Damned Words 55

September 27, 2023September 29, 2023 ~ TheDamned ~ 4 Comments

Laosha
Marge Simon

When the Plague Doctor invited her to accompany him through Wicken Wood, Laosha was thrilled. So it was on a fall morning when the autumn air made her skin corpse stiff with chill, they set off. The Doctor never smiled, his lips were always wet and red as a festering sore. Laosha had enough smiles for them both, and told him so, but he only frowned. The journey was supposed to be all business until they were on their way back. She hoped he’d be stopping at some of his comrade’s lodgings, perhaps to share some dark magic for her own use. Of course, the Plague Doctor’s business was death, which he would be bringing to various residents of Wicken Wood.

Laosha was a sharp young woman. Everything about her was so, from her eyes to her chin, to her pokey thin elbows and knees, which she hid beneath her shadowy crepe cape. She was also quick witted, but alas, not this particular day. She was enjoying the crispy smell of leaves and loam, and thinking how yummy the meat pie in her pocket would taste when they stopped for lunch. Thus, she didn’t notice that her babbling was annoying the Doctor. Dangerously so, in fact. When he halted his mule and glared at her, her heart froze. With a snap of his fingers, he turned her into a log.

Silas, the Woodsman’s boy was out checking his traps when he came across log Laosha. He was instantly drawn to her, what with the coy little sprigs of weed in between her cracks. Indeed, she took his fancy. Silas was not very astute, but he knew his logs. He took her home to meet his family. Helpless, poor Laosha burned brightly, keeping the family cozy all night long.

Basilisk
Charles Gramlich

Out of dirt and dying greenery, he is being born. From the pregnant earth. He is the Beast in the Wood

Only a mouth at first. So that he may masticate and consume. And grow. But then he begins to weave a skin of bark. It is tattered, incomplete, but holy with hunger. In time it will become an armor no weapon can pierce.

Next, an eye. So that he may pick and choose what he wishes to eat. The most nutritious, the most succulent, the most beautiful. Such as yourself. But he has no limbs and cannot come to you; he must make you come to him. And so he trains his gaze to entrance, enthrall, bedazzle. He will stare you into the caress of his teeth.

Lovely as death, he lies. Lovely as blood and rot. Infected with fungi and worms. Acrawl with the husks of beetles. Do not look! Do not turn your head into that gaze. If he sees you, he will know you. He will own you. And upon you he will feed.

From the Forest Floor
Miriam H. Harrison

She could taste the detritus of the forest floor, smell the decay of moldering leaves, but she saw nothing. Existence was a slow process—it didn’t happen all at once. She was, but not fully. Not yet. More leaves would fall and decay. Winter’s snow would come and depart. But then, maybe then, amid the springtime rains she might look out and see the stirrings of life. She might even be ready to pull herself up from the forest floor, to lurch and lumber among the growing greenery once more. It would not be long, then, before she felt the hunger of the hunt. Not long before she again tasted the warmth of blood, felt the thrill of the kill, proving that she lived. Until then, she waited in her darkness, sipping at death, decay, existence. Waiting, knowing her time to drink deeply would come.

Lack of Quorum
Elaine Pascale

The forensic scientist estimated that the victim had been alive when the dismemberment began. She claimed that the bites and scratches were from “a nonhuman mammal.”

The mortician was concerned that the prosthetics would be noticeable to the mourners. An open coffin had been insisted upon, which was unusual with damage to this extent. He believed he had seen these types of injuries before. He remembered being astounded that humans could inflict such harm on each other with only their bare hands.

The detective had repetitively walked a grid. He had looked up and down, he had combed the grass and used tweezers beneath the bark. It felt as if some supernatural force had inflicted implausible violence on the body and then disappeared without a trace.

The journalist had been warned to keep details from the public. She had no problem adhering to that counsel; the facts were so vague that there was very little to let slip.

The one thing they were in agreement on was the intent of the bloody utensils that had been left behind at the scene.

Salvation
RJ Meldrum

The hunter followed the tracks of the moose. He was way off the beaten track, but determined to make the kill. He had no concern for his own safety; he was the apex predator, the lord of the forest. Nothing could harm him.

