June 10, 2021

“Dottie,” A Short Story by Kerry Breen

Dottie looked past her reflection in the bathroom mirror to the metallic petals outlining her slight frame. She’d found the vinyl-coated wallpaper in W.T. Grants on Washington Street that Wednesday and had spent half of Thursday hanging it. Looking back to the mirror, she folded the final curler into her hair and snapped it shut. She then began her nightly routine of wrapping toilet paper around the circumference of her head to keep her cropped, platinum hair smooth around each bubblegum pink foam roller. She had thought the yellow and orange flowers traced in gold were just the springy boost the tiny bath needed, but now she wasn’t sure. “George? Hey, George?” she called into the hallway. “Yes, dear,” George replied, stealthily dipping his left hand into the candy dish on the kitchen counter. …

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May 27, 2021

“Never Never Land,” by Michael Summerleigh

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

At some point in the evening he turned around and realised he was somewhere he’d never been before; that he couldn’t remember any of the people with whom he’d been in that wherever it was he thought he had been before ending up where he was. What it boiled down to was that he was alone, when at some point in the near past it had been otherwise . . . and now he was lost . . . which had not always been the case in that same shifty construct of reality he had assumed was his normal everyday life. Mostly he stayed on top of things. What frightened him was that it was, nevertheless, familiar; that the sudden crushing weight of what-the-fuck was not new; that he had been there in the Nowhere a thousand times since the day/night/whatever when Timothy Thomas Garmin had woken up screaming because in…

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May 18, 2021

“The Mailman,” A Short Story by Rachel Laverdiere

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

You gave me quite the fright! But I did say any time, and I meant it. Yes, yes, come in, come in! Leave your boots on the mat and let me take your coat. Funny, the only person ringing my bell these days is the mailman! Highlight of my day’s the sound of the utility bills dropping through my mail slot. Doesn’t hurt that he’s got spectacular calves, if you know what I mean! All summer long, he wore his shorts uniform—weee-oooo! Just between you and me, I’ve been having fantasies ever since. Now, when the doorbell goes, I’ve gotta catch my breath before I open the door. To be completely honest, it’s a relief you’ve popped by—I was just numbing the old brain with some Netflix, trying to keep my nose clean. I know I’ve mentioned my pledge to sobriety at our Saturday morning staff meetings, but I had a feeling I should put a bottle of white in the fridge. Every once in a while, a girl’s gotta let her hair down, right? Let’s just keep this whole Desiree’s-got-wine-chilling-in-the-fridge thing between the two of us. One teensy glass won’t send me tumbling too far from the wagon! After all, Barney’s…

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May 10, 2021

“Demon Road,” A Short Story by Derrick R. Lafayette

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

I lived in a castle made of mud. Solid enough to make you feel caged. Light barely escaped the brown warped walls. The house had so many ancestors pass away inside, that layers of its spirit fought each other seasonally. I was doomed. I believe it was late autumn when my stomach’s emptiness corresponded with my heart. After fifty-five days in solitude, the hunger monster devoured me. Food was to be acquired. There used to be another person to handle these things during the summer. However, the sunlight tempted her to search for buried treasure in the cityscape. She thought there were buildings, roads, and regular life beyond the mountains, past the desert plain. All things inside the dome. I located the area map before she did and destroyed it. I thought about her wandering hopelessly every night. Helped me sleep. The gun seemed to gain ten pounds since the last time I…

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April 18, 2021

“Rat Road,” A Short Story by Paul Negri

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Because I had no father, no brothers or sisters, no aunts or uncles, and no friends, and was scared of everything, Mom was worried about me. “I’m worried about you, Tommy,” she would say, and she looked it. And that worried me. She was all I had, my lifeline, and even at nine I knew a frayed rope was not the best lifeline, though I did not think of it in such fancy metaphoric terms, as being a child I had no need for metaphors. What I knew was instinctive, a heightened sense of risk that permeated my day to day and night to night life. Like me, Mom’s father left before she was born and her mother (who I later came to call the Unknown Grandma) gave Mom up for adoption, which launched her into a carousel of foster care for several years. But unlike me, Mom was not afraid of anything, as far as I could tell, and I imagined she never had been. …

