Image of a Mother by Yash Seyedbagheri

I lay out cards with images. Try to match them.

I need two mothers.

Two apples. Two squirrels.

I can’t find either of the mothers with the sly smiles, tender pride in their eyes.

I keep those cards close at night. We love you, Nicky, the mothers whisper. We truly love you.

The mothers have been with me since I was ten. They listened to me, question why people lie. Leave.

I find two houses, two fathers. Ransack closets, sofas.

Have these mothers left? Was I too inquisitive? Did they also find me sensitive?

I lose the other cards.

What’s next?

Drowning by Marie McCloskey

I stumbled to the porch swing cradling a bottle of pinot noir. The wind blew a salty kiss on my face but stung my pride. I sacrificed everything.

A lone seagull perched on the fence post. It mocked me.

“Go!” I threw my glass at it and brought the bottle to my lips. I grumbled at my life of working to appease clean cut American corporations waiting for me to become a stereotype. Even when following their rules, I still wasn’t good enough. I will never be what they want.

I stared at the sparkle of ripples shimmering under the surf. I glared at the rolling waves, but softened at the tug of the Gulf calling to me.

An urge to reach the cool rush compelled me to jump up and rip off my flower print sundress. I tossed the light fabric onto the sand and jogged toward the cleansing roar. Regaining a spark of my childhood self, I met the current with a giggle.

It had been years since I escaped to the beach. My parents took me every year as a child, but I worked myself boring trying to “climb the ladder.”

I kicked out into the water, arms chopping through the waves. A splash of energy renewed my smile at the memories. They can’t stop me.

I turned onto my back to tread water. The air danced with seagulls. I spread my arms and legs out straight and relaxed floating. Images of swimming until land became a memory flooded my mind. I longed to let the water carry me forever.

The memory of my father washed over me with hope. He could swim all day and never grew tired. His job as a swim coach fit him but never suited me. I preferred the pulsing rhythm of natural bodies of water, hated the confines of indoor pools.

Fresh spray coated my skin, healed inner wounds that numbed the unfairness of life. My anger washed away and my father’s thick accent rattled in my ears like a dream, “Don’t let them change you. Don’t let them take away who you are, Mija.”

I shifted forward, sinking underwater for a moment. When I resurfaced, I rubbed my eyes and kicked hard.

“Mine-Mine-Mine.” A gull dipped low.

My eye-lashes grew heavy.

“Mine…”

The calls reminded me that I belonged to myself.

“Mine…”

The sound shook me.

“Mine…”

I would have what I earned.

I swam to the beach with a new goal. It was so easy. All I had to do was run up the sand.

Granules stuck to my feet like spilled sugar. I bounded up the porch steps, grabbed my towel, and wrapped it around my body. The warm breeze offered new strength. I wrung out my hair and grabbed my phone off the wicker table sitting beside the classic porch swing. I clutched it tight, drew my arm back and threw it into the shallows. And that was when I became my own boss.

Marie McCloskey likes to let her work speak for itself.

Love and Extinction by Geoffrey Enright

Andrew Moore killed my wife, Julianne Woodrow exactly six months ago. Ran her over with his car after drinking all afternoon at some work party. I couldn’t believe how many people took the stand in his defense, swearing up and down what a good guy he was, how “out of character” it was for him to get so lit. Luckily my brother, Jacob Woodrow, was able to present Andrew’s history of similar behaviour: four DUIs with an assault and battery to boot.

Andrew was sentenced to forty years in prison, which would put him close to eighty upon release. Assuming he’d make it that long. But I know he won’t, me neither, or anybody else hanging out on this planet for that matter. 

In exactly eight minutes an asteroid the size of Kansas is going to get into a slugfest with earth and it’s going to kick our ass. As a matter of fact, the radio just signed off; guy made a point to get in a bit about God. We’re about to see who God is and isn’t looking out for. Suppose it’s as good a time as any to start smoking again after three years without. 

