Tag: Story

A little more

Sarah Alcock

The bridge stands proudly on struts of experience, rising above the mist. Knowledge reaches high and far, sweeping through complexity to distant prosperity. Anxious faces peer along the route, ready to embark and I am the gatekeeper, selling tickets to their dreams. Open mouths and eager eyes, staring up at strength and skill in awe, wondering if they can ever be worthy. They pile treasure into my hands as I sing the praises of the formation and the magnificence of the land beyond. There are alternative routes, different bridges, but none shine like mine, none rise like mine, none are as straight or as true. Their amalgamated wealth buys my promises for a chosen few.

For decades the bridge has stood, and only I know its secret. Only I know the lie of its shining façade. Somewhere in construction, before I was born, mistakes were made. The seed of destruction was planted. And now great growth hides internal damage, the path looks steadfast but rotten collapse is inevitable. One day I must close the barriers. If I judge the moment correctly this edifice will remain forever admired, with me in quiet reflected glory. If I wait too long it will crumble, plunging innocents into nothing. Promises broken, I will have questions to answer; my destruction will be lengthier although just as complete.

But it can endure a few more footsteps. A few more coins in my hand. A little more weight on the fatigued structure.

I’m sure it can.

Sarah Alcock began writing in 2016, inspired by the success of a childhood friend. Her first short story, ‘The Manor’, won the monthly Dark Tales prize in 2018 and her flash fiction ‘Lucky’ was published in the Writer’s Retreat UK Super Shorts 2019 anthology. In 2020, her flash fiction ‘Drowning’ was long-listed in the Writers’ HQ quarterly competition. Sarah lives with her husband and two children in Buckinghamshire. An introvert with a keen interest in human behaviour, Sarah has a degree in psychology and works in online learning design. Hobbies include angsting over her first novel and planning the next family holiday. Find out more here.

The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Camel

David Henson

The boy didn’t remember when he first wanted to be a camel. Maybe when he was learning about animals that start with C in first grade. Maybe sooner. Perhaps the desire had huddled in him since birth. 

The boy felt if he behaved like a camel, he might become one. He began to bellow after he spoke. He grazed in the back yard and asked his parents for a potted cactus so he could toughen the inside of his mouth. He tried to sleep standing up, but realized that would require much practice. 

The boy knew camels could go months without water. Because he wasn’t a camel yet, he decided to start with a week. When his parents realized what the boy was doing, they put a cup to his lips and forced him to sip. The boy spat out the water. He hated to be disrespectful but knew it was a camel’s nature to spit when upset. 

The boy’s parents asked his sister to talk some sense into her brother. 

“It’s really stupid to go without water.” the sister said.

The boy squinted to keep the blowing sand of her words out of his eyes. “You won’t think so when I’m a camel.”

“Whatever.”

The parents took their son to the hospital to be hydrated intravenously. A counselor visited the boy and asked why he wanted to be a camel. 

“Because” the boy said. He was immediately embarrassed by his childish answer so he bellowed. 

The counselor pointed out that just because a camel can go without water, doesn’t mean it will if it doesn’t have to. The boy hadn’t thought of this and agreed to drink water if his parents took him home. 

The mother and father hoped a breakthrough had been achieved but instead the boy’s obsession gripped him even more tightly. He refused to go to school because what use is arithmetic and grammar to a camel? Each time the boy’s parents pressured him to behave normally, he snorted and seemed about to spit.

One morning the mother went to her son’s bedroom. Instead of her son, she found a camel. She screamed the father and sister into the room. 

The father wept and accused the sister of spiriting away the boy and replacing him with the camel. 

“You would’ve heard the beast climbing the creakwood stairs in the night,” the sister said.

The camel bobbed his head, but no one noticed. 

The father ran to the closet, looked under the bed then knelt and buried his head in his hands. The mother and sister continued throwing accusations and denials.

The camel watched the three shout and sob. He was sorry to upset them. Even sorrier for their flat backs and short eyelashes. He felt the tug of the desert thousands of miles away. Beyond the sand were forested mountains. A beautiful place to be a moose, the boy who became a camel imagined.

David Henson and his wife reside in Peoria, Illinois. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Small Fictions and has appeared in various journals including Pithead Chapel, Moonpark Review, Spelk, and Eunoia Review. Find him at his website and on Twitter (@annalou8).

Flowers for My Daughter

Eva Shelby

“I can’t begin to imagine what you’re going through, Kay.”

That’s my best friend, Sally. And she’s right. She can’t imagine.