There was a tangle of fallen logs in front of him. Keeping an eye on the prize, he climbed over the damp logs without paying attention to where he was placing his boots. He felt his feet start to slip. Unable to recover, he reached down to grab hold of the logs to steady himself. His weapon slipped and it discharged into his calf. He dropped like a stone. He lay on the ground, amongst the damp leaves and rotting, fallen trees. His leg was on fire, the pain emanating through his body. He tried to rise, but it was impossible. His leg wouldn’t take his weight. He considered his options. There was no cell phone signal, not this far out. He lived alone, so no-one would miss him. He realized he was in trouble. He cursed his luck, wishing he’d put the safety on. He looked to the sky, praying for his god, any god, to send deliverance.

Darkness fell. He heard movement, but couldn’t see the source. It had to be another hunter or perhaps a rescue team. His prayers had been answered.

It was a wolf. He laughed; it was definitely a miracle…of sorts. A left-handed answer to his prayers. God obviously had a sense of humor. Salvation was at hand.

Kitten Karma
Angela Yuriko Smith

The kitten watched the man come closer.

The Snatcher, she knew who he was. He trapped tough Toms in cages and they became helpless. He pulled mothers away from mewling kits and left the babies to starve. When The Snatcher got his hands on one of the Family, they were never seen again. The Family wasn’t happy.

She mewed to let him know she was there—a soft, velvet sound. Another human would have missed it but The Snatcher was listening for just such a sound. He stopped and turned toward her hiding place. He would find it. She was counting on him too.

He walked almost directly to her and knelt in the dry leaves to peer into the dark space in the dead wood. She mewed again, just to let him know she was there and followed with a loud purr. She wanted him to know she was happy to see him.

His face filled the opening between the fallen logs and he grinned. He was happy to see her too. Putting on his rough leather snatching gloves, he poked his hand into the dark, reaching. She backed up a little, tiny heart pounding in her chest. She mewed again, encouraging.

He was encouraged and he lay down in the detritus and thrust his arm in up to the elbow. She let his fingers graze her fur and she batted his hand to let him know how close she was. He adjusted his position and lunged for her… as expected.

The kitten jumped back as the metal teeth of the hidden trap snapped down on his wrist, breaking it. The boys that had set it earlier would be surprised to see what they caught. The Family was grateful for their help. They would be sure to leave some meat.

From Within
Kathleen McCluskey

The land beneath the giant oak held an ominous secret. The beings that dwelled deep in the ground often made their way to the surface. They delighted in causing mischief and spreading their particular type of chaos. The terrified forest gnomes knew to avoid the area at all costs. Their very lives depended on it. The beings from within enjoyed the tiny, sweet tidbits that the gnomes’ bodies afforded.

Fallen branches from the oak began to rumble; the fairies and pixies covered their ears; they knew that the inevitable was about to commence. Out from the ground the creatures emerged, gnashing their massive teeth and sniffing the air. They all put their heads back in unison and howled. Their large tusks glinted off of the dabbled sunlight as they moved through the forest. The thick, black hairs that extended out of their heads shook and rattled; creating a hissing sound that echoed through the forest. They began to flip over rocks and other debris in search of their favorite treat. Their large talons left deep gouges in the forest floor.

The leader smiled broadly when he flipped over a fallen log and discovered his prize; forest gnomes tried to flee in every direction. The beast lifted his thick paw and crushed four gnomes; blood squirted out from between his toes. He looked around and immediately began to eat the gooey remains of his find. He slurped and sucked down the pieces of sweetness; blood dripped off of his chin. A low guttural purr emerged from the leader. He licked his fingers and his whiskers twitched. He was satisfied with his find and made his way back to the mighty oak. There he sank back down into the nothingness until the next time to feed.

Rest Stop
AF Stewart

His footsteps snapped the brittle twigs and cracked the dry leaves littering the forest floor, the crunchy noise mixing with his panting breath. Sitting down on a rotting log to rest and wipe the sweat from his forehead, he gasped, lungs heaving. He couldn’t remember now why a walk in the woods seemed like a good idea.

Still, it was pretty, and the air fresher. A hint of pine lingered within a late summer breeze, masking the stench of decay from woodland detritus; above him, that tender undertone of wind rustled through the foliage. He closed his eyes and listened to the soft sound breaking the serene silence.

Before another set of footsteps snapped the twigs and cracked the leaves.

