Read stories written by talented authors from around the globe.

Smooth jazz played low from the vintage jukebox in her office. She was typing up the last of her report from her last case when she heard the bell on the door chime. Blair Kierkessen looked up and saw with her so brown they were black eyes, a woman in a blue evening gown and white fur stole. Her brow furrowing her perfect line-less face. “Detective Kierkessen?” “That’s correct, how can I help you?” “My name is Zelda Chamb...

It was nearly an hour later when Officer Edwards sauntered into the apartment with his thin blue line traveler coffee mug in hand. Perhaps Matt’s opinion was affected by his hate of the lazy officer, but he always thought Edwards had an ogre-shaped head. The man had pudgy cheeks and eyes spaced just a little too far apart. His rookie followed Edwards into the apartment like he was attached to a leash. Matt felt bad for al...

Jack sat on his porch, bundled in an old, malodourous duvet he had dragged from the dusty attic. Christmas had been two days ago, he supposed everyone was sleeping off their excesses. He needed this quiet emptiness. Something to absorb the noise in his head. Enormous snowflakes the size of a child’s fist floated and flittered through the chilled air. Under the weak cones of the streetlights the flakes looked like dancing...

Elena Rodriguez's hands trembled as she poured her coffee, spilling drops onto the worn cabin floor. Ten years as a forest ranger, and she'd never felt this uneasy. The storm outside howled, a sound she usually found comforting, but tonight it felt different—menacing, almost sentient. She glanced at the photo on her desk—her and her father, both in ranger uniforms, smiling in front of this very cabin. He had disappeared i...

I screamed. I screamed out eighteen months of weariness from endless touring. I screamed out the anguish and grief of losses that ate at my soul day after day. For sixteen long seconds, I screamed as if my life depended on it. Maybe it did. Then it ended. My lungs were out of air; the song ended. I stopped screaming. My bandmates stopped playing. The SoulScars 2023 tour was over. For a second, maybe even just a millisecon...

Taylor and Matt had their doors open before she put the vehicle in park. They stopped along the street with their rear blue lights activated, already hearing curses from the people of the night gathered at the street corner. Peachtree Street was the melting pot of the slums. Section 8 housing brought every race together under the umbrella of poverty and crime. ‘The towers,’ as cops called them, were a series of aged and r...

I love Vancouver in the Winter – the snow-covered North Shore Mountains, the brisk breeze across the Harbour and Stanley Park to Run. When I’m there, which is a lot, I live in N. Van on the waterfront. Sometimes, I’ll get up very early and have a light pack ready from the night before. At 5 AM, the house is silent apart from the fridge motor and the streets are deserted. Leaving the front door, all I hear is the click of...

“Don’t go 10-8,” Taylor pleaded. “Why?” Matt furrowed his brow. “You know, the second you put us in service, dispatch is gonna send us that stupid domestic on Peachtree.” “No, I’m going to ask for the disorderly in our zone,” Matt reassured and batted away his partner’s extended hand. “Don’t worry, this dispatcher likes me. She always sends me winking faces on her work messages to me.” “She does that to everyone,” Taylor...

The flakes had begun to fall again as Nikolas crested the ridge, melting into his worn parka, a steady white veil swallowing the valley below, making the horizon and the sky blur into an endless sea of white. He tightened the grip on the strap of his backpack and descended, each step crunching faintly beneath his boots, but the sound was swallowed almost immediately, absorbed into the dense, heavy quiet of the snow-covere...

My dad, younger brother, a family friend, and I had rented two canoes for a week and set off on a weeklong canoe-and-portage journey through the marvelous Killarney Park lake system in central Ontario. It had been hard work, but beautiful, camping by the water, eating freeze-dried food by a campfire, and each having an evening tot of Ballentine’s Scotch whisky as we watched the stars emerge. Gliding along a river or lake...

Smooth jazz played low from the vintage jukebox in her office. She was typing up the last of her report from her last case when she heard the bell on the door chime. Blair Kierkessen looked up and saw with her so brown they were black eyes, a woman in a blue evening gown and white fur stole. Her brow furrowing her perfect line-less face. “Detective Kierkessen?” “That’s correct, how can I help you?” “My name is Zelda Chamb...

My dad, younger brother, a family friend, and I had rented two canoes for a week and set off on a weeklong canoe-and-portage journey through the marvelous Killarney Park lake system in central Ontario. It had been hard work, but beautiful, camping by the water, eating freeze-dried food by a campfire, and each having an evening tot of Ballentine’s Scotch whisky as we watched the stars emerge. Gliding along a river or lake...

I used to be lonely, wishing for someone to talk to me. Be careful of wishes. It was then that one of them appeared. Let me warn you: they are like cockroaches. Once you see one, there are a thousand more lurking…waiting its turn. Now, they won’t leave me alone. They invade my work. Some crawl into bed with me. A few badger me in my intimate space—the bathroom. They persist like weeds in a sidewalk crack. What are they? O...

I screamed. I screamed out eighteen months of weariness from endless touring. I screamed out the anguish and grief of losses that ate at my soul day after day. For sixteen long seconds, I screamed as if my life depended on it. Maybe it did. Then it ended. My lungs were out of air; the song ended. I stopped screaming. My bandmates stopped playing. The SoulScars 2023 tour was over. For a second, maybe even just a millisecon...

I always have this feeling that I’m chasing something. Something that makes me happy, maybe even makes me complete. Something beautiful like a butterfly that sits on a daisy when I walk through a deserted corner of the park on a sunny afternoon in spring. The butterfly sits peacefully surrounded by the white petals. I stand still and look at it. It looks so beautiful that it makes me smile and I wonder if I could catch it...

I had hidden in the trees all day,until the dusky mist of twilight overcame me. Nothing you could say or do could ease the pain, or lightmy pathway from that strange madness. The trees seemed tortured as my soul,Twisted as my mind with sadness.The setting sun, behind the knollgave promise of the coming blacknessof that eternal, dreamless night. The twisted trees took great delightin hearing the flutter of my heart.They re...

Where are my children? Why didn't I get one? She got two And I got none. Why can't I have one? Just one little oneIt doesn't seem fair Now it's all said and done. We tried and we tried None stayed here with me.Everything seems empty Why couldn't we be three? No frilly dresses No swings in our yard No crib in the bedroom No Lego to pull apart. No cute little bundle With sweet smelling hair No sleepless nights Spent in a ro...

Love is life’s cruel mistress, And life’s crowning triumph. Love embitters the soul, yet conquers the heart. Love is never easy, And will die without toils. It is languor and sweat, the power and rejuvenation. Love brings this man to his knees, pushes his face into the dirt. It gives light into his darkness, and delivers joy to his world. Love grows in the wound and the healing. It is the dusk and the dawn. Love allows no...