I’m using my imagination now: I see Beth, walking down an aisle, her arm threaded through Pete’s, as he leads her to the man of her dreams. This man of her dreams would love her, cherish her and… look after her. Better than I did? No, that’s unfair, I did look after her. It was taken out of my hands.

I imagine my grandchildren playing in my garden, running into their grandmother’s arms. My arms. 

I imagine dying. I imagine dying before Beth. The way it should be.

I look up from the table as Pete enters the kitchen.

“She’s here.” He touches my shoulder: “Come on love. It’s time.”

I sway as I get up from the chair. I put one foot in front of the other. Pete leads me out of the kitchen and towards the front door. I turn to look for Sally. She’s right there, behind me, pressing a tissue to her eyes.

Daylight invades my darkness. I pull sunglasses down from my head, onto my eyes. Black clothes. Black car. Black day. Everything; black as the cancer that brought this day here.

I force my eyes to look into the back of the car. A white coffin. Beautiful lilies, white and pure, pure as my beautiful little girl, who lay inside.

Eva Shelby is the Editor of Secret Attic.

Communicating With Cheese

Steve Lodge

I made my way through the wet car park to the Institute Of Puthing building in Ringstad, the capital of Belzonia. This would be the third time I was to hear Dr Quadrant Ears speak on the subject of “Communicating With Cheese”.

Such opportunities to hear Dr Ears were becoming less frequent since he married the actress, Nola Lovelock, who almost never allowed him out of her sight unless she was filming in the Egyptian desert or Paris.

I forget where Nola was, but the good doctor occupied himself with another of his Cheese Talk tours. The Institute of Puthing was my best option to see him as I don’t need a visa when visiting Belzonia. Some years ago, I had donated a stilt and striathlete motif to the Fledgling Sportsklub of Ringstad and have been treated as something of a minor celebrity/mentor ever since.

I looked down the Boulevard Of Heroes as I stood outside the venue, nibbling camembert and brie blended to my own recipe with wasabi and Otis Atomik Mustard Preparation. I’d had some good times in this desperately shabby city. Famously, ‘Mule’ Edgar’s Silent Band played a gig here in 1972. It was memorable in ways that only jazz gigs can be when they are held in small, smoky clubs with 500 people crammed into a space that looked full with only the bar staff in it. The club was The Coldhead Aubergine, owned by Professor Olaf Flute, a good friend of Dr Ears, who lectured in Advanced Football Statistics at the Ringstad University of Belzonia.

The gig lasted over 3 hours, during which the band only played one song, their haunting “Find The Lady”. There was no encore. “Find The Lady” was later adapted and translated by Belzonian Poet Laureate, Istvan Manuskript-Texte, and is to this day the National Anthem of Belzonia, under the bonkers title, “Music With Belzon”. The original song was, of course, written by ‘Mule’ and long-time band member, Kieron Wolfe. Kieron left the band in 1985, blaming musical differences and a long-running feud over royalties. He later formed a band called ‘Disturbed Rabbits’ and was never heard of again.

My mental meanderings were brought to a rude conclusion when screams were heard coming from the auditorium. Jolted into action, I replaced the camembert and brie blend in my raincoat pocket and ran inside. Dr Ears’ secretary, Ingrid Kaltenbrunner, was sobbing uncontrollably. Then I saw why. Dr Ears lay on the floor surrounded by his notes. His face covered in what looked like Minstralig Veined And Lightly Tickled Triple Matured, his favourite cheese. He would not be the first to have taken too much of this massively powerful vintage Belzon speziale from the Minstralig family dairy in the nearby town of Kontaminatsi.

Steve Lodge is a wandering minstrel from London, now living in Singapore. By day he sells food ingredients and by night he writes short stories, poems/lyrics and plays. Prior to lockdown he has acted on stage, TV and film and done stand up comedy and improv, and played in a band.

A Spot Not Blue

Leah Sackett

He pushed through the crowd of kids hanging about the edge. It was summer, but it was 7:30 in the morning. The water was freezing. He jumped into the warm blue air, splashing down into the cold blue water; by the end of the swim lesson his lips would be turning blue. But here he could move unfaltering and uninhibited. He was in my world. And the summer played on with the vast blue skies and my blue pool of water, until my paint chipped. I was revealed an ugly spot by the drain. He nudged me with his big toe. He might have been the one to chip my blue paint. The illusion broke as he realized the water was just clear, water without color. The pool itself, me, was painted blue. This bothered him beyond measure, a dark spot waiting for discovery. He became obsessed with the chipped spot. He stopped swimming. He just floated around this mar in a world of purity. No one else noticed, nor cared.

