He smiles at the shape her head has left in the pillow. Her side of the bed is still warm. He rolls into it. Still smiling, and not quite able to believe how well his life has turned out, he dozes again.
The sound of her key in the door wakes him. There is, for her, no such thing as a quiet entrance. She provides a running commentary on her clumsiness as her purchases tumble onto the hall floor. He pictures them; the Guardian, a loaf of fresh bread, and the bacon that is their weekly indulgence. They are lapsed vegetarians.
He stretches beneath the duvet as he hears the bacon begin to sizzle in the pan. Any second now the bread will pop out of the toaster. He sits on the edge of the bed and pushes his feet into his slippers. He laughs out loud at the realization that he has become the type of man who wears slippers. [Read more…] about Eavesdropping
Thermos
By Alison Rohde
The black thermos looked at her and she looked at it. It was a souvenir, a relic of the time when she was the first person to see the first rays of the sun as they spread across the ocean and burned it to orange, then a pale yellow, then a promising blue. It was cold, so cold for early autumn. She understood why the mountains looked the way they looked; they had been scoured with salt, battered by brine, brushed bare by thousands of years of relentless sea wind. And there with her, during this perfect moment of completeness and realization, had been that black thermos, clutched in her hands and filled to the brim with hot raspberry cocoa. [Read more…] about Thermos
The Girl, Emily
By Tyler Fish
The blood seeping from Emily’s nose was the most beautiful shade of red that I had ever seen. It lazily streamed from the delicate darkness of her nostril to the gentle crease of her laugh line, skirting her lips, and ending at the round edge of her jaw where it formed a drop and fell to the pillow. She smiled and braided her fingers with mine, letting the weight of sleep lower her eyelids.
We lived in a shoebox apartment above an adult book and video store in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. A guy named Dick, dressed in layers of filthy, tattered sweatshirts and a ski hat, made his home in the building’s doorway. He smelled like piss and would only move to let us in if we tapped out a cigarette from our packs and gave him a light. God bless you, Dick would say and flip me the bird. You smell like shit, I’d say.
Follow The Finger
By Cath Bore
Today the man in the filibuster top hat points at me, his finger crooked like a hook. As he dances, my friends scarper, their feet slapping on the pavement. Every morning the man is here, out in the street. When he’s not shouting at passing buses, he’s picking people off at random to take the piss out of or tear a strip off. Turns out it’s my turn.
[Read more…] about Follow The Finger
The Androgyny Chip
By DJ Swykert
Trimble stood in front of the Administrator, his Androgyny Chip in place at the back of his shaved head, with just a small goatee of dark hair below where the chip was inserted. “The biggest fear I have is failure,” he said.
“You can’t fail if what you aspire to doesn’t exist.”
“But it does exist, Administrator. May I remove the chip?”
The rail of a man in the gray cloak shook his head. “No, removal is not an option. Look at it as an entitlement. It provides balance.”
Trimble began to shiver. “I want to be an artist. I want to paint, but without restriction, without censorship, not even my own. I can’t do that with the Androgyny Chip.”
“You’re missing the point of the chip. It was conceived to eliminate the inequality associated with sexuality. To make us even, create a sexless society, eliminating rape and infidelity, purifying our existence.”
“By elimination?” [Read more…] about The Androgyny Chip
Mostly Steve
By Joy Manné
Mostly Steve, the fat guy next door, tripped me, or punched me, or shoved me so I had to leap out of the way of a bus or bike or car, but on dry Sundays we went off to the hill over the cut the trains go through to race on the smooth grass, sliding on cardboard we’d oiled with my mother’s salad dressing that he made me steal—just a little at a time so she wouldn’t notice—and fill into the small plastic pots he stole from his sister’s doll’s house.
Down we went, once, twice, Steve always winning. Third time he forced me to bet my new iPhone. Steve, I thought, you’ve gone a step too far now, so I insisted on calling ‘Launch.’ I took my time to get ready and I took the outside track. Steve didn’t think track mattered. [Read more…] about Mostly Steve
Reflections at the Aqua Nightclub
By Emily Hoover
You enter the room—damp, lit up like an interrogation, loud with half-dressed performers, scented with vanilla perfume. You blew out your rhinestone flip flop on Duval Street by Sloppy Joe’s on your way here, so now you’re late, pissed off, sweating and practically barefoot.
Destiny tells you, “You’re up in 15,” and you smile at her lined lips.
You throw your purse onto the table and sit in front of the vanity mirror, noticing two bulbs are out. You sigh and rummage through your makeup bag. You decided, before you walked over, you wanted a pink and white theme for tonight’s performance—a youthful, but not-so-innocent hot-pink lip color with the matching eye shadow from MAC—only now you can’t find the damned eye shadow and you really just don’t have time for this bullshit. You wonder if one of the others has taken it, but you don’t mention anything, and you’re suddenly introverted, paranoid, like a junkie. You settle on Pensive Plum because you like how it sits against your skin tone, and you apply Fuchsia Flash to your winged, smoky eyes. The foundation helps with the sweating; you know later, when you’re dancing with drunk tourists, you’ll be sweating again, but it’ll be fabulous so you won’t care. [Read more…] about Reflections at the Aqua Nightclub