***

You see, the federal government and NASA, that’s who I work for, have known about this asteroid for a little less than three hours. Three hours, that’s it? Yes, that’s it. We’ve never seen anything like it before, a “silent” asteroid that was never picked up until it was much too late. And it is very much indeed too late. At least someone had the sense to give a name to the planet we think the asteroid cane from, not that the record will survive: G9V5. 

Stub out a cigarette, light up another.  I know what some of you are thinking, what some of you may be thinking at least: why is everyone so calm if the world’s down to its final minutes?  There’s a very simple answer for that, we haven’t told them what’s going on, only the immediate members of the team are aware any of this is going on. 

“But what about the guy on the radio, the sign off?” you may say.  To that, I will tell you while the sign off was indeed very real, the reason we fed him was not. At this exact moment in our country we are going through something of a health scare, so we used that to our advantage. 

At this exact moment government personnel are flooding the streets to put a “quarantine” into effect in attempts of catching and stopping the supposed health crisis. Believe what you will about the federal government, but this quarantine was put into play in the hope of guaranteeing that nobody, at least in this country, will die alone. We all deserve to have somebody. 

From where I’m at, on the deck of my penthouse, I can see everyone moving inside, empty stores, and men in biohazard suits with assault rifles gathering everyone up in nothing more than an attempt to keep calm. I’m shocked nobody’s noticed the lack of tents, tanks, scientists, and whatever else they’ve seen in the movies. By the time their panic burns out and the rationality sets back in we’ll all be dead. But for now my cat Lacy, sitting on the deck at my feet beside the chair, doesn’t have a care in the world. 

All I can see now is my wife.  Stub out cigarette, light up another.  Julianne had my eyes, my heart, and my soul from the first moment we met at a house party back in our days at NMU together. She was the only person talking that night who had something to say. Being profound by nature was her gift from the god she believed in.

And her beauty, it was radiant and never ending. Her beige skin, straight black hair and brown eyes… the little arches on her long slender feet…the way her eyes always guided me out from the deepest pits of my soul. 

She may have been the only reason for me to ever consider God, because she was an angel. She was my angel. Always was, always will be. For a few moments longer anyway.

I would love nothing more than to reawaken and find her waiting for me but I just cannot bring myself to believe in such things. And for that, Julianne, I am truly sorry.

The sky’s getting brighter, fast. I don’t know if anybody else has noticed it. Like there was a film over the sky but it’s been since removed. Before long we all might live long enough to die from our suntans. That was a bad attempt at humor, none of us will live long enough for such a thing. 

My skin tells me so, Lacy tells me so as she begins to cry in discomfort from the heat that continues to grow rapidly. I reach down and grab her, scooping her up into my lap. She’s crying like birth now. My lips meet the top of her trembling head.

I whisper: It’ll be over soon, baby, I promise. 

It’s getting brighter…and hotter.  Brighter…and hotter.  Lacy is seizing and leaking bodily fluids into my lap, her desperate cries for help are gargled as she continues to liquefy in my arms.  I’m next, oh my it’s getting so hot. I’m going to die any second, it’s so hot, oh my it’s so hot.

OH MY GOD!

Geoffrey Enright lives on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean with his girlfriend and their dog Tasha.

Bedtime Story by Pauline Yates

A creak in Timmy’s bedroom makes an old fear pound at my heart. Wondering if he’s still awake, I hurry to his bedroom. The door is open. The light is off. The window is closed but a glow from the streetlamp outside slices a gap through the curtains. The yellow line falls across the bookcase, a pair of shoes, and the wooden sword I gave Timmy when he insisted he was old enough to sleep alone.  

Visions of childhood terrors race through my mind as I step farther into the room. Timmy lies in bed with the blanket draped over his head. His left foot sticks out from beneath the blanket. His right foot dangles over the side of the bed.  

A scritching sound reaches my ears. Needle-thin talons reach for Timmy’s toes.  

