Leg Panel the color of raw steak discoloring once it’s exposed to the air slides on its runner, crosscutting fibres bunched into fascicles sheathed with elastin that shift like amoebas, contract, clinch, then dilate again. Panel after panel, runners underfoot and thickness of panels decreasing. A click, something catches. Or caught, something releases and scrapes to the opposite wall. This fleshly corridor can’t go on much longer: the panels can get no thinner. The thought of hiding once I’m out, the reason not to hide. Never did I present agoraphobia, or tendencies . . . say, vampiric. No symptoms of anemia. Never was a bleeder, in any sense. I have to keep my nerve. It’s all that separates me from my surroundings. My leg feels . . . feels like. Prologue Taking life one rescue animal at…
“The Interruption,” A Short Story by Jason Powell
Each time is the same as before, but each time feels new. He and Grace hold hands in the hallway and stare at Destiny through the streakless glass. Grace chose the name and to see it written on that little plastic band in official type makes her happy. And why shouldn’t she be? The delivery went great. Destiny is perfect. Everything is perfect. Well, maybe not “perfect.” It’s true, Destiny was unplanned. True, he and Grace don’t have their own place to bring her home to. True Grace’s parents are actively unsupportive of their child and her teenage boyfriend bringing another child into the world. But none of that matters. Grace and Destiny are happy and healthy. That’s what matters. This moment matters. He wishes he could slow time down and stay in this moment…
Maziar Karim – The Poetry of Pondering
1. back home every morning alley swallow me and the city digest me I know in this swarm the night puke me and I will back home again 2. empty rifles rifle opening is not scary when every morning with toothless mouth flowing and at the night with empty rifles back home 3. no name cervix was the beginnings and crater was the end of big bang? I wish instead galaxy we observed human 4. curved universe Cloud mass of black whole it bends the galaxy the sun it bends the earth leaf it bends aunt’s feet and pain it bends human’s feet we haven’t been guilty we just born in the curved universe 5. Human Human is a cosmic Between two kisses and a hug 6. To levitate To fall and…
“The Witness” A Short Story by Derrick R. Lafayette
I spent the entire day in bed staring at the white ceiling. If you stare at it long enough, it begins to sweat. Mother always said I was an “overthinker.” When she remembered me, before Alzheimer’s. Before the inevitable change where we all wither. I never believed it until now. I scrolled through my phone searching for the app that controls my life. Since my remote’s been lost in the abyss of my apartment, I needed it to tune in and tune out. It was an ungodly hour. I could tell from the pulsating tangerine glow of the streetlights on my white curtain blinds. During particular times in the night, they malfunctioned. I used to think microscopic cameras were inside snapping pictures of me. Aliens sending morse code. Or, that I was subconsciously controlling it with my mind, trying to send myself a message from within. A myriad of paranoid fantasies. I take pills now. I’m better now. I don’t think as much. …
“Prince of Satan,” A Short Story by Mbizo Chirasha
A solitary baboon barked throughout the night. The barking sound was the stitch between silence and darkness. Dogs never barked to anything. Owls were ironically trapped in their dark nests. Dawn arrived unexpectedly. My father coughed from the pit of his lungs. My skin tightened because his cough was deep. His incessant loud snores disturbed the silence. Fingers of the sun soon filtered into my torn blanket. Intense heat pricked my whip-lashed back. I felt an irritating pain inside me. I sneaked out of my night trap with a bold start and peeped into the real world through the crevices of my rondavel. I couldn’t believe my innocent eyes. Just outside, next to river, stray dogs whined and snarled amid a leisurely sexual act. I made an embarrassed laughter. They danced in their act as…