land could be highjacked. They feared a culture could be lost, its language, even the country, the new-migrants had arrived. Their worst fears, even more, to come was the economic onslaught, their lives at risk. The newcomers came in waves. They were unstoppable. They had been doing so since inception. Those who were the town’s stronghold today arrived in high tide once—waves once. But they had moved away like waves too, apathetic, distanced just like the cold wall, they now represent. History was repeating and forgetting in its cycle of wheels—over and over. The past was just as unchangeable as the waves were. Still, the human wall stood stalwart stopping history on its axis, unbeknownst history would find a way around to enter—this was always a new wave of time.

Moonless On Moon

A poet heard a drone over her head which buzzed her a wake-up call, that it had been around, as the drone floated unsteadily on the bowl of the blue and humming its tune, departing readily, informing that it had been there, on the dark side of the moon, and had seen the unseen—an oxymoron, but a little truth hid in this cosmic paradox in the dark porous rocks, a priceless gem was locked—life’s building blocks of light oxygen n’ all that the earth, overtime had become tight with life, a place quite trite, rightly so, her imagination flew high, she thought, let’s rock up to the moon because it filled her up with hope and delight, if perchance, the light side of the moon was habitable, it would be a moment of bittersweet emotion crammed between the dark side of the moon, a force to reckon with and the light side, still, the poet tried to sight a moon from the surface of the moon itself, no lacquered moon on the light side to be sighted—perhaps, a black moon on the dark side, then? The poet pried in vain on earth to witness and shed light through a blue moon to jeer a grin - the dark side of the moon followed the light side like a shadow of a foot, sadly, though, no moon could ever be viewed on either of its sides, the lyrics, she wrote as she sang a moon song on the blue earth and thought the romance rang truer here rather than there.

The Missing Prime Minister by Jo Bodsworth

[Leicestershire, England]

 The Private Secretary was hovering at the top of the stairs. “Good morning. Would you like a drink?”

     “Please, coffee,” I nodded as I opened the door to the PM’s office.

     He was sitting in the armchair near the fireplace. Instead of his usual suit, a chunky-knit cardigan was pulled round him, over an open-necked shirt. He motioned for me to sit. His hair was slicked down with sweat, beads glistened on his forehead. His pale skin took on a greyish tinge with several warty lesions around his throat.

      “What’s going on, John?”

     “Are they sorting you a drink?... I’ve asked for tea,” he commented. His words came with heavy effort, his chest rattling with every breath. I nodded in response to his question but said nothing.

     He wheezed as he drew breath to speak and started coughing. His left hand, clutching a large white hanky, quickly covered his mouth. His right hand held me at bay, not that I was moving. The coughing subsided, splatterings of red on the cloth. He hastily folded it in on itself and dabbed his forehead.

     “Sorry,” he said, “I…I’m a bit of a mess.”

      An aide entered with the drinks.

      “Ah, that’s better,” he said, sipping his tea, “I have this constant taste… of copper.”

     “Have you seen a doctor?” I took a sip of coffee and waited for an answer.

     “I can’t just go off sick… at the slightest little thing… But I would like you to stand in for me… at PMQ’s… I have the questions… and answers on my desk.” He waved a hand in the general direction of the desk, as I got the documents. The top page bore a few very fine red dots. “You’ll have to hold your cool … with the third question… don’t let them rattle you… Peter’s let them know it won’t be me… he may know who… they’re going to put up… against you… I have some documents to look through… I will do those… then rest… rest and time… that’s all I need… rest and time.”

     “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

     He shook his head, the action starting him coughing again. He waved for me to go and, as I stood to leave, I could see his handkerchief was redder.

     Outside the door, Peter was waiting. He held out a piece of paper with the name of the opposition member I would face in a few hours.

     “Thank you, Peter. Get him a doctor, will you?” I moved towards the stairs.

     “He saw one earlier.”

     “What did they say? He should be in hospital. He’s coughing up blood.”

     “I know. Doc said all that to him, but he refused. Nothing they can do, anyway, apparently.” Peter’s eyes were moist.

     “Is it…?”

     He nodded.

     “How long?”

     “Didn’t say. Should I tell anyone?”

     I shook my head, “He wouldn’t even tell me.”

      The walk out of Downing Street felt altogether more sombre than my walk in.

Spooky Season Flash Fiction: 2 pieces by Liberty Reeves

[Bournemouth, England]

The Car Crash

December belongs to ravens. Poe decided it and no one has disagreed since. They perch on lamp posts as easily as pine trees. Adaptable creatures. Distracting creatures. Omens of death. As I step into the hectic road, I think: how could something so beautiful predict something so deadly?

