I woke up to the smell of dog shit and bleach, and the sound of my mother’s voice muttering to herself - again. It always sounded like a lecture, I guess when you’re a teacher that part of your voice never goes away. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and made my way to the kitchen, where she was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor. I looked over at my brother, looking like he’d been punched in the face. “What happe...

Melancholy skidded down the stairs and was making a beeline to the kitchen. “Hold it right there young man.” “Huh? What did I do??” “Go outside and wail.” “But Ma, I just want breakfast!” “Not a single bite, you’re starting to moult, the Death Energy is backlogged inside you. You’ve been holding your Keens in again haven’t you? Hanging around that Hound friend of yours chasing each other all over the Mound til the wee hou...

Base does not equal simple or easy Base equals primal or essential Instinct. *** Survival is the hardest thing you will ever do And even then We all fail or else why would we die at all?’ Maybe we don’t *** Maybe that is why there are so many myths And pantheons. Like light lasting in an echo reflecting distance Long after the source is smote silent.

The office space of Nasir Curtis Investigations was just a secondary apartment they rented together. They lived in the suburbs in a nice house with a garden and a fence, along with as many protective magical wards as they needed by being so close to a dimensional rift to the Astral Wyldes. Most of the time, just junk slipped through, someone’s hair brush, left sock, or the TV remote. It kept things interesting. Every bloc...

Heron, as I’d grown used to calling him, folded eight paper cranes as a eulogy to his former self, every day before he did anything else. He’d been doing this for months, preparing for the first of a series of surgeries that would make him more himself. We lived in Cove Town, in those early years, back when I still liked to be called Reeds, just my natal surname but it was better than the given name that I had long since...

She would pour milk into a bowl of cookies and call it cereal. As for me and mine, we just cook with turmeric and thyme. Chia seeds and pineapple always adorn his pizza. As for me and mine, we just cook with turmeric and thyme. Starting each morning eating melon clean down to the rind. As for me and mine, we just cook with turmeric and thyme. Pan-fried salmon in cornbread mix - cakey fritter snacks, but always seasoned wi...

Once upon a Time there was a Voice. This Voice lived in two houses, A House of Noise and A House of Silence. Yet still it had no place to be heard, no place to be. It had no home. And so the day came when the Silence became too great, too deep, and the Noise too shallow and meaningless, and the Voice split itself, becoming a Chorus of Whispers, creating its own depth of Silence and inner noise. Using what it knew to creat...

Bubbling and Boiling Billions of swirling ephemera In beakers, bowls, broken shards of bone, bouncing balloons Bobbing in the etheric tide, brim-full with the brewing of Worlds. many will grow to be vast beyond comprehension and others won’t last beyond their own completion right now, they are merely chaotic clumps of cells learning how to be cells. The Mad Scientist, fondly called Time, erratically stirs and tends the nu...

McDonaldsson Publishing LLC Hattie Bloomberg, Editor 1336 N. Norbert Ln (555) 555-0202 hattiebl0om999@mdpc.com February 15, 2093 Dear Ms. Herrera It is with heavy regret that we have to reject your manuscript, Tempeh Toddy: A BBQ Book of Regretful Meals Made While Drunk (a Satirical Memoir of My Mistakes). While well written, it is not the best fit for McDonaldsson Publishing. Best of luck in your future publication endea...

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...

A Professor enters his Philosophy class with unexpected supplies for this lecture. He has a chicken, a time machine, and a hotplate. “Professor, what is all that for?” a student asks. “Today’s Lecture is Going to be about the Concept of Time. Observe!” The professor then proceeds to put the chicken into the time machine and turns the dial back. For what felt like seconds later for them at least, years had passed for the c...

In the beginning was a box (bought wholesale at the flea circus gift shop) inside that box was a world. Outside that box were instructions: (be quiet, pay attention) __ Unwrap box along the perforated edge in the plastic provided for your convenience. Discard wrapping in recycling bin. Grab sharp utensil. stab holes inside the veil of the world. (This is so it can breathe. creation makes many beings, and worlds quite gass...

Mitzy was poking her peas around the plate one night at dinner. Her parents exchanged a look, silently asking the other which one of them would ask their daughter what was going on first, like an invisible game of rock paper scissors, before one of her fathers cleared his throat. “You got a grievance with the peas? You are moving them around your plate with an air of disinterest and I thought they were your most favorite...

The klaxon alarm that heralded the evacuation of Terra Prime still haunts my dreams. Even though I am a safe colonist on Lunar Prime. The desolate floating of everything on this rock feels like the primal birth of something voidal, gaping, and incessant. Like a fly buzzing just on the outside of your perception barrier. Taunting and also easy to dismiss with enough distraction. The trouble is, distractions like food ratio...

It smelled like winter and smoked meat outside as a gray curtain of clouds shimmered across the naked night sky to veil the waning moon. “You need to relax and trust the process or it won’t work” “I’m trying to, honest!” “ I didn’t say ‘try’, I said ‘trust’. That means it's a surrender of will, not the enforcing of it.” "Fine." "All things have a sentience and a will. That includes the ability to trust or not. Magic is a...