He would swim down to get a closer look at my blemish, which marked him. This blight revealed me, the pool, the summer, the vacation to be a lie. Once when he dived in, there was an old Band-aid stuck to me. It waved in the currents of the forced water. He picked at it. My spot was a weakness, and little bits of the foundation easily broke off and floated away. One day while underwater examining the spot, something blotted out the sun. He swam to the surface to see what was casting a shadow over us. It was a lifeguard, and he wanted to know what the boy was about. Later that afternoon, his mother appeared at my edge. She came from work in her nylons and heels looking hot, like she might melt, to pick him up. He was banned from me. The lifeguard claimed he had vandalized the pool, and the mother would have to pay for the necessary repairs. He stared into a patch of blue sky. His mother moved to look into the blue expanse of me, demanding an explanation. I had none that I could give voice to, and he could not explain his obsession with my scar, the deception of a blue illusion, the sophistry of himself.

Leah Sackett is an adjunct lecturer in the English department at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.  This is also where she earned her M.F.A. Her short stories explore journeys toward autonomy and the boundaries placed on the individual by society, family, and self.  She has published short stories in several journals including Connotation Press, Blacktop Passages, Halfway Down the Stairs, The Writing Disorder, Crack the Spine, and more. Learn about her published fiction here.

Cents and Corpses

Yash Seyedbagheri

On the news, they talk of trade-offs between bodies and money.

Older sister Nancy was a hostess at an Italian restaurant. Once she moved about, serving bread and wine with snark, whispering suicide and death jokes to me, joking about patrons’ wardrobe.

Now she gasps, calling for me, virus rising.

I can’t visit.

The restaurant won’t pay my sister her due.

They trumpet statistics. X customers, Z dollars.

One night, I take out their windows with baseball bats. Turn tables. Destroy cash registers.

The destruction is a mere tantrum. They can repair this, replace Nancy. Trump more statistics.

Nancy gasps, unheard.

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, and Ariel Chart, among others.

A Series of Bodies

Jessica Klimesh

This is the story of a body, born head-first into the hands of a young midwife with cowering blue eyes and a timid pink smile. She comes to work in this body factory every day. She knows the story by heart. The fluorescent lights from above pierce the body’s soft skin, and it crosses my mind to ask the young midwife about her hair. I can smell the lavender and citrus mix in it, and it reminds me of my sister, so educated and aware. I start to regret.

The body screams as the midwife wraps it up, its eyes squeezed closed. I strain to see. It is just one in a series of bodies, a series of whites, pinks, reds, purples, and tans. This one has ringlets of black like its mother, like me, I’m sure. Or maybe I’m just imagining it.

I see the scene from a distance, like I’m on the moon or floating in space, my twenty-two years on earth just a microscopic fabrication. And then I’m right there, here, listening for another force of air to be expelled, then taken in. The body wails as the young midwife wipes it clean of blood. The white towel is then tossed into a bin that says “waste”, and the body is relinquished to a man wearing a hazmat suit. The man in the hazmat suit puts the body in an opaque box on the counter. Like a casket, my sister had warned me. She’d read about it in the books, had said it’s not worth it, to do what I’ve done.

The man then shoos the young midwife to the next bed so that she can tend to another. The next one is ready. And then another. They are all ready. Like clockwork. He doesn’t look at me. He is concerned about profits.

It is my body, the man in the suit says, his glance falling at my stomach in disgust. Then a plastic smile. This is the worst of it, he says. You won’t think about it after this because now it’s mine. Poof! It’s like it never happened. Hahahahaha. He has a laugh that bounces once before falling flat.

No, it’s my body, I say.

They have not sewn me up yet. They have not let me hold it. The room is gray; the shades are pulled. It’s as gloomy as any other factory that uses human labor.

Boy or girl? I ask. My sister said they never tell you, but I ask anyway.

It’s a body, the man says.

It’s mine, I shout. I want to see it.

The man says no. You have no rights, he says. You have no rights to your body.

My sister had told me not to argue.

Please! I say, but my voice is wilted. The man says, here, as he injects me with a gray fluid. Gray like the room. You won’t remember anything when you wake up, he says. Everything will be normal.

No, I say.

You don’t have a choice, the man says. It’s done. I hear my sister’s voice telling me tellingmeto just. Just. So I do and. the effectsare immediate.

Its my bdy, I say. I wunt to see

Yu might fel tired. Its bess if youdonnt remmber.