He turned, heard the bang of the gunshot too late, felt the hot slice of the bullet enter his brain and then nothing.

Nothing but bones in a shallow grave.

The Other Shoe

September 20, 2023September 5, 2023 ~ Marge Simon ~ 5 Comments

He was a big man, tall enough, and his shoulders could stand two bushels of grain. By day he worked the docks of a mighty river. He lived alone in a tin-roofed shack near the pier, avoided rum, spoke only when he had to, but that was before the last war. Now the river folk were gone and the storehouses along the river were dark and empty.

He sat on the bank, chewing a sassafras root. Once a frothy blue highway for barges and fishing boats, it was sluggish and rust colored. In fact, a perfect match for the shoe, the only thing left to remind him of her. He’d found it by the campfire, brought it to the spot where the river turned southward to the Gulf. On a whim, he’d stuck a few pathetic purple flowers in it. A token of their love? Not exactly.

Her name was Violet and she was the last woman on earth. In fact, as far as they knew, they were the last two people. All the food was gone. No surviving animals, no fish or birds. Even the vegetation was dying or poisonous. They were starving. He was a big man, a strong man, and he was very hungry.

Idly, he wondered what happened to her other shoe.

∼ Marge Simon

Remainder

September 13, 2023September 5, 2023 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 3 Comments

Gene looked at the photograph of his family. Death isn’t pure, he thought. It’s damn filthy. It chews and spits, leaving you half-digested until you eventually dissolve.

He watched the virus take them. Minions of quietus ravaged their bodies until souls departed through fevered brows. The infection killed them quickly. But it never let go. A collective consciousness still carried their undead frames. Shuffling feet and hands scraping against the boards nailed over the kitchen doorway were all he could hear anymore.

What little strength his mind retained had been used to pretend they weren’t there—trapped together, rotting away… But nothing remained in the world to divert his attention. He hadn’t seen another living person in weeks. He considered if he might be the last. In a way he hoped it were true. Then at least humanity would be unchained from the nightmare and could finally rest.

Guilt tightened his gut, more than pains of hunger. Why had he been spared? What made him immune? Was it punishment for some forgotten sin he committed? Maybe it was just shit luck. He preferred to assume it was only his misfortune; it made the most sense.

His eyes lazily rolled to the makeshift barrier keeping a ravenous, zombified family from eating him alive. He wondered how long it would hold; but realized it didn’t matter. Sure, he’d suffer an agonizing death if they broke through, but no one would ever know of it. He sat alone in a miniscule blip of time. Human life no longer held meaning. History had been erased and would never again be recorded. In a way, he didn’t even exist.

He found that to be a comforting thought. It settled his nerves, calmed his raging heart.

Fingertips released their grip. The picture of his family rested next to a shotgun on the table.

As a calm settled within, he picked up the gun. Peering into the box of shells to see how many were left, he made his choice.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

Dance Macabre

September 6, 2023November 25, 2023 ~ afstewart ~ 6 Comments

On certain nights, when mood and moon strike a perfect balance, things beyond actuality stir. Forces shift along the winding winds of autumn—the ones chasing indistinct half-whispers through forest leaves—before they settle. Where and when you can never be sure, but tonight a derelict house becomes the chosen place. An overgrown decrepit structure, a relic of eras forgotten or romanticized, it drips in an ideal ambience of uncanny echoes filtered through endless history.

An indistinguishable groan shudders through the bones of the house and a chill gust of air swirls tiny circles in its layers of dust, sliding down the moonlight streaming in from the broken windows. The breeze prances along the floor in time to heavy reverberating footsteps; another strange distortion in the sedentary grime of an empty hallway. A rustle of weighty wings follows the footsteps and a long black shadow creeps over the moonlight, as the doors to an abandoned ballroom creak open.

The silence of the next moments extend, waiting like a predator, until…

“It is time.”

The atmosphere sizzles with a hiss, an alteration in the dim light, and a blurring of mortal existence. A scent of sulphur morphs into the stench of decay and cigars welcoming the soft breath of something unseen. Slowly, an oozing green mist permeates the room’s stale air. The filmy haze squelches into diaphanous skeletal forms, transfiguring into recognizable shapes and limbs, giving substance to ghostly corpses. Ashes swirl scattered grey patterns across the floor, that now resounds with the click of heels and the squeak of leather shoes.