Teeth and talons. Needle thin. Razor-sharp— 

I rake my fingers down the wall and flick on the light switch. Bright light floods the room. My heart drops from my throat, allowing me to breathe. Not talons. Pipe-cleaner fingers belonging to a papier-mâché robot, last week’s school craft project, on the floor beneath the bed.  

I stride to the bed and pull back the blanket. Startled, Timmy drops his torch. It falls to the floor and rolls beneath the bed.  

“What have I told you?” I say, pulling the comic book from his hand.  

“It’s Captain America,” he whines. 

“You know that’s not what I mean. Where are your feet?” 

He jerks his foot back onto bed but gives me a defiant look. “I’m not scared.” 

The floorboards creak.  

Fear digs its nails into my throat. I wrestle it with a deep breath filled with reasonable explanations. It’s the aging house. It’s the winter wind. It’s the heat from the fire expanding the floorboards. 

Bullshit.  

Fear wins. I jump onto the bed. 

“Daddy,” Timmy squeals, clutching the mattress. “You nearly bounced me off.” 

I mask my terror with a mischievous smile. “I don’t want to do that. It might be hungry.”  

Timmy giggles. “It’s not hungry. It’s sleeping.” 

“As you should be.” I straighten the blanket and tuck it around him. “Quiet now. It’s past your bedtime.” 

Timmy snuggles into his pillow. “Can I have a story?” 

“Didn’t mummy already tell you a story?” 

“I want another one. Please?” 

“Hmm?” I clear my throat. “Once upon a time—” 

“Not a fairy story.”  

“This story isn’t about fairies. This is a story about a little boy who liked to dangle his feet over the edge of the bed. Now, hush and listen: 

Once upon a time, there was a boy, just like you. He lived in a nice house and had a nice bed, just like yours. He even had a real sword, just like yours.” 

Timmy pouts. “I’ve heard this one. I want a different story.” 

“I think you need reminding why you should go straight to sleep and keep your feet under the blanket. Because if you don’t,” I shape my fingers into claws,“when the light goes out, and the room is silent, it will creep from beneath the bed, grab your foot and eat you.”  

“I’d kick it.” Timmy peddles his feet at my hands.  

“What if it ate your leg?” 

“I’d kick it with my other foot.” 

“Okay, Mister Brave. What would you do if it ate both your legs?” 

“I’d poke out its eye with my sword.” 

I point across the room. “But your sword is over there. You can’t jump that far. It will grab your legs when you step out of bed.” 

“I’ll sleep with my light on. It doesn’t like the light.”  

“The boy in the story slept with his light on. That was his mistake. The light doesn’t reach under the bed. That’s why it lives there. Under the bed is always dark.” 

“I’ll scream so loud its ears will hurt.” 

“Its foul breath will smother your screams. I won’t hear you. Mummy won’t hear you, either. Do you remember what happens after that?”  

Timmy wriggles from beneath the blanket, jumps up and bounces on the bed with a cheeky grin. “It will swallow me whole, and devour my soul, and spit out my body as a dust bunny,” he shouts in a singsong voice. “I’m not scared. I’ll jump so high it won’t catch me. I’ll get my sword and smash its head.” 

I catch him mid bounce and wrestle him back into bed. “You are Mister Brave, aren’t you? No more bouncing. No more stories. And no more Captain America. It’s time to sleep.” 

I swing my legs off the bed but another creak sounding more like a yearning growl reaches my ears. Fear drives its fist into my heart. I draw my legs up and leap from the bed so high I land near the door. I clutch the door frame and look back.  

The light from the torch shines beneath the bed. There’s nothing there but the robot. 

I breathe out my shivers in an exasperated sigh. “Do you want the light left on, Mister Brave?” 

“No. Goodnight, Daddy.” 

“Goodnight.” I switch off the light. My gaze drifts to the sword on the floor near the window. A dark mark on the tip of the blade swallows the streetlamp glow— 

It bleeds. 

I clench my jaw. It’s not blood. It’s not even real. It’s just the story that my father told to keep me in bed—the same story I tell Timmy. Even if it’s true, Timmy’s brave. Timmy’s safe. It only feeds on fear. 