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April 12, 2021

“Kali,” A Short Story by Emily Chaff

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

“Is everything okay here?” “Well, it’s fine. But, can I ask you, I mean, I don’t know if you can do anything about it, but—” Kali waited beside the table, her fist tightening around the handle of the coffee pot she held. She couldn’t care less what the problem was. She wondered if her customers realized she was contractually obligated to ask them if they were enjoying their meal and if she could get them anything else. And with this guy, it was always something. He came in every morning the second the door was open. Breakfast started at 7am and she dreaded seeing his face peering through the glass, without fail, at 6:55. He sat himself at the same four-top table, table 32, and set himself up like a king holding court. Extra napkins….

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March 29, 2021

“Tress Theory, A Lesson,” by Kathryn Kopple

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Charles gazed at the night sky and smiled. It appeared filmy, as if a giant sheet of wax paper hovered between him and the heavens. The hotel balcony, where he stood, gave him a sweeping view of the Gran Vía, the large boulevard that ran through the center of Madrid. Pulsing red, twinkling blue and violet, blinking yellow, speeding white high beams—the street swam with electric intensity below while above all was murky. Nothing shone or twinkled up there. Even the moon was less visible, something he noticed back in New York over a year ago. He didn’t make much of it, not at first, assuming that the moon’s disappearance was an effect of light pollution. Astronomers had long issued warnings: too much artificial outdoor lighting was responsible for transforming pristine darkness into an unsightly wash of cloudy denim. Charles experienced a sense of loss…

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March 15, 2021

“In the Hotel Room with Arles,” by Jeffrey Boldt

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

1. I first met Arlene Henson in law school. She’d been a teacher for twenty years and was in her early forties—which made her nearly twenty years older than me, and most of the rest of our class. But Arlene was still youthful and fun, and I never thought of her age as a significant factor in our friendship. Her face had the gentle and patient look which you’d want to see on your favorite teacher, but it was also quick to flash into an ironic smile and even a dismissive, almost-cynical laugh. Arlene was recently divorced from a Geography professor and she was attending law school on her share of the sale of their house in Milwaukee. She’d been a collegiate swimmer, and still did triathlons; she often came to class in tight fitting athletic outfits which hugged her trim figure and still drew plenty of attention from young men half her…

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March 8, 2021

“She Is Going to Do Something Nutty,” by Raymond Abbott

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

He told the police sergeant, as he knew he would, that he would leave right away and help however he might. The address he wrote down was familiar to him. It was in the Flats, an old Holyoke neighborhood or section of the city once inhabited by many different ethnic groups, although now almost exclusively Puerto Rican. He shoved the paper with the address in his coat pocket and found his little black bag with the oils and other implements for giving what once was called the last rites of the church, but were now termed the sacrament of the sick, and headed off in the direction of the Flats. Sixty-six Center Street. He’d been there before, he was sure. Only the week before, the adjoining block had burned up. It was another of those…

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February 16, 2021

“Soliloquy in Blue,” A Short Story by Johan Alexander

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Did she say something? Did I say something? Her brow illuminates under the streetlights and pulses with the beat of the windshield wipers. She won’t look at me: her eyes flash sequins at the sidewalk. Droplets floating, floating: translucent globes hanging in space. Then they burst apart. She shakes her hair and I can no longer see her eyes. Rain: I yawn through the misty rhythm. My eyes close continuously. Headlights and streetlights mix in the distance and through the murk I wonder when things started to go off course. We had danced together, squeezing particles of music from our sweatshirts. Then we ate at the Greasy Spoon, where she said it. The air between us is a stale sponge unable to soak up all these discarded feelings. Damp inside the car and heavy on my eyelids. I try to blink. The tires below us slime their way through the night. She sits in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead. What`s the point? She glances over, a quick reflex of her neck, surprised. I realize I have mumbled my thoughts aloud. Beads of sweat wander across my hairline. I keep my face forward. She turns away. Again. I roll down my window an inch. I open my mouth. A few raindrops land on my tongue. …

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