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Latest Stories

November 25, 2024
Poetry Minjzi

Doomed Were The Threads

All is at odds with us. Doomed were the threads that tensely held the alliance of us. We are floating amongst the dreams and the past of us. Tranquillity of that fire will never arise. You thrive in the corners, in the inflows of me. Cut in in the slits, you…
November 25, 2024
Mystery Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

This Way To The Berry Desideratum

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." – Jorge Luis Borges Earth, circa 2200. A tree wilts and dies, gradually, To the roots. A cormorant glides across the surface of a sea, Picking a dead stinking fish. Golden Duke Hemlocks are…
November 25, 2024
Poetry Minjzi

Vanished Possibilities

It’s crossing over you and drowning you into immensity. Wrapped, intertwined, buried with vanished possibilities. You stand alone on the road where sorrow lives. And remember, remember how to rescue yourself from the silhouette of the past, stuck in your…
November 25, 2024
Flash Fiction Syed Hassan Askari

I Am A free Man

The sun hung low in the sky, covered by the clouds, casting a dim, shadowy light against the crumbling walls of Ghulam Ali’s small house. He sat with his mother inside the prayer room, a prayer mat laid in front of him. The silence prevailed everywhere as he…
November 23, 2024
Poetry Sandra

Crying Yourself To Sleep

They say crying yourself to sleep is complete madness. So I answer back: How else am I supposed to wash away the sadness? I lay down in bed, tears filling my eyes. I don't feel happiness again until I finally realize my tears have dried. Only then does sleep…
November 18, 2024
Flash Fiction Muhammad Hasnain

A Brush With Hope

Isabella sipped her coffee while gazing at the golden leaves drifting in the wind. The air carried a chill, but inside the café, she felt wrapped in warmth. In the quiet hum of the café, she was trying to find peace, a brief escape from the thoughts of last…
November 18, 2024
General Stories Olya

Chiruvi

I'm Ziggy Siegfried. But that probably doesn't count. Only my grandmother, who gave me a rather stony name, occasionally calls me that. She says it in public to make others [and herself] believe that I represent something great. But I'm just Ziggy. No one…
November 16, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Nelly Shulman

Post 43

Sprawled in the engineer's chair, Valentin put his feet up on the dashboard. The foggy bulk of Saturn shimmered in the panoramic windows of the cockpit. “It's your turn,” he said, handing Gao the laser cannon sight. “I'm going to blow this rock apart now,”…
November 16, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Koos Herselman

Odyssey To Eden

The stars looked different from the bridge of the Odyssey, humanity's first interstellar spacecraft. Captain Amina Solano leaned forward, gazing through the reinforced windows at the shimmering canvas stretched before her. She knew these stars weren’t the…
November 16, 2024
Flash Fiction Syed Hassan Askari

Unwanted Faces

Whenever she entered the classroom, Jameela felt like she had horns sprouting out of her head as everyone stared at her strangely with wide eyes. She would sit quietly in the far corner of the class room, always feeling a light-year distance between herself…
November 07, 2024
Horror Stories Chuck Suave

I Am A Werewolf, But I'm Different

I am a werewolf, but I'm different. I am neither beast nor man but somewhere in between. An anomaly to everything that I am supposed to be. It's not quiet in the Highlands, not if you listen closely enough. Whispers are carried in the wind and we hear…
November 07, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Koos Herselman

When We Were Human

The sky was a tapestry of fading light, painted in shades of deep indigo and dusky gold as twilight settled over the vast, silent plain. The land stretched endlessly in all directions, barren and still, a place where time seemed to gather in pools between the…

Shines like a beacon - Editor

My Wife Glows in the Dark

by Brian Ross

My wife is following me.

Again.

Lately, I have been distant: hands-off when she wants me to be hands-on, too busy or too tired when she wants to talk. She has suspicious blood, my wife, but she trips over her reckless curiosity. She does the math, comes up with five, and paints herself a pretty picture. Next thing I know, I’m watching my back because she’s on it.

She never stops to ask why.

So we play the game.

She asks me how my racquet-ball practice was and I say, great thanks. I rub my shoulder convincingly as she tells me about her evening of dishes and dirty nappies. Her story is as transparent as mine, but I’m working a lie so I don’t question hers.

She is a poor detective - more Clouseau than Poirot. She thinks I don’t see her - behind cars, in doorways, around corners - but I do. I see everything. She doesn’t move when my eyes try to find her, but she is there just the same, not realising that I have her chasing her own tail.

I’m happy to indulge her, to pretend I don’t notice my new shadow, because she will only ever see what I want her to. And besides, after tonight, she won’t do it again.

#

“It’s work, honey,” I tell her, already shrugging my jacket on. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

I’m a doctor, so leaving the house at eleven-thirty on a Thursday night isn’t such a stretch. I have made midnight trips before: I have saved lives at this hour several times. This one though is different. Make up a patient, give him a name, a tumour, two months to live. Shake and stir.

I cross the street and make as if I’m checking for traffic, but there are no cars at this time of night, and it’s really her I’m looking for. She’s still there, hands frightened by her sides, pretending to be interested in the sides of beef Joe has in his butcher’s window.

My wife, the vegetarian. She can’t fool me.

The town is black, but the truth cannot be masked by flicking a switch and killing the light.

I turn up my collar and sink deeper into the gloom.

I pass a guy on the street, his hands shoved deep into his pockets like he is digging for answers. His eyes meet mine as our shadows merge under a street-lamp, and he quickly looks back at his guilty feet, as they take him towards the wrong bed.

I turn the corner and there’s the building I’m looking for. Five storys. There are a few yellow eyes in the wall of concrete and black glass: dozens of numbers on the silver panel by the door. I press forty-two, and say:

“Sorry to bother you so late, but I’ve locked myself out. Can you let me in please? It’s seventeen. Thanks, man.”

He doesn’t say a word. There is a buzz, the lock springs, and I push inside. The door falls closed on my tail.

The outside chill is replaced by artificial warmth. The heating system tick-ticks within the walls of the building like a telltale heart.

I climb the stairs, passing seventeen, and throw a look over my shoulder.

Nothing.

She has learned fast, but not fast enough.

Out of sight, and soon to be out of her mind, I think, almost loud enough to hear outside my own head.

When I reach the third floor, Number Forty-Two is standing in his doorway. Bare feet, wild hair, black pants. His middle-of-the-night curiosity is a dangerous thing, although at this moment he doesn’t realise it. I don’t mind. It saves me knocking or breaking in.

Less noise, more haste.

I walk up to him and say: “I believe you know my wife.”

It’s not a question but he seems to think it is. I can see him wondering who the hell I am and why the hell I’m here. He looks at me strangely - because comprehension is asleep at midnight - then tries to say something, but I am not interested in any of his excuses.

I pull a gun from my inside pocket and shoot him three times in the chest.

Phfft.

Phfft.

Phfft.

Silencers are wonderful. It’s like plugging a pillow.

Forty-Two falls back and hits the carpet, dead before he does. I’m a doctor. These things I know.

I put the gun back into my jacket and make my way downstairs.

My wife is standing in the foyer with her mouth open, looking at me the way people do when they don’t know what to say.

I smile and brush past her into the night.

You see, a cheat is easy to see, and a betrayal of the heart shines like a beacon.

My wife glows.

But not anymore.

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