LISA Lisa was looking out the window, staring at the placid gray lake, at the small boats slowly crisscrossing it.  I was focused on her every movement, or lack of it. We didn’t talk, not about what either of us thought at that moment, or of any moment preceding it or of anything to come. She was motionless except for the occasional blinking of her eyes, the sudden expansion and deflation of her chest, and the slightest shifting of a strand of her red hair, moved by a random breeze. If she knew I even existed in those moments other … Continue reading Carr S – Steve Carr

Blonde Noir Kit Covington sat on the sofa in her Pacific Palisades mansion with a cigarette lodged in the side of her mouth. A cloud of smoke floated around her head. She adjusted the oxygen tube in her nose, then brushed ash from her dog Muffin’s champagne-colored curls. The miniature poodle dozing in Kit’s lap startled when the camera crew from The Great Morning Talk Show banged equipment into Kit’s antique furniture. “Watch it! You scratch anything, you’ll pay for the restoration.” Since her left lung had been removed, Kit’s husky voice had a rattle that lingered between words chaining … Continue reading Diamondopolous DC -DC Diamondopolous

Patricia  “Does Prez Prado perform just for you?” That’s what the Scarecrow said that afternoon in Warner’s Music Store, and Patty blushed the way all fourteen-year-olds did in 1958 San Diego. She wasn’t familiar with Navy guys. Her dad had worn an Army uniform in the war ⸺she barely remembered it the day he got home. As soon as he came through the front door, he went to his bedroom, took it off, stuffed in his olive drab duffle bag, and hid it away in the attic. Now, here was this six-foot skinny guy wearing dark blue bell-bottom trousers and … Continue reading McBreartyJ – Jenean McBrearty

AMENO AMENO AMENO   When first I climbed out into to this Land of do-as-you-please, it was an Inkdeath that I would fain have guarded against, for I deemed it quite inevitable: how can the Inkspell fail, thought I, when you spend more of your life within it than without? Lorenzaccio … but it was not so. This land remains the half-dream it always was, a Middle Earth one steps into for adventures, while that Land of the Lost scarce-glimpsed now from the top of the Magic Faraway Tree remains so starkly real, so starkly mine.   Every time I … Continue reading Shabkhez H – Hibah Shabkhez

The Gecko’s Tale ‘Jesus Christ,’ says Jerry, ‘the little bastard bit me.’ Eli doesn’t look up straight away but keeps his eyes on the workbench.  His neck is hunched into his narrow shoulders and his complexion is more than usually grey.  ‘I’d watch my mouth if I were you.  The boss don’t care for that kind of language. Outed someone two days ago. Heard it down the canteen.’ Jerry is using his long, bony thumb to squeeze the fleshy pad of his finger.  His angular features convey a mixture of indignation and pain. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘it’s bleeding.  It didn’t … Continue reading Ottley A E – Abigail Elizabeth Ottley