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Latest Stories

July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Days Of Future Dreams

the days of future dreams the flames once rose high thinking our lives would end up supreme thinking our future seemed a far of dream but in the end nothing is what it seems many times the winds of changed has blown this way one minute we`re lapping the cream…
July 03, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

Bad Girl

Part 1I lost the entire manuscript when I assassinated my laptop with sauvignon blanc as I rubbed the lower back of a woman who dozed drunk on my bed, sweating. She was crazed, somewhere between screaming and lying about the orgasm. Bree was a miracle to me,…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Nelly Shulman

Black Is Our Colour

“I swear she could have been you. Look! This girl is your long-lost twin.” Fi nudged me, and I smiled. “Never had or wanted one.” I stood up. “Let’s go, or the bargain hunters will clear the shelves before us.” We dived into the vintage emporium across the…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Transformation

"I need a brake" words that twisted my heart- shattering the dream that we would never part. I asked myself 'what ever did I do wrong? sad, gloominess could`ve easily been my song. I wouldn't let the anger and misery grow or cultivate- uprising feelings I…
July 03, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Jae

It was Jae’s birthday today. She turned eight. What a beautiful sunny girl! Hyo planned a surprise or two; Li, his wife, did too. Birthday cake, a puppy and … Don’t forget, they grinned just before he drove off. Traffic was intense. A long call came from…
July 03, 2025
General Stories Matias Travieso-Diaz

Fear

Leandro stood outside the Kroger, leaning forward as he shivered in the early March dawn. He hated this moment: the cold, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness, the anticipation of another day ahead at his degrading job picking collard leaves under the…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Mihko Askiweno

Found You

Panic gripped her as she staggered up the steep, rocky incline, breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps. Sweat streamed down her face in torrents, her hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks in disheveled clumps. Her legs trembled with exhaustion, molten fire…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Lost On The Path

But alas; sometimes I think we've lost our way- too many strayed opinions...one too many a survey. Walking on the road ahead, just following the herd of sheep- with a hypnotised mind, wide awake yet very fast asleep. While yelling...join the team of the…
July 03, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

The Brothers

Juan and Pascal were shipped to distant relatives on Delvina’s periodic hospitalisations. For smoking and breathing difficulties. She had been warned but could not stop. They did not understand the illness or the connection. Pascal stayed with cousins who…
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…

Lexie finally wasn’t scared about being followed home by the Night Butcher, even during the solitary walk from the Woodlands Centre on campus after her evening class.  She had all but forgotten about waking up at 3a.m. to check the deadbolt, until she reached the door of her apartment and found that it was open.

The black line between the frame and the green door threatened of an intruder just beyond the threshold.  News blurbs flooded back into her imagination: Random victims, predatory behavior, multiple stab wounds, dismemberment, cannibalism.  Lexie whipped her little pack from behind her back, unzipped and fumbled for her cell phone.  She was about to dial Mom but hesitated.

Stupid, stupid baby, ran the thought.  You always cry to Mommy at every bump in the night.  The fantasy of her big city life vanishing the second she made the call, Mother would empty the bank account and leave only enough for a bus ticket back to tiny Coquille, where Alexandra belonged and wouldn’t worry about any criminal mischief!

Lexie made that expression of defiance developed since childhood.  She scrunched up her lips and nose so her freckles blobbed together.  “You rushed out and left the door open,” she admonished.  “And it wasn’t the first time, neither.”  Braced with enough courage to put the phone away, she swallowed to drown the hummingbird thrumming in her chest, pushed the door and stepped into the darkness of her living room.  “I’m home!” she barked then went dead silent.  The street lamp outside created menacing, bulky shapes out of the furniture.  The stillness revealed nothing.

Lexie slid her pale, slender hand along the wallpaper until she found the light switch and flicked on the overhead lamp.  Lexie’s gaze took in every lurking shadow; shadows cast by the 24” television and squat bookshelf.  There was the familiar green recliner and the ugly beige couch with a coffee stain and that guilty cigarette burn.

The kitchen tucked itself anxiously into the left corner.  The floor tiles glowed amber.  The countertops were spotless but crowded with the toaster oven, electric burner and knickknack bowl cluttered with receipts and junk mail.  Lexie slinked against the wall.  Her fingers twisted the chords of her red hoodie as she peeked around the blind corner.  She balked, stepping backwards.  Her elbow jostled the round wooden bowl nearly sending it crashing to the floor.  There was a gleam of metal, the sharp reflection from the swan neck faucet.

Lexie turned, took off her pack and tossed it on the sofa.  The closet leered from the left corner, taunting with what it might conceal.  She pulled her hoodie up and over her head and crept forward.  Her breath rose to a near panic as she gripped and twisted the doorknob, flinging the door open.  Her hands jerked and she lost hold of her hoodie.  The thick arms of an eiderdown coat reached out as the garment sprung from its hanger and fell limply to the floor.  An umbrella with a pointed tip clattered across it.

There was one place left in this small apartment unclaimed.  Lexie turned her attention to the hallway, a black diagonal slash lined where the strength of the living room lamp failed and the darkness ruled.  It reminded her of the gaping mouth of a crocodile, as if it might snap down and swallow her up.  The bedroom door was partly open and the gloom within was sinister.  She began to shiver.  She reached out her small hand into the shadows to feel along the wall for the switch.  She groped, fearing the sudden strike of a knife blade.

Something grazed her hand, it was cool and smooth.  Lexie swore in a gasp.  She gripped the object and pulled.  A pair of tinkling bells broke the silence.  The porcelain carnival mask clattered to the ground, chipping at the rounded corner.  It took a few breaths before she could muster enough strength to slip her tender fingers into the darkness.

Lexie met the light and flicked it on.  In that instant the room was bare of secrets.  There was her bed with the floral pattern, her vanity mirror with the ballerina music box and Grandma’s antique wardrobe.  She blushed in embarrassment.  “My, what a big imagination you have!” she chortled, flopping down in front of her vanity mirror to take the braids out of her red hair.

The music box jingled a tune from Swan Lake.  Lexie hummed as her fine-toothed brush loosened tangles.  She didn’t notice the wardrobe open ever so slightly and two big eyes peering at her from behind a rubber wolf mask.  She didn’t even flinch as a large hand slipped from the gap, until the butcher knife flashed in the light.

 

Joshua is an artist and writer teaching English in Jakarta. He has had an article published in Jakarta Java Kini and artwork in Jalan Jalanmagazine. Originally from the United States, he has been living in Indonesia for eight years.

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