Brassy strains of music waft around the room, an orchestral waltz slightly out of tune, and laughter trails the melody, cackling from cracks and corners. As the ethereal instruments play, they dance with the clatter of bones and the swish of tattered gowns, sweeping the rotting decadence of unholy death in a morbid semblance of joy and art. Tirelessly they whirl, hour upon hour, far beyond the chime of the midnight clock, until the dawn pushes its tendrils into the sky breaking the spell.

Only then do they stop, sighs of unfulfilled longing swirling around the ballroom, before the revelry falls silent. Daylight skips across the floor from cracked windows and spectres morph back into mist as the ripple of death reclaims its own. Dark wings shiver the air and a black shadow cuts past the morning sunshine. Leaden footsteps echo down the hall until the dust settles into the quiet beginning of a new day.

~ A. F. Stewart

Crush

August 30, 2023August 20, 2023 ~ Miriam H. Harrison ~ 7 Comments

She pondered again how he might taste. It was a distracting thought, and the more she thought about it, the more loudly the subtle pulse in his throat seemed to beat. She nodded to all he said, but heard only the rhythm of his blood.

Could she still contain her hunger, or would this be the day when she sank her fangs into his throat? But that seemed too quick, too simple. Perhaps instead she could start at his chest. Peel back the skin and muscle, pop the ribs out of her way, pull his heart right from his body. She imagined how it would feel in her hand—a warm, wet weight to hold, to crush, to drink oh so deeply. Salty-sweet, perhaps. Thick and pulpy, certainly. She shuddered at the thought, the thrill, the thumping of his heart that beckoned her closer.

Even so, she sat. She sat, she nodded, she smiled. She continued as she always had. Reminding herself that however sweet he may be, her imaginings of him were sweeter still.

∼ Miriam H. Harrison

Be Careful What You Wish For

August 23, 2023August 20, 2023 ~ Richard Meldrum ~ 4 Comments

I entered the bar. The man in the booth motioned me over. I sat opposite him. He pushed a piece of paper across the table.

“Name, date of birth, address.”

I wrote down the details, then returned it.

“This her maiden name? And the address where she grew up? Before she knew you?”

“Yes.”

“Let me ask you one thing. Why can’t you just divorce her?”

“She’d take me to the cleaners. I have a girlfriend. She needs to go.”

“Do you want to know what’ll happen to her? I make the same offer to all my clients. Some do, some don’t.”

“Yes.”

“Look at my glass.”

He covered it with his hands. When he removed them, it’d disappeared.

“Voodoo. It isn’t just dolls.”

“Where did it go?”

“That’s the key. I sent it into the future.”

I didn’t believe him; the disappearing glass had been a trick. He was covering up the truth. I played along.

“Is that what you’ll do to her?”

“That’s the plan. But why do you think I needed the details from a time before she met you?”

“To find her in the past?”

I started to understand what he was suggesting, but I still didn’t believe him.

“I won’t deal with her in the present. I’ll return to the past, find her and send her to the future, just like I did with the glass. She’ll no longer exist in this timeline. You won’t be able to meet her. You won’t be able to marry her. The cops won’t come to your door, your family and friends won’t miss her. How can they miss someone they’ve never met?”

My face betrayed me.

“If you don’t believe me, leave. If you want rid of her, pay me.”

I decided. I paid, then rose to leave.

“One thing, I give no guarantees.”

“You said you’d get rid of her.”

“I will, but think about your relationship. All those moments you shared will be gone. She’ll be removed within the next hour. Decide. What I’m about to do cannot be undone.”

“I need to be free.”

“So be it.”

I left. I didn’t believe the story he’d told me, but then I thought, why ask for all those details about her? I decided it was a reassurance, to make me feel better when she disappeared. When he killed her.

I drove home, turning into the driveway of our five-bedroomed house. My law practice afforded us such luxury. The door opened and a strange man stood staring out at me.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“What are you doing in my house?”

“You must be lost; this is my home.”

I dug out my driving license. The address told me I lived in a poorer, working-class area of the city. I belatedly remembered my wife encouraging me to pursue law school, working two jobs to support us. I remembered her helping me study to pass the Bar exams. I remember telling her I couldn’t have done it without her. It seemed I’d been right.