The Uni Room

I've locked myself in the room with the rat. Pestforce said it's a baby, and that I should have no mercy. It's had no mercy on me. Seven days of constant scratching, of scampering over my stained rugs and tangling itself in charger cables. God forbid it chews them. Scratch, scratch. Scratch, scratch. I lean over the side of my bed. Mercy, he's right. It is a baby, and it’s caught in the trap. I sink under my duvet, head under the covers. Problems aren't there if you don't look down.

One Of The Few by Kate Holmes

[Driffield, Yorkshire, England]

​

You joined me on my first train journey from London to Leeds sporting your pale pink dress with white spots. Pristine white shoes and ankle socks. I was grateful you stuck around, especially when she left. You weren't particularly talkative but nor was I. 

They made a huge fuss of you when we arrived making it clear you were special and different to the others. If I got rough with you, you would disappear for a while. I knew you were still around and would show up again soon. 

We got scruffier in our teenage years. I needed glasses and you developed this odd wink. Two outsiders who stuck together and shared secrets.

Our separation half a century after our first meeting was not planned and was cruel. He knew how much you meant to me but would not let me see you following the split. You are made of harder stuff than me and was fine. I have learned to be. I never knew your name and the irony is that you are one of the few who knows mine. 

Night Sweat by David McVey

[Milton of Campsie, Scotland]

I wake up sweating. I hold my hands in front of me and feel them tingling. I’m haunted by a dream, a horrible dream. Or perhaps it’s a memory.

I’ve wanted to get back at him for so long. Jake, my neighbour. Not for being evil or dangerous, but for being annoying, noisy, insensitive, cocky. For playing loud music at 2am, for jet-washing his driveway at 7am, for bawling into his mobile every minute of every day. And for being a Celtic supporter. I hate the Old Firm.

He was always boundlessly self-confident for all that he was small and cross-eyed. He seemed to strut everywhere, as if beating his chest as he went. Whenever I saw him, I imagined creeping up behind him and smashing his skull with one swift strike of a poker; or pitching him into the back of a bin lorry as it clawed the rubbish; or shoving him into the path of a speeding 4x4.

And now I gasp and sweat and wonder - did I dream that I had crept into his garden before midnight as he played loud music? Had I dreamt of choking the life out of him as if he were a scrawny chicken? Or are these actual memories, memories of things I’ve really done but the details of which are hazy with sleep and guilt and dread?

Supposing I sleep again; supposing I wake up next morning and switch on the radio and the main story on Good Morning Scotland is the discovery of Jake’s body and, as I open my eyes fully, I see flashing blue lights making kaleidoscope patterns on the curtains?

Right now, however, it’s quiet; perfectly so, apart from odd gasps of distant traffic and a mild puff of a night wind against the window pane that shifts the curtain slightly. And then from next door there comes a demonic scrabbling and a demented yapping fit to wake the dead, if there are any.

If I have killed him, I think, I wish I’d killed his stupid dog as well.

Nonsense by Luwan Wang

[London, England]

It’s quiet and dark. I can still feel the white light going through the black cloth that covers my eyes and shines on my eyelids. I can smell the disinfectant. Is this what death feels like? No, death should be nothingness, but I’m still thinking.

     What’s the point of death - what should that day be when it comes? If I smiled and crossed my hands on my chest, I would be a person who has many lovely children and has experienced a happy life. If I drooped the corners of my mouth, made a serious expression, and put my hands to the sides of my body, I would be a rich person who forgot to make a will, and my children would hurt each other fighting over my property. Crazy thoughts. If I wrote them down, would that be stream-of-consciousness fiction? Or would it just be nonsense? I’ve read a stream-of-consciousness fiction before. The story was called The Mark on the Wall. It’s a boring but brilliant story. The boring is like, when I went to the bar with my friends, they ordered cokes. They wanted to be healthier and reduce their alcohol intake. Brilliant but boring. What did they say? ‘Don’t worry about us. Just order whatever you want!’ I looked like a weirdo with my Cuba Libre. I didn’t like The Mark on the Wall,  but it was on the compulsory reading list in middle school. Sometimes, I don’t want to do something if people force me. Like, when I think my room is messy and needs to be cleaned, and then my mom comes in and says: ‘You should clean your room!’ I don’t want to do it anymore. But I still read The Mark on the Wall. The grade was more important. Exams were torturous. How to remember all the knowledge in my textbooks? Some points, especially, are difficult to understand. I wish someone would invent edible books. Then, as long as I make sure to eat them, I would be able to remember and understand them. They would have different flavours. Harry Potter would be a chocolate flavour, and The Mark on the Wall would be a carrot flavour. But what if the calories of the chocolate-flavour books were equal to chocolate’s calories? The teachers would tell the students: ‘Eat two to three pages of your textbooks every day. Don’t eat all of them on the day before the exam, otherwise, you’ll have indigestion.’ If I was too lazy to eat books until the day before the exam, then I would gain 10kg after having 100 pages within a day. I’d have to go to the bookstore after the exam and ask the staff if they could recommend some salad-flavour books to me. If I manage to publish my diary, which is strawberry cake-flavoured, I would tell my readers: ‘Thanks for listening to my nonsense, and I hope you enjoy it.’