Itss my bdy, i say. i reacch forit butitsgone Leemmee holdit lemmme at leasseeit. lemmeee toush it

pleasss

Shh…shhh. 

Jessica Klimesh enjoys reading and writing innovative flash fiction. When she’s not experimenting with form and language in her own work, she’s editing others’ technical, academic, and creative manuscripts. She holds an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing. Her fiction has previously appeared in Unlikely Stories Mark V and The Mark Literary Review.

Perfect Jake and the Bank Heist That Goes Wrong

John Adams

Perfect Jake caresses the plastique with a breeziness that makes your left eye twitch. “It’s serendipity,” he says. “A new security guard and an old security code, the same night the bank’s holding the Wutherton Diamonds? Serendipity.”

The rest of the crew strum their admiration.

“So true!” laughs Twelve-Finger Tilda.

“Perfect observation, Perfect Jake!” beams Grandpa Pudding, your boss, the mastermind.

“Whatever,” you say, guiding Perfect Jake’s moisturized hand away from the explosives. He grins at your touch, the same grin he learned in high school, not really a smirk, not really a sincere smile. Shunning that entangling grin, you follow Grandpa Pudding and Twelve-Finger Tilda across the dark bank lobby, empty except for your crew and the unconscious guard.

Perfect Jake saunters over in his own relaxed time. “Everything OK, Cleo?” A question normal people ask in private, in muffled tones.

You don’t answer.

Grandpa Pudding flashes Perfect Jake a concerned look, desperately paternal. The “son” just grins, easing the old man back into the plan. Grandpa Pudding tugs his ice-white beard. The signal.

You slowly activate the chipped detonator. Everyone, even Perfect Jake, takes another step back. Twelve-Finger Tilda holds up her ten remaining fingers—stumpy reminders of February’s messy museum heist—and starts the countdown.

Ten fingers.

Ten years ago, Mr. Gomez introduces a scrawny, stuttering student to your 3rd-Grade class. His real name is Jacob Weisman. You’ve already decided his nickname.  

Nine fingers.

Nine months ago, Perfect Jake lies to the cops about the cars you stole on prom night. They believe him; he’s handsome now. They clap his back, encouraging him to apply to the force after graduation.  

Eight fingers.

Eight days ago, the crew laps up pizza in your living room. “You guys heard of the Wutherton Diamonds?” Perfect Jake asks.

Seven fingers.

Seven minutes ago, Perfect Jake fake-flirts with the bank guard as you crash the butt of your flashlight into the sucker’s cranium.

Six fingers.

Six minutes from now, sirens blare. The others tear away, but Perfect Jake—hands wet with blood and moisturizer—lies caught beneath rubble. He coughs weakly. “Leave me, Cleo. I’ll be OK.”

Five fingers.

Five weeks from now, at his trial, Perfect Jake spills the secret, fingering your crew as his bank-job accomplices in exchange for probation.

Four fingers.

Four months from now, a sneering prison guard tosses the letter you mailed Perfect Jake back into your cell. Return to sender.

Three fingers.

Three years from now, you sob, alone, as the judge denies your parole.  

Two fingers.

Two months ago, you stood before another judge, Perfect Jake’s soft hands in yours, whispering “I do”.

One finger.

One decade from now…

One day out of prison…

One hand rings the doorbell. Your other hand shakily raises a stolen Glock.

Perfect Jake answers, hands still soft from moisturizer, face still scarred from explosives.

He is perfect.

You drop the gun.

You tumble into him.

And right now, in the bank, Twelve-Finger Tilda’s countdown reaches zero.

The explosives detonate. 

John Adams (he/him/his) writes about teenage detectives, pelican-people, robo-butlers, and cursed cowboys. His publication history includes Australian Writers’ Centre, Bowery Gothic, The Drabble, Dream of Shadows, Fat Cat Magazine, SERIAL Magazine, Siren’s Call, Trembling With Fear, Triangle Writers Magazine, and Weird Christmas (forthcoming: Paper Butterfly, peculiar, The Weird and Whatnot). His plays have been produced by Alphabet Soup (Whim Productions) and the 6×10 Play Festival (Barn Players) and selected for readings at the William Inge Theater Festival and the Midwest Dramatists Conference. He performs across the U.S. with That’s No Movie, a multi-genre improv team. Check out his website and Twitter.

Junebug

Simea Stevens

I remember that porch. I remember we were sitting on its steps that summer, when I asked Mama about the house. 

“What about the house?” she asked.

“It’s broken.”  