∼ RJ Meldrum

The Smell

August 16, 2023January 4, 2024 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 6 Comments

“What’s that smell?” Ben asked.

Lydia inhaled deeply. “I don’t smell it.”

He stood and walked to her. “It’s you. It’s coming from you.” He sniffed the air around her. “Definitely you.”

“Thanks. Tell me more about how I stink.”

He lifted her arm and brought it to his nose. “It’s the shirt. The shirt stinks.”

She pulled her arm back, insulted. “I just bought this shirt.”

“Well, it smells…like you got it off a dead body.”

“I got it at the thrift shop. That one on Gulfspray.”

“Then it probably did come off a dead body.” He started to go to the kitchen but stopped in his tracks. “There isn’t a thrift store on Gulfspray. That’s a residential area.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Such a gaslighter. If there is no shop, then how did I get this shirt?”

He shrugged. “Smells kinda like you pulled it out of Satan’s ass.” He knew he was right about Gulfspray, he drove by it every day on his commute.

He looked at the shirt again. He had thought it was a red and brown tartan pattern; now it looked orange and tan. “You washed it right?”

“Of course, I washed it!”

“Well, it smells.” He whispered the next part, “And it changed colors.”

“I don’t smell it, you’re crazy.”

As Ben walked into the kitchen, he considered that he might be crazy. It wouldn’t be the first time that he had seen something, heard something, or sensed something that Lydia was oblivious to. He had never had an olfactory hallucination and he took medications for the others. Lydia preferred to live a pharmaceutical-free life and she sometimes disassociated to the point of disappearing. There were times when he would not know where she was or what she was doing and she would return, tight lipped and cementing psychic walls of privacy. He had learned to respect that, and he respected that their relationship was one of feast and famine in terms of intimacy. At the moment, he had little respect for someone calling him crazy or a gaslighter when they were seeing mirages in the form of thrift shops. “It’s in here now. The smell, it’s following me.”

“You’re crazy,” she repeated.

Crazy or not, the smell permeated the house despite the warfare enlisted. Ben tried incense, perfume, and sage. The windows and door were propped open. Nothing made an impact and Ben swore that he could taste the smell. It made it so that he had to skip dinner and that was unheard of for him.

That night, Ben dreamt of spoiled food, rotting carcasses, and noxious garbage dumps. Each hour brought an increase in the olfactory assault, and his mind conjured images in accompaniment.

When he woke, he found Lydia in front of the bathroom mirror, clad only in the shirt that now appeared to be purple and crimson. He rubbed his eyes, hoping to reset the colors, but it still appeared with different hues than the day before.

“You’re wearing that shirt again?”

“It’s my shirt.” She was standing at the bathroom sink, looking at her mouth in the mirror. She was sticking her tongue out as if a doctor were waiting with a tongue depressor.

“What’s wrong with your tongue?”

“nhuthin,” she replied, keeping the tongue on display.

Reading her body language, Ben went to make his coffee and give her some space. The sound of his ancient Keurig was overwhelmed by Lydia’s coughing. “You alright?” he called, bringing the cup of coffee close to his nose in the hopes of quelling the odor. It didn’t work and he was tempted to toss the coffee out and purchase a latte on the way to work, but those coffee pods were expensive, and he hated to waste one.

From the other room, Lydia’s coughs graduated to a throaty gag.

“Lyd? You ok?”

“Fine.” Her voice was raspy and phlegmy to the point of being difficult to listen to. In fact, it was almost the auditory version of the smell. Almost.

Once he was ready to leave for work, Ben gave Lydia a kiss on the forehead. As he pulled away, she whispered, “Spider tonsils.”

“What’s that, Lyd?”

She made eye contact, but the person behind the eyes was far away and Ben recognized this as his cue to exit. If he pressed, she would grow agitated, and her isolation would last longer than he was comfortable with.

She lowered her head and picked at the thread of a loose button. “Spider tonsils,” she repeated.

Ben wanted to ask which one of them was crazy now, but he knew that was insensitive to her very real mental health issues. Experience had taught him that she would snap out of it, and he was looking forward to putting in hours at the office as a respite from the odor.

When he returned home, there was no Lydia and no note. There was only the shirt, crumpled on the floor in the bathroom. It was damp and sticky.

The smell was as strong as ever, but the shirt was no longer the source. The shirt, now blue and green, had no odor at all.