     The sound of shoes scraping on the ground in the corridor. I am not alone. But what if it’s a serial killer? If he takes my heart or my other organs? Which organ is the least valuable? I don’t know the market.

     ‘Are you ready? We’ll start soon.’ I recognise his voice. It’s my doctor, not a serial killer.

Independence by Veronica Robinson

[London, England]

​

After three-hundred years of falsehood, oppression, misunderstanding, mistrust – the British Parliamentary System, the English Language, Advances in Life Skills, Beliefs; British Colonial Rule in Jamaica, was coming to a close.

Some elements of past life would continue, but a new era for Jamaica was in sight – Self-Rule.

Hurbert Williams, felt this, as he gazed at the fireworks, listened to the talk of freedom, heard the sound system pound in his ears. He watched the Union flag being lowered. The Jamaican flag take its place.

He had experienced twenty-three years of life in England. The war. The RAF. English girls. He was tempted to marry one. Penny, a nice middle-class girl from Wimbledon. Parental pressure from both sides, often bitter, sometimes vindictive, soured their romance and they called it off.

Marriage to his Jamaican wife, Bibs, of twenty- two years, proved stable and strong. She was a nurse and had become his help mate and friend. Unusual, at the time, she also became friends with Penny, and this helped to smooth the situation a great deal.

Cynthia, his daughter. Schooled in England. A dream come true. Shock, when she became in his eyes, a revolutionary as a result.

Pride. His younger son, George, being born in England, achieved the seemingly unachievable – an English man.  

Unrealistically high expectations of Independence. Many Jamaicans including Hubert Williams and his family returned to life in Jamaica. Hopes. Dreams. Ambitions to be fulfilled. Fears. Disappointments. Regrets.

Rastafari. Music. Cricket. Athletics. Everything had a new meaning. Migration. Tourism – A movement of people. Exchange of ideas. Breaking down of barriers.

Sugar. Rum. Bananas. Citrus. Bauxite. Few resources to build the country on.

The future – A simple phrase – at once glorious and filled with hope, yet so terrifying.

August 6th 1962, a Defining Date in Jamaican history.

Twilight, an In-Between Time. As the sun set, Hubert Williams pondered on what the future had in store for him, his family, and his country, on this auspicious Day of Independence.  

The Past Is Another Country by Ali Rowland

[Northumberland, England]

​

I was a doctor, now I gut fish.

The fish comes in a cold truck on a Wednesday. The man who drives the truck showed me a picture of the boat the fish come off.

It’s a big one, very sturdy, not like the dingy we came on. I see families playing on those inflatables at the beach, having fun. 

The weekends are busy, so I prepare extra. There are so many cuts on my fingers. The fish is so cold the knife slips. 

My husband fries the chips. He was an engineer. If the fryers break down, he fixes them. 

We had lots of friends. We ran a charity for homeless people in our spare time. Now we give the chips left over at the end of the night to those who live on the street. 

They come for the money on Mondays. Our rent comes out of that. They give us just enough for food. They have our passports. We live in the room upstairs which smells of frying. 

The shop is bright just like an operating theatre. It’s hot in the summer. One day a man falls on the shiny floor while waiting for his food. He’s having a heart attack. I do compressions before the ambulance comes. We hold our breaths but thankfully, the police don’t come. The paramedics say I did so well I could train to do their job.

Back home if you save a life, the person comes back to shake your hand and thank you. I am wondering if the customer will do this. That would make me smile.

