He rapped his knuckles against the side of his glass. His nerves were getting the better of him. Scraps of apologies flitted around in his head, but he couldn’t make anything coherent from them. Nothing that she would accept. It had been seventeen years. Who was she now? Someone beautiful? Angry? Could she be […]
The cigarette dangles from his hand, dropping ash on the scuffed surface of the table. He doesn’t notice. His eyes are focused on a spot on the dark wood, but his gaze is turned inward, sifting through the fog of recollection. The night had been a mess of moving shadows, like ghosts on a sunken […]
March. A dissertation on Freedom. She browses through the library stacks for Freud’s “Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious.” Reading it at home that evening she finds a passage underlined that exemplifies what she seeks from the book: “Freedom produces jokes and jokes produce freedom”. She flips to the back of the book and […]
The wine’s been drunk. She’s lifted the bottle more than once to see if there’s another drop she can coax from its neck. Each time is as unsatisfying as the last. “We need some more wine,” she grumbles. “Yeah, well, I need a new job,” he replies. He has a newspaper in front of him, […]
The Old Woman liked to dance. On Saturdays she would set up the gramophone, and sway to the music alone until someone came to dance with her. The Old Woman was white: white of skin, white of hair, clad in a shroud of white. But her limbs moved with the grace and freedom of death: […]
He’s playing the piano in the corner with a clunk-clunk-clunk half out of tune his fingers coming down hard on the keys like they owe him for a childhood trauma beating them down in some disjointed rhythm His face twisted in a grimace and toes curled up in cheap shoes trying so damn hard […]
She lit the cigarette. Put it to her lips. Took a pull, long, savouring it. Pressed the glowing end against her freckled forearm and let it sear. “Hey.” She dropped her leg down from the wooden crate serving as her seat, and blew a stream of smoke at him as she turned. “What’s up, Brock?” […]
Issue #1 Issue #2 Issue #3 ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ I love this bar. The man behind the counter is almost a friend. The type of friend who knows I wouldn’t harm someone who pours a cocktail as well as he does, but washes the glasses carefully anyway. […]
The night was dark, the moon a sliver in the western sky. It hid behind a cloud, from time to time peeking out to cast its faint light down upon the world. In the cemetery, there was activity. Johnson put his spade down and set his hands on his hips, with a sharp exhale through […]
This is Border Country. If you come here on a clear day, you can see into the future. Just a few seconds – but sometimes, that’s enough. It can be lonely. But it is peaceful in a way no other place seems to be. Peaceful, and quiet. The air is cool. […]