He tracked the scent like a bloodhound. All he found for his troubles was an old candy wrapper and a large, long-legged spider weaving a fresh web in their closet. Without hesitation, he put the spider out of its misery.

Leaving the closet to start dinner, he realized that the smell had disappeared.

Ben ate alone and in peace. He made a plate for Lydia in case she returned hungry. He then showered, finding pleasure in the pleasant fragrances of his hygiene ritual. He was sure that Lydia would return home by the time he was ready for bed.

His instincts had proven wrong, and he slid beneath their scent-free sheets alone. He left one voice message and one text for Lydia but reasoned that more than that would look like he was not respecting her boundaries, and he knew that upset her. Now that his world was without noxious fumes, he could grant Lydia a great deal of grace.

The next morning, Ben pulled a shirt off the hanger in his closet. It was a shirt he had no recollection of buying. The tag was still on it, and it was from a thrift shop. Lydia must have bought it as a surprise for him. He would google the name of the store later, to find out where it was truly located.

Ben felt guilty that he had not given her the chance to give him the shirt; he had been so focused on obsessing over the invasive smell. When she returned, he would be sure to apologize.

This shirt did not smell. And it fit perfectly. He decided to work from home so that he could be there when Lydia returned. She was not answering her cell and it was unlike her to be out of contact for so long. Ben didn’t want to alarm her family, but he resolved to contact them if he hadn’t heard from her by lunch.

The thought of lunch made his stomach rumble, even though he had just eaten breakfast. He tried placating his appetite with a strong cup of coffee, but as he brought the mug to his lips, his stomach recoiled.

He dropped the mug, gagging as the fumes from the spilled coffee entered the small space.

As he cleaned up the mess he had made, he was overcome with a coughing fit. He coughed until his throat felt ragged. Then he gagged. It wasn’t nausea causing him to gag; there was something lodged in his throat.

Moving to the bathroom mirror, he opened his mouth and peered at his throat. Directly behind the uvula, there was a dark shadow. Ben made a low growl in his throat, seeing if the shadow would move. As he watched, a long, spindly spider leg crawled onto the back of his tongue.

He now knew what “spider tonsils” meant and he knew what had happened to Lydia.

∼ Elaine Pascale

Unlucky Moon

August 9, 2023July 26, 2023 ~ TheDamned ~ 5 Comments

“How am I always unlucky?”

The question was rhetorical. Topi was the one who wandered too far away. She hadn’t kept an eye on the sun. Now she better find shelter fast before the bacteria began to drift in the fertile dark.

Frank Sinatra’s voice crooned about flying to the moon from a deserted shop front. No one knew what powered the music behind the boards, but it had played the same tunes since as long as she had been here. She stopped and looked up at the night sky. A full moon would help a little but it had not yet risen.

Frank was out of touch. His song didn’t age well, she thought. No one would want to fly to a landfill. She scratched her forehead and one of her sensors snagged under a nail and came off.

She studied it in the dim light. A ruby red gem winked in the electric glow, like a drop of clear blood on her fingertip. She flicked it into the shop front. Frank could fly to the moon on that.

The sensor landed on the curb near a flower wrapped in lace and tissue paper. It was tied with a thin silver ribbon that would make a nice gift for her baby sister. Topi had never seen a rose except for illos on old signs. Roses were for the second-tier rich—too poor for Mars evac, but rich enough for the greenhouses. They never came out to risk the pollutions, let alone drop their roses. Yet here was a rose.

I should back off, run away… this is danger.

Topi thought of her baby sister carefully unfolding the fancy paper to find an even fancier ribbon. It would be the loveliest thing any of them had ever owned. Carefully, she moved toward the deserted flower. A sweetness in the air overcame the scent of asphalt and sick. It was like magic. Topi crouched, fingers inches away, undecided.

It was too suspicious to find a rose in the Squallys. Frank’s voice crooned through the shadows. “…in other words, please be true. In other words, I love you.” She could be lucky for once. She could believe in a miracle. Topi picked the rose up and held the silky petals to her skin, inhaling.

“I’m sorry…” The whisper came from a bundle of trash piled up against a broken guardrail. There was a woman sitting there, near buried in the refuse. She was hiding, but Topi could see her fancy gown shimmering white through the pile of greyed, collapsing cardboard.

