Month: October 2024

Hollow Creatures

The sugar glider took a few halting steps in the box, trampling a typed note. The few people Ronald knew wouldn’t leave an animal on his doorstep. Perplexed, he picked up the sheet of paper. “He was too much work for us. The exotics shelter was full. We know you’re a trustworthy person.” Though the note was unsigned, this moment seemed to bulge with fate. Ronald had never had a pet before, much less a sort he’d only seen in pictures — never thought he could justify one, the work, the expense, mostly the downright self-indulgence of demanding something love him. But now the responsibility had been given him, and he would care for the wide-eyed little creature wholly. He cupped tender hands around the sugar glider. It lifted too easily. Ronald turned over the hollow animal. There was a battery compartment. He dropped the lifeless thing. Two teenagers giggled. Ronald glimpsed too late the camera of their mobile phone lowering, and the youths darted down the street, laughing at their prank. So quickly had …

Halloween In New England

Homage to “Gas” by Edward Hopper Today we should think of what a dented orange gasoline can would look like somewhere on a road in New England. It is sometime in the 1940s and it is Halloween and there is a blue and white gas pump at the filling station where the can sits next to a yellow wooden rest room. It is Halloween night on a country road and the office window is open and there are soft waves of big band music coming out of the large brown radio next to the red cash register. We should recognize the thundering paper as cavernous empty old shopping bags. Five children have already cried Trick or Treat! The manager smilingly dumps heavy clusters of candy into each child’s bag, echoing the kettle drum from the jazz orchestra while his helper augments the effect by giving the empty gasoline can several rhythmic taps. The brightly lit office is a gigantic geometrical owl and the children follow their father’s flashlight as it slices up the breezy black …

And in the End

It happens in a flash, a blip on the screen of life. The first day the numbness wraps itself around your chest, compressing until the last gasp of air escapes from your lungs. Rational reasoning does not quell the loneliness, and your memory tumbles backward to deter the coming of tomorrow, to protect against the present, to preserve the past, so the truth does not consume you, never to listen to the words of encouragement, endearment, or the flippant teasing of your weaknesses which brought a smile on a sullen day. You attempt sleep, but the sadness evaded for the moment slams you in the face with its cold, hard fist and you cry out, even with the knowledge that this time comes for everyone. Celebrate the life, you tell yourself, a life filled with hardships but outweighed by the joy of being surrounded by love. The light of a brand-new day welcomes you, reminding you the invitation does not extend to everyone. You struggle through the kind but meaningless words of those who knew …

Split-Second Decisions

As I walk down the alley, torn tights under my umbrella, I ponder how I look to passersby on the street. Split-second decisions are the best decisions. I suppose, even if only best in the moment. But each moment is all we have. The street juts out from the crumbling alley. Streetcars pass alongside me like ghost ships through heavy fog. The same fog fills my brain. I try to clear it, lay a hand on something concrete, something simple and true. Something logical. I need truth, one truth. But there are too many. Addiction. Those afflicted with what they once began and now regret. Billowy drug addicts. Philandering men and women out in the nightclubs, when it’s dark enough to hide themselves between streetlights. Those who are so burdened with a mind of strong idealism they can’t let go of what they hoped was real. Yes, I was addicted. A memory, unwanted. From the party. “Do you drink a lot?” I hesitate before I answer. “These days, yes.” “You shouldn’t drink. It’s not good …

Síofra

This would be a good time to wake up, I think, realising that Síofra’s blue Fiesta has vanished from where she had parked it less than two hours before. But I’m sure I saw it less than five minutes ago when I carried the harpist instrument to her van. I’d felt obliged to help after she’d woven a sublime backdrop to the reading which had brought us to Dublin in the first place. Thanks to Síofra, the poet had addressed our writers’ group a few weeks before and had then invited us to the Dublin launch of her new collection. We are a motley collection, mostly female, ranging from two girls in their twenties to a pair of spritely eighty-something-year-old sisters. I am one of only three males in the group, but the other two are rarely seen and, even then, only as a couple. Our present incarnation has been running for about eighteen months, but some of our members had been writing long before Síofra’s arrival in our midst. I’m not the only one …

Punta del Diablo

I would love to drop anchor somewhere in Uruguay. Rocha province? The town of Punta del Diablo. Don’t be frightened. Less than a thousand people, including women. A resort place with an ocean at your doorstep. No one will ever find you there, and they won’t even look for you. Valery Rubin was born in 1941. Worked as a journalist in print and online publications in Russia, Israel, Canada. Author of books of poetry and prose with KDP, Smashwords, and Lulu. Nominee for the National Writer of the Year Award, Russia, Short Story Anthology, Microcontos-22, Brazil, Russian Prose Anthology-2022/23. Member of the International Union of Jerusalem Writers. Lives in Toronto, Canada.

The Vault

It was my turn to count the money. Usually between one and two million on any given day. Jane: don’t mess it up. I never do. The ten key calculator was like an extension of my arm. I had a little wooden desk inside the vault, which felt closed in. Bags of money on the floor, coins, bills, everything. It all had to be verified. It took most of the day. Jane: has to be done by four so I can get home to the kids! We got an hour lunch and I took every minute. The taco spot was only a short drive and my friend Jenny worked there, but I didn’t like to talk to her wile she was working and I was in my dress up clothes for the bank. It felt odd. Like I was making fun of her or something. Her car was there, and she usually worked at the counter, so I went through the drive through and sat in the parking lot eating in my car and I …

The Flowers of Old Mexico (English Version)

A single man on a leash, bound, naked, flinging around. His eyes are broken, his soul is red. BOUND FOR CULIACÁN. GUILTY OF TREASON Roiling gates and a tiled plaza. Jeering women with heavy breasts and dyed skirts. Boys sell bananas. Fry bread oils. One dog yaps at another. The man sheds a tear as he is lead through the procession. A seamed face, now pelted with day old fruit. Up the steps, to a flowering gibbet. He writhes, he wiggles, he’s gone. A hundred cries fill the air. Hats and humorismo to celebrate damnation. “Do you think he was guilty?” one man says to another. “No. I think he believed in something”. Christopher C Tennant is a Denver, Colorado native who mainly writes poetry, short stories, and literary or experimental works. He has previously published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Atlas Obscura, and Scribes*MICRO*Fiction, among many other places.