“Daddy?” 

“Yes, son?” 

“Can I have my sword?” 

My heartbeat quickens. A responsible father wouldn’t tell his son scary bedtime stories. A responsible father would show his son that there’s nothing to fear in the dark. “Of course.” 

Leaving the light off, I walk across the room to retrieve the sword.  

“Daddy, what’s that smell?” 

“Daddy?” 

Pauline Yates likes to explore the world on the other side of the improbable and write about what she finds. Her short stories have appeared in Metaphorosis, Abyss & Apex, Bete Noire, Sirens Call, Aurealis, plus others. She lives in Australia, loves writing past midnight, and lurks on Twitter @midnightmuser1.

Surrounded By Lilies by Jacob Schornak

“I’m saying it happens, mi hijo. It happens more than people talk about. The news certainly isn’t. What about those planes that crashed after taking off and then they grounded all of them? You don’t hear about them anymore, do you?”

I pinch at the bridge of my nose as my father rattles on, trying to keep a headache─that is turning from a yelp to a bark to a roar─at bay.

My dad perks up and glanced around the cabin of the plane. Flight attendants wander up and down the center aisle, closing the overhead bins as they fill with passengers’ overstuffed carry-ons. They tell the same passengers to fasten their seatbelts and ensure their tray tables and seats are in the secure and upright position. A woman two rows in front of me pushes the call button and demands a bottle of seltzer water. The flight attendant acknowledges her request, but continues her process of preparing the cabin for takeoff.

“Do you know what kind of plane this is? Do you think this is the kind that will crash?”

“Dad, you can’t say stuff like that. Not here.”

I look at the man sitting in the aisle seat across from me. He glances up from his phone. I flash him a meek smile, hoping he will not be alarmed by my father’s comments, but he smiles, then returns to scrolling through the feed on his phone.

“Do you smell lilies?” my father asks as a wave of relief washes over me.

“It’s probably just someone’s perfume.” I sniff. “I don’t smell anything.”

“I’ve always loved lilies. When I’m buried, that’s what I want around me. Lilies.”

“Okay, Dad. That won’t be for a while, though.”

My father rummages through the side pockets of his tweet jacket. He does this often now. Random moments of urgency causing searches through his jacket. I wonder if he’s looking for something that might save his life in a moment of need, like a parachute.

Within a flourish, like a knight drawing his sword from its sheath, my father lifts a medical mask from his side jacket pocket. I have seen the same kind mask worn by vulnerable patients in hospitals.

“What are you doing, Dad?”

My father pulls the looped straps of the mask behind his ears. “You know that the air on airplanes cause cancer. See, there’s another thing no one is talking about, but we all know it’s true.” He points at the mask now covering his nose and mouth.

“Jesus Christ, Dad,” I whisper. I scan the people in earshot of us. “None of that is true.”

My father raises his eyebrows followed by a glare I know well. Without warning─though I know it is coming─my father thwaps me in the back of the head with the palm of his broad hand.

“Miguel, no uses el nombre del Señor en vano.” My dad brings his hands together, allowing only a molecule to keep them apart. He turns his gaze to the ceiling of the airplane, though I know his attention is pressing beyond the confines of the metal tube with wings.

“Por favor, perdona a mi hijo, todavía tengo mucho que enseñarle.” He speaks to God as though he is talking with an old friend.

I feel my stomach twist at the sight. I have come to resent God in recent months, seeing him as a vile and vindictive being. My father, on the other hand, worships him daily. Each morning and night, he will kneel before his bed and give thanks, even the days when it was difficult for him to get out of bed.

My father finishes his prayer, then turns his attention back to me. A look of calm stretches across his face, like he knows that God has already forgiven me, and he has nothing to worry about.

“When are you and Julie giving your mother and I grandbabies, Miguel?” My father’s voice is muffled under his medical mask.

“Probably when God tells us to.” I wonder if he will get the sarcasm in my tone. My guess is no.