“You’re rich—how are you here?” Topi clenched her fist around the flower. “This is your rose.” The petals were soft against her lips and she imagined how it must be in the greenhouses. She didn’t want to give it back.

“The filters failed,” said the woman. “We could smell the stink coming in. I panicked.” Her skin was dotted with pearl gems, each a glass drop of milk, defying gravity.

Topi stepped back in shock. “You’re sick! Your gems are white!” She threw the perfect rose at the woman in disgust and wiped her hands on the street. Grime was better than what this woman had. “Go back to your glass city!”

The woman vanished back into the pile of refuse, pulling a sheet of newsprint over her head. “We can’t. The filters failed…. trapped.” She said no more, only closed her eyes. Ttears shimmered silver in the dim light..

Topi turned and ran, rubbing her hands raw against the brick and concrete she passed. She stopped at every puddle and plunged her hands in, wiping her face. Then she realized… She couldn’t go home. Not to the children, not to her mother. Not until she knew if she had caught it.

She examined her wet and bleeding hands under a blinking street lamp. Most of the sensors had been scraped off during her panicked flight, but the few left winked up at her in reassuring hues of sapphire, ruby and jade.

She sighed in relief. She could stay away until dawn. The sun would burn away any bacteria drift she carried. If her gems stayed bright she could return home. She would never do anything so stupid again.

Then, against her knuckle, a pearlescent drop of glass and photoelectrics. It was milky and pale, colorless. Her hand shook. Her life was draining from her, each of her jewels would now wink out until she followed. “Please just be the moon’s reflection…”

She sat where she was, back against the wall and gazed upwards to the sky. There was no moon to be seen. “How am I always unlucky?…” Topi put her hands over her face, pushing her fingers into her eyes to stop the tears. There was no sense mourning the facts.

“I should have known better,” Topi felt calmer. “It was too lovely to be safe.” She inhaled as much air as her lungs could hold, leaned her head back and closed her eyes. A delicate wind brushed her skin, carrying remnants of Frank Sinatra with it, still crooning. Topi let her breath out and re-imagined the heady scent of rose. She wanted to carry it with her into the next world while her last breath escaped into this one. The rose may have even been worth this.

Overhead and unseen by the girl dying below, the moon finally rose.

∼ Angela Yuriko Smith

Bone Appetit

August 2, 2023July 21, 2023 ~ Ian Sputnik ~ 4 Comments

Jerone cut through another thick clump of vines with his machete. The going was slow and hard with the group of botanists only managing to move no more than ten miles a day. Their goal was to discover new species of plants, document them and collect samples. The area of the Amazon that they had selected was one of the least explored parts of the country.

His thoughts wandered off to the day before he had left home. He had boasted to his wife, Tanya, that by the end of the trip, there could well be a plant named after him. “Fame at last,” he declared. His wife just rolled her eyes and continued packing the last of his clothes. If she left it up to him, he’d arrive in Africa with a rucksack full of nothing more than odd socks and ski apparel.

The humidity was really starting to get to him. He stopped at the edge of a small stream and cupped a handful of cool water into his mouth. The local guides that they had hired went into an immediate panic. One gave him a hard slap on the back causing him to spit out the fluid. Another opened his canteen and made Jerone rinse his mouth out before he was ordered to spit that out as well. They stared uneasily at each other, muttered something in their local tongue and slowly continued their journey.

He awoke in the middle of the night and sat bolt-upright in his tent. The fizzing sensation in his mouth was akin to him having eaten an entire box of Alka-Seltzer. He put a finger in quickly to try and ascertain where the discomfort from coming from and pulled it back out twice as fast. The agony that he felt as he touched his teeth was mind-numbing.

Over the course of the next few days, the pain intensified. He woke up one morning choking. He leant forward and gagged. Three teeth shot from his mouth onto his sleeping bag. He picked one up and looked at it in shock. He couldn’t believe that it was one of his own, it was in such a bad state of decay, chipped and rough all over.

The following day the rest of the team arranged to have Jerone flown home. Whatever was ailing him needed proper medical attention, and fast. An infection caught in that part of the world would only worsen quickly due to the moist, hot environment.