Every Time We Fall by Caroline Grimshaw

[Islington, London, England]

Every word, ever spoken was now stored in a database so gigantic that it filled what used to be the iced-coated surface of Antarctica. Here, the once immeasurable ice sheet had finally melted, setting the scene for today’s Tundra, with its shrubs, sedges and lichens. The deep darkness of winter and temperatures that plunged below zero for 10 months of every year was found to be the perfect location for ‘Discourse Data Home – DDH’.

     Human beings no longer felt the desire for dialogue. The last word uttered was decades ago. All conversations and interactions are now performed through ‘ThoughtwaveTM’.

     Agatha stationary, her soul in silence. Surrounded by screens of stimulating scenarios – tantalising images of groups gathered, giggling, chattering voraciously. Words tumbling from their tongues. Hands held. Skin crushed under the weight of passion.

     Agatha’s eyelids gently close, blocking out all visionary and auditory stimuli. Then, her sensuous hands levitate, willowy fingers coding dialogue that is neither heard, nor seen. This conversation transmuted into digital streams which can be experienced far away, on the other side of the dead planet. Agatha is a master of the download: borrowing the best conversations from DDH and repurposing them for her own ends.

     Me, Agatha, TW045067: Programming commencement. Activate. Engage.

     Language flows from her with the same force as the gushing water cascading across the Niagara Gorge. Now, of course, all water has evaporated from the earth’s surface.

     Me, Agatha: I feel my falling today but know this: the greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

     thought reply is instantaneous.

     Me, Otis, TW 076085: Welcome. Know this: it is the courage to continue that counts.

     Me, Agatha: I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

     Me, Otis: Fear of what?

     The thought waves cease. First a friction and a discrete buzz. Then an escalation, turning into a cacophony of white noise. For Otis, TW 076085, communication has ceased forever. He has broken protocol. Communication may be eloquent and poetic – it must never be personal. Otis, TW 076085: seated alone. Thoughts bombard the outer layer of his brain. The cerebral cortex fires sensations of thinking and a desperate desire to share.

     Otis, TW 076085: forever alone.

What Happened To Dermot? by Eileen Dunne

[Ireland]

​

This is not a story about pigeon lung and what doctors classify as bilateral glass dust opacities and expansive honeycombing of the lungs. Dermot attributes his debilitating breathlessness to dear Deborah and her smoking, his wife of thirty years.  

Our father distilled Dermot’s peculiar character to his early association with the older men at the pigeon club. He was ten years old when he made his first pigeon loft; a Bewley’s tea chest, mounted on top of dad’s workshop at the end of the garden.  It was more of a yard than a garden and an unfitting retro to a once glamorous Georgian house. Dermot had made a runway with two wide planks, stretching from the yard up to the loft. Sputnik, the family dog, would race up the gangway and mangle unfortunate cats who ventured near the loft. It was a no-go area, known to us as the Falls Road. The limp bodies of cats were placed in a sack, weighted by bricks, and flung into the mouth of the Liffey. 

Through the years Mam would lament, “Where did I go wrong?” And a nine-year-old Dermot peers from a cheap plastic frame, hanging between the kitchen window and the scullery door; a cherub sporting a blue shirt with matching tie, the pale paisley design matching the peeling wallpaper on that side of the kitchen.  

We sisters are certain there was notable change in Dermot’s personality after that Sunday, the Sunday he was left behind in Glendalough. Mam dreaded Dad’s declarations of a family drive to the Dublin mountains. As soon as we left the city, he fragmented the trip by stopping off at every pub on the route, while Mam self-comforted in the passenger seat with snapped squares of Fry’s Chocolate Cream. Around 6pm on that Sunday, journeying home along the Grand Canal, someone shouted from the back of the car, “Mr. Dunne, where’s Dermot?” There were ten of us packed like mackerel along the rear seat and boot. The garda told Mam to take the kids home. His voice was soft. 

Dermot is dark like Mam with sallow skin and raisin yellow eyes. We found him sitting by the fire drinking a mug of tea.  “I met a couple from the flats, they brought me home and said, “What kind of parents have you?”  

I have often reconstructed that story and it seems improbable that he met a couple from the flats with a car.  Back then we knew the owners of the few cars in the area.  Pat Meagher’s peppermint green Ford Anglia and Tom O’Brien’s polished blue Vauxhall Viva, the neighbours we called on for hospital runs.  I have no recollection of Dad mentioning the incident again. The time we left Dermot in Glendalough never formed part of his pub repertoire. Nobody has ever asked Dermot what happened that day, reluctant to unsettle the settled.