“I feel like I am going to die of old age before I become an abuelo.”

I sigh. “Honestly, dad, I don’t even know if I want any.”

“No digas eso.”

Don’t say that.

My phone vibrates against my leg. I might be saved from answering more of the questions both of my parents have been pressing since Julie and I started dating three years ago. I rummage through my pockets, struggling to free my phone trapped between the denim fabric and my thigh. I pull my phone free.

The round face of my mother, radiating with joy illuminates the screen.

I draw in a deep breath before answering. “Hi mom…No, I’m on the plane…No, it hasn’t left yet, but we’re getting ready to take off.”

A flight attendant scans one row of passengers and then the other. I lift my gaze from the back of the seat in front of me and our eyes connect.

“Sir, you need to turn off the phone or switch it to airplane mode,” she says.

I nod. “Mom, I really have to go…No, the flight is only three and a half hours…No, I’m flying out of Philly. They don’t have any flights out of Pittsburg today, I have to go…The funeral isn’t until tomorrow, right?…Okay, so why are you worried about me missing it?…No, mom, I’m sorry, I know you have a lot going on. I—What?…Yeah, I think that would be nice. Dad said he always talked about being surrounded by lilies at his funeral.”

Jacob Schornak is a writer from St. Paul, Minnesota. He attended the University of Minnesota Duluth for his undergraduate program, receiving a degree in Professional Writing Studies. Most recently, he earned his Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Augsburg University. He is kept sane thanks to his wife, Morgan, and dog, Tolkien. When he is not writing, Jacob enjoys traveling the world with his wife, seeing the sites and drinking all the beer.

The Results are In!

We were so pleased with the response. Congratulations to the winners, and good luck for next year!

Babycakes by Dash Crowley

A few years back all the animals disappeared. We woke up one morning and they just weren’t there anymore. They didn’t even leave us a note or say good-bye. We never quite figured out where they went.

We missed them.

Some of us thought the world had ended, but it hadn’t. There just weren’t any more animals. No cats or rabbits. No dogs or whales. No fish in the seas or birds in the sky.

We were all alone.

I didn’t know what to do. Everyone wandered around, lost for a while. Then, the prime minister addressed us stating, “Our scientists are baffled. But there is no cause for alarm. Just because the animals are gone does not mean that we must abandon our way of life.”

From there we learned. There were plenty of us. We had no reason to change our diets or cease testing products that might cause us harm.

After all, there were still babies.

Babies couldn’t talk, and barely moved. They were not rational thinking creatures. Without intelligent thought they weren’t really people. Why not utilize them properly?

So we made more. The bearers were drugged so they wouldn’t feel any connection or the pain of unnecessary self-sacrifice. Once cut from the womb we took the young creatures.

Baby flesh proved to be tender and succulent. We delighted in consuming it, flayed the skin and decorated ourselves with the silky hide.

Never wasteful, I went into the baby leather industry. The soft and comfy wear made me feel rich and youthful. Sharing that joy with others became my life’s greatest accomplishment.

But not all “babies” were eaten. Some were used for testing.

Companies taped open their eyes, dripped detergents and shampoos in one drop at a time. They scarred and scalded them─burned their sensitive little bodies to protect us from harm─lest we should suffer. They clamped their tiny appendages down and stuck electrodes in their brains. They grafted, froze, and irradiated.

The infants breathed in smoke. Their veins pumped new medicines and drugs until they stopped circulating.

It was hard at first, but necessary. No one could deny that. With the animals gone, what else could we do?

Some religious people complained, but then, they always do.

Everything eventually went back to normal. After a time, the underdeveloped creatures didn’t seem like living beings anymore. That made it easier.

But yesterday, all the babies were gone.

We didn’t even see them go. We don’t know what we’re going to do, but we will think of something. Humans are smart. It’s what makes us superior…

We’ll figure something out.

Dash Crowley is a private man, artist, writer, magician. You might witness him from afar on twitter, @dashercrow, or on instagram @dackcrowley.