It all began when she walked into her new workplace and saw a friendly shock of hair amid rows and rows of cubicles. And when the owner of the hair introduced himself to her as Malhar later in the day, she knew she would fall in love with him.
She slipped parts of his personality into all the artworks she did after that. There would be a random observer in a nature scene that she imagined to be him, a boy with his dimples in a rustic hut, his curly hair on an urban lass in a pub, his red Che Guevara t-shirt in a political scene… He was in everything she did, although he could never know that. Even while he admired her works, he never smelt his inspiration on the drying paint. She was elated and disappointed at the same time – she wanted equally to be found out and to keep her secret. Continue Reading This Story
Driving Cattle
By E. A. Schweitz
I detest the morning status meetings, but I sat there and listened to Peter drone on about numbers. My mind drifted as I stared at the barely tepid synthetic sludge—the snarky label read coffee.
Who didn’t know that Station 53 was in the red? That corporate management drove short-term profitability at all costs?
“OK, Peter. Just stop. I get it,” I interrupted.
His worried eyes widened. “Yes, Ms. Ott. Sorry—”
“Don’t apologize, Peter. And, call me Mary. Please.”
He looked at the floor. “Yes, ma’— Mary.”
Peter was too nice a kid for this job. He’d never survive.
“Let’s take a walk,” I said. Continue Reading This Story
Sustainable Zombie
“Why aren’t there zombie worms?” Breck kicked at the dirt. There was zombie flesh filled full of worms.
“What a thing to say!” Ruth flinched. When they were composting zombies she was very nervous. “Don’t get any on you.” She would continually say aloud. She said it as much to herself as to the lifers helping her.
“And zombie plants for that matter?” Breck turned over the soil and put it on top of the rotting zombie pieces.
“No zombie flies either thank someone.” Ruth suddenly realized it was good only humans were affected by zombie stuff. A zombie raccoon would be double scary. She hated raccoons because of the havoc they caused in the gardens. “Zombie compost is the only positive thing with a zombie.”
A hand popped up from the dirt. Ruth screamed which embarrassed her. She was always afraid but didn’t like showing it. Continue Reading This Story
A Single Scarlet Dahlia
The rose coloured façade of the hotel glowed against a blue- green backdrop of massed pines, still shrouded in fragments of mist. It was too early for the strong Provençal sun to bleach the colour from the sea and the village at the tip of the headland flushed pink and cream, its reflection shivering on the shimmering sea. A soft, fresh breeze blew inland snatching away the voices of the hotel staff preparing for the day.
A man emerged from the French windows of the hotel and out onto the stone veranda that ran the length of the building. He was in his fifties, thickening around the middle, straw hat set squarely above a pale, round face. The beach was sparsely populated: a woman beneath a large striped umbrella, two children dashing through the shallows.
Continue Reading This Story
The End
By Kathleen Jones
This has nothing to do with us, right?’ he said.
‘Of course not.’
He didn’t look convinced, so she added, ‘You’re getting paranoid. Look, it’s just a work thing.’
Analogue Cameo
By Doug Mathewson
I still have that picture. The one of you from that summer, from the five minutes before you were famous.
That summer you wore your hair near vertical with a trailer-park twist and I was still in my arsonist phase. You said “The sky is all torn”, and I though that was a cliché, something those hooligan crows caw out when they tumble through the sky and make such a racket.
You were right and not many people knew since we were living day side to save money (and stay away from trouble). Most people, or people mostly people lived dark side, but not us. Not back then. You’d look up and there was this was a big ragged tear and behind it no Heaven, no Hell, no guts of some great beast, no huge soaring girders, just a big tear and like an old warehouse, or maybe back-stage someplace, with stuff under tarps, some work lights, the sound of water dripping. Continue Reading This Story
