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Latest Stories

June 04, 2025
General Stories Dylan James Harper

The Bylaws Of The Revolutionary Council

A loud clang rang through the bunker as the door slammed shut. “I really think we have a chance to win this thing!” Greg’s voice echoed throughout the cold walls. The three other inhabitants of the bunker, Jeff, Ben, and Malcolm, all sat around a table…
June 04, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Resurrection

The man lay there in extremis, no longer thinking of cool abstracts like ‘catching the last train for the coast.’ He gulped great rasping breaths – holding them impossibly long – before finally exhaling in a shuttering burst of putrid air. He had been…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Time Warp

Nothing was in order, nothing optimal. Germany was awash with refugees and adventurers. Only Angie could hold it together; but then she opened the gates! Who knows why? Other politicians were dinosaurs in the museum. Integration was the solution, was it? That…
June 04, 2025
Fantasy Stories M.D. Smith

Car Of Dreams

Randy Jenkins, age sixty, lived the kind of life people don’t write stories about. He sold office supplies out of a small showroom in the back corner of a strip mall just outside Corpus Christi. He wore beige. Ate microwave dinners. And spent more time…
June 04, 2025
Science Fiction Stories David Rich

Earth Forever

With an exhale, Damerae unclipped a lint-free cloth from his desk, snatched it from the air, and wiped his glasses. He preferred staying hidden in his cozy interior office in the bowels of Orbital Counterweight Station of the International Space Elevator. But…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction George Vu

A Stolen Kiss A Beautiful Dream

It had been a long, exhausting day for her – a blur of endless tasks and demands. Yet, despite it all, she had fought for a moment to be with him. Stealing time from the world around her, she walked into the room quietly, hoping to surprise him. After a few…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Cow Bells

Based on actual incidents. Swiss Cabinet meeting, 15 March 1943 The American Ambassador has no comment, no explanation. We can expel the Ambassador in protest. I prefer he remains here under close surveillance. The bombing yesterday was of nuisance value; it…
June 04, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Signed To The Message

do your bit for king and country. are you a coward? or are you brave? so now is the time to sacrifice you don`t want to let your mates down it`s a kinship of the soul you know that’s the Australian way it was the message that was kept being sold so they…
June 04, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

On The Rebound

I was sitting in a bar knocking back my third Jack Daniels, when a drop-dead gorgeous blonde walked in. As she paused, surveying the room, I raised my glass in a complimentary salute. It was a ‘Hail Mary’ move, and I could hardly believe it when she came…
June 04, 2025
Science Fiction Stories M.D. Smith

Unplanned Landing

Red lights pulsed. Sirens howled. “Alert. Navigation failure. Proximity alert. Impact in thirty seconds.” Captain Mara Voss shot upright in her cryo-pod, lungs gasping like a drowning swimmer. Across the chamber, the rest of the crew jerked awake, groggy and…
June 04, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Marching To The Same Beat

an angel stands under a lonely pine showing the way to the lost souls the ones who innocently answered the king’s call and now flags fly half mast for those that no-more stand buried in some far off foreign land the pipes call out to the brave and the angel…
April 29, 2025
Fantasy Stories Chris Turner-Neal

The Gorgon’s Climb

I am the only one of us who calls it rape. Stheno, when she must mention it, says “our bad luck;” Medusa shrugs and says “gods don’t have to ask.” And I say but they should and she says but they don’t and Stheno says this attitude doesn’t help, and she’s…

They called her the face in the window. Practically everybody in the neighborhood knew her-the woman who would sit in the upstairs window of her house, looking out into space, oblivious to the world. Some people said she’d gone crazy after her husband had left her, others said that she’d lost a son or a daughter. The truth was, nobody really knew for sure. She was just known as the Face Woman, because her expression was always blank, like a mask.

Jim Heller knew that she had a different name, one that she no longer used, that had been lost to the world. He was the one who brought her food, and took care of the rent. Part of the money came from her social security; he assumed the rest came from an inheritance, or from an insurance policy she had stashed somewhere. She was always dressed in the same simple clothing, although not always the same clothes, so he knew that she didn’t have to spend all of her time in the wheelchair that she used to watch the world outside her window.

“So, how are you today?” Jim asked one Friday afternoon as he stopped by on another one of his monthly rounds. Looking at the window, he added, “The weather’s nicer today, isn’t it? I’ll bet you’re glad that storm is over with.”

She didn’t answer as Jim gathered up the envelopes on her kitchen table. Her face was impassive as always, although he thought he saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes. “Well, I’ll just take care of these, then. See you next month, okay?”

When he was gone, she continued to sit in her wheelchair, looking out her window at the houses beyond. She knew there was a world out there that she was no longer a part of, a world of noise and people-people who brought danger, and did bad things to each other. In her withdrawn silence, she’d wanted no part of that world for years, and tried not to think about what had made her that way.

Long ago, when Jim Heller had been a little boy and she had been the same age then that he was now, she had been different. The world had been different, too, and it had been part of the life she shared with her husband, who’d been her connection to it. It was when the bad thing happened to him that the connection had been severed.

“I need to go out of town for a few days,” he’d said on the last day they’d spent together. “It’s just a short business trip. I should be back Sunday night.”

“Another one?” She sighed. “I was hoping we could go out for dinner this weekend.”

“I know, but the company has been having some problems with one of their suppliers, and as usual I have to go there and straighten things out. I’m sure it’s no big deal-I’ll be back in no time.”

“Well-I guess I’ll see you when you get home, then.” Except that she never did…

The police brought her the news two days later. It didn’t sink in right away, and when it did she thought at first that they must have made some sort of a mistake. He was on his way home, she was sure of it. All she had to do was wait…

She’d kept up a facade for a while, of course. Just to keep up appearances, for her family and friends. But the connection she’d had with their world was already gone. It was gone when they took her to identify the body they’d found; when they told her about the young man with dead eyes whom they’d arrested for his death. And it was gone when she went to his funeral, and in the long, silent years that followed, as she watched the cars and her neighbors outside change.

Or, at least she thought it was.

Then came one cool night when the moon was full, and it was so light that she could see the narrow street in its entirety. She saw two figures that she knew didn’t belong there following Jim Heller as he headed up the street. She wasn’t sure why he was there-it wasn’t his normal visiting day, and at any rate he wouldn’t have come at this hour of the night. But he was there, and he seemed to know the figures that were following him, because he turned to confront them. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the discussion seemed tense. Then the tension mercifully faded as they walked away. Jim watched them go, and turned to leave.

Something stirred inside of her as she watched. At first she’d told herself that she wouldn’t get involved, that she wasn’t part of that world anymore. Ignore them and forget, she told herself. Except that she couldn’t, because she saw the two figures again. They were walking up the street, following where Jim had gone…

She had a cell phone, one that Jim had given her in case of emergencies. She’d never used it, but she kept it on the kitchen table where she kept her mail. She was out of practice; it took some effort for her to remember how to dial 9-1-1. But she did, and when the voice on the other end answered, she knew what to say, and how to say it.

It was her connection to the world, after all.

 

 

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