Tag: short story
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Things We Cannot Say
By Kylie A Hough For Karolina Nada Califano It’s a humid Monday evening when I rest my fingers on the metal handrail of the hospital bed and watch my grandmother sleep. Once, she was my everything. Now, looking at her lie there, I wonder if something ever really ends once it begins. Nonna stirs…
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Black Dog
By Jane Downing ‘Anjing?’ she said carefully. Her vocabulary was largely made up of nouns and she’d double-checked the word for dog before setting out. Her hand hovered at the height of her lost dog’s head as she spoke. She was overestimating in Max’s absence. The young woman behind the counter nodded politely and indicated…
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Up Cannibal Mountain
By Reece Pye He keeps his eyes on it even though he is driving, that smooth grey crest protruding from the earth like an ancient monolith. He does this because he doesn’t need to see the road he’s driving on. He’s been down it so many times now that it has become something more…
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Miscommunication
By Jessica Murdoch ‘Can’t you see that everything I do is for you?’ Lily muttered under her breath. Her mother wouldn’t hear her. It seemed the skin irritation that’d been spreading across her back and shoulders was conveniently hurting her ears today. ‘Lily, you don’t mind if I leave out my hearing aids do you, darling?’ Victoria had asked as she greeted her at the door.…
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Twilight Driving
By Lauren Connell One… Two… Three… I tally dead roos littered on the roadside. Locals swear the mangled phantoms of the roos haunt this highway. They say this is the shittiest road in the country to drive on during those uncertain hours of dusk. Dad says you’re a bloody idiot if you drive along…
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The Quickening
by James Nicolson Jane had seen the news reports. Animated billboards spilled their message as moving colours across travelways; others using public transport would have the same message projected into their eyes from hand terminals, huddled silently on a monotrain. Regardless of medium, the news was always the same: Artificial Intelligence was here. The AIs…
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Silt
By Eloise Faichney Stassi lay with Cole’s corpse for two nights. It wasn’t until the third night that she dared to reach out and touch him. She poked solid flesh with a trembling finger and jerked back in fright, startling her cat, Fuckwit, who lay curled at the foot of her blanket. The feline rose,…
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Treasure
By Kathryn Ryman The cave is larger than the beast that keeps it. The walls stretch up high into the dark and the roof seems as distant as the moon when first you enter. The dragon itself is small. It lies stranded in the center of its vast empty domain, a huddle of bones and…
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The Fishbowl Astronaut
by Clare Millar On the driveway was the kind of van you would expect to be told about before arriving home. Stark white with the letters ‘exterminator’, it was parked right in the way of where Annalise wanted to park. She turned her keys to silence the car. For a moment she lingered with the…