“Oh hon…” She trailed off, but her eyes finished the sentence. So blue, so bright, so full of hurt. She wrapped her arms around me.

“Well June, you see…” She stopped to think for a second, but hung onto me too tight, squeezing my shoulders as if she could wring my doubts right out of me. “It may be broken, but it’s still alright. Windows don’t need glass for you to see outside of ‘em.”

“Mama, this isn’t just about the windows.” 

They were part of it, that was true. I might’ve jumped when they were shattered, but I didn’t care enough to feel anything about it. I just sighed, that house had a mean draft before the window came down.

She sighed.

“What do I always say, June? We might not have it all, but we’ve got all we need.”

But this wasn’t enough for me. Somehow, she sensed it. Back when she had a good head, she was all there and then some. 

“Now listen, Junie. Sure our fridge doesn’t work right, but really that’s just fine. I’m out of a job too. And your father’s just like our washer.”

I knew she was getting at something, but I just didn’t know what. I felt myself almost smiling, even though I didn’t want to be. I swallowed that smile and turned to look at her.

“Mama, what washer?”

“Exactly. And what father? But we get along just fine without both.”

She paused for a second to think, eyes momentarily fixed in the distance, before she continued.

“Now, I know we don’t have enough beds, but sharing with your sister can’t be too bad. ‘Specially now that she never sleeps at home.”

She looked down to avoid my gaze and started smoothing her dress of non-existent wrinkles before she added, “We’ve got it all between the five of us. Don’t need a chimney when we’ve got your brothers. And I’m a regular old doormat. Two more problems solved.”

After that a pause hung in the air. Mosquitoes idly drifted by, knowing well enough not to land on us.

“I guess so” I said, choking on nothing, but the humidity of June and the bitter truth. My mama had a way of dressing things up to make them seem pretty. She’d always do a good job, making herself look like a princess each time she managed to find a date. It still wasn’t enough. Those men never loved her and I never loved my home the way we all should have. Its emptiness crept into me at a young age, making it hard to breathe. I never really had a breath of fresh air ‘til I was hours north, in a state I had never been before. Maine and some clarity, a mental state just as foreign to me as the physical. 

I took my first breaths in a hospital just outside of Charleston, an hour or so from my hometown of Cairo. I don’t remember this, but my Mama tells me it was so. My father was there, and so was my sister. Lori tells me I was so pink, I scared her. 

I couldn’t help but wonder if I was pink the moment I stepped off that bus and took the first breath that I ever remember taking.

Simea Stevens enjoys writing stories about others in the first person while writings bios about herself in the third. Currently, she’s working on her first full-length novel and continues to write poems and short stories. Contact can be made through simeastevens@gmail.com or by visiting her new website. 

Feeding Tom

Emma Cariello

When the sun has finally set for good, I go out back and feed Tom. It has to be right when the sky’s the color of ink, and preferably no stars. If there are stars, he’s liable not to show up. I only gleaned this pattern after many a night of waiting for him to come out when the moon was brilliant and stars speckled the sky like dandruff. Those nights I would wait with his meal in hand at the edge of the wood like an idiot. But when the sky was quiet, he’d always come.

The kids were supposed to be in bed by that hour, but sometimes I’d look back at the house and see the little thumbprints of their faces against an orange square of light. On the nights I had to feed Tom, the kids would seldom come near me the next morning. I’d fix their breakfast and feel their eyes on the back of my head, peeking around the corner. Once I left the kitchen, I’d quietly climb halfway up the stairs and watch them chew in silence. Supposing a stair creaked, they would scatter like mice. 

The wood looked different in the daytime; friendlier, I suppose. Green, brown, and gold, plentiful timber and plenty of game to be had. But I knew what was in there, or rather who, and would warn the kids profusely not to enter. Well one day Geoff didn’t much feel like heeding my warning. His ball rolled in amongst the trees, and he ran after it. I came out to do some chore or another just in time to see him traipsing out, ball under his arm. 

Gave him a good lashing for that. Made sure his sister saw, too. I told him next time his ball rolled out he better just let it rot out there, lest he want to be rotting instead. 

Tom was hungry again that night, calling for his food just a few hours before Geoff passed on, God rest his little soul. His sister had taken it on herself to call the authorities, even though I insisted to her that I had not one thing to hide. She just kept shaking her head, shaking it and shaking it, phone in hand.

When they came, I told them what had happened. Tom had gotten him. Sure as shit.

Emma Cariello is a journalism major living in New York. Aside from writing short fiction, she also enjoys reviewing films in her spare time.