Tanya sat in the consultation room as three doctors tried to explain the situation. Jerone had been placed in isolation for the three days since he had returned to the States. They took blood, bone, and tissue samples, circulated them to the top labs in the country and were now waiting for the results. Before leaving the hospital, she approached Jerone’s bed and, through the plastic curtain looked down lovingly at her husband. His face looked sunken as if it was a balloon slowly losing air. His eyes bulged from his sockets. She cried as she turned to leave.

Tanya visited every day for the next week witnessing his quick deterioration in real-time. Each hour he looked visibly worse.

One morning, at about 3am she was awoken by the ringing of the telephone. She knew who would be on the other end of the line before even picking it up.

She arrived at the hospital by cab and made her way to the isolation ward. Once there, she was met by a large group of medical staff. It appeared that his body, more specifically his bones were being eaten away from within, she was told. They tried to dissuade her from seeing her husband but she was determined to be with him at the end so she could say goodbye.

Looking at what remained of Jerone, Tanya collapsed in shock. What remained of her husband was nothing more than an empty sack of a human. With his bones almost entirely gone he was more akin to a puddle of blancmange than a person. It was as if with a zipper added, one might be able to wear him as a flesh suit.

The doctors explained that it seemed the ribs had been the last to be affected. When they finally were gone the weight of his flesh, muscle and skin would push down on his lungs and heart which would cause death. Unfortunately for Jerone, he was awake and aware of what was happening. The drugs that they had been using to put him into a chemically induced coma no longer seemed to work. His eyes darted about as he looked around the hospital room through the loose slits of skin which were once his eyelids. His face was very thin and contorted. Apart from his rib cage, he was almost flat, as if he’d been run over by a steamroller. He made gurgling sounds as he fought for breath as his mouth and throat collapsed in upon itself. The shape and contours of his brain were clearly visible beneath the skin of his head as there was no longer a skull to hide its form.

Within the next few hours, Jerone fought for every precious breath but inevitably died.

About three weeks after the funeral Tanya sat at the kitchen table drinking her coffee and read the morning paper. The service had been beautiful and was attended by so many friends, family, colleagues, and those who were just curious about the strange manner surrounding Jerone’s death. He had to be cremated due to medical concerns for the local area. The thought of that made her even sadder. They had promised that they would be buried alongside each other when their time came.

As she continued reading, she was drawn to a piece about a viral outbreak near their local airport. The symptoms were identical to that of her husband’s, and she knew it was the same affliction as they mentioned the small waterborne, wormlike creature responsible. She had already been advised that Jerone had succumbed to a calcium-eating organism that he had come into contact with in the Amazon, but now they had given it a name. She read it aloud ‘Jeronius Parasiticus’. She wondered whether her husband would have been proud of his new fame even though it wasn’t for having an exotic plant named after him.

∼ Ian Sputnik

When the Earth Broke

July 26, 2023July 19, 2023 ~ Nina D'Arcangela ~ 5 Comments

When the meteor hit, panic ensued. Coastal regions were swallowed by the seas, volcanoes erupted, the deserts cracked. The constant grainy mist that filled the air made breathing difficult for those unlucky enough to survive. Life wasn’t life anymore, it had become something else, something different. Once the pyroclastic dust settled and the oceans learned their new tides, civilization began anew. The world was no longer a blue marble with green pastures and white clouds; our new spectrum consisted of dingier, more sedate hues. The air took on an amber haze, the sky never as bright as it once was again. All water was now a sickly green, and crops, the few that remained, ripened to a less than appealing umber. People learned to live in trees with dense foliage. They built cities of wood that spanned the rainforests that overtook the planet with a fierce vengeance. Horses, cattle, pigs; most livestock faded from memory, seen now only in books. But humanity has a way.

Soon, we began to co-exist with and utilize what nature allowed. We befriended spiders that spun webs of safety below where we slept in exchange for small offerings – mostly females that couldn’t bear children, or men too weak to carry. We employed ants the size of creatures once known as bulls to till the meager fields and carry the food that still grew. Perhaps our greatest achievement, taming the flies that once annoyed. We saddled them, rode them to and fro. And for those fortunate enough to bond with a dragon, the ride that much sweeter. Their carnivorous nature allowed for a small portion of protein when one of their legion fell. The dragons, you see, were kind and giving, as long as man did not try to take.

∼ Nina D’Arcangela