Once is Enough

February 11, 2026February 1, 2026 ~ Richard Meldrum ~ 3 Comments

“Dr. Lansing, enough is enough. I called you here today because I want an update on progress. You are already three months late!”

“I apologize, Mr. Brown. This therapy is so novel, the development took more time than anticipated.”

“And more money than you originally asked for!”

Brown’s voice was shrill, commanding.

“I did warn you the original amount may not be enough. This research is highly illegal, I had to pay extra just to avoid any…complications.”

“I’m not sure you can justify all the extra money you got, but no matter. Only one thing matters now. Are you reporting success or failure?”

“Success. We’re ready.”

“The stem cells, they finally worked?”

“Yes, we had to combine them with a cocktail of drugs, and we finally got the mixture right.”

“So, you can bring me back?”

“In theory, yes.”

“Theory is good enough for me. When will you be ready to perform the procedure?”

Lansing nodded to the bag he carried.

“I have the first batch with me. I anticipated you’d want to proceed immediately.”

Brown’s eyes gleamed.

“You can do it here and now? You need no other equipment?”

“No, the test animals revived after the injection alone. No CPR or defibrillation was required. But before we go ahead, please accept my advice and don’t do it.”

“I didn’t fund your opinion. I funded your research.”

Lansing glanced down at the man in the wheelchair. William Brown. An ordinary name for an extraordinary man. He had been a millionaire by thirty, a billionaire by fifty. Now, at seventy-five he was confined to a wheelchair with crippling arthritis. Lansing felt no sympathy; by all accounts Brown had made his wealth by being an unpleasant, grasping bastard. He was no philanthropist, he kept all his money for himself. Brown read his expression.

“I know you dislike me, Lansing. I don’t care.”

Brown spoke to the other person in the room.

“Push me over to the window, Lucas.”

Lucas, Brown’s personal secretary, did as he was told. Brown stared out at the lush garden beyond.

“I am a rich man, Lansing. Richer than you can possibly imagine. I’ve dined with kings and emperors. I’ve visited nearly every country on earth. I’ve even flown in space. ”

He pushed the chair round to face Lansing.

“In short, Dr. Lansing, I’ve lived a long and fulfilling life. I’ve done everything I‘ve ever wanted to do. The only thing I haven’t done is died. I am not scared of dying, quite the contrary in fact. I want to experience it, but I want to come back so I can savor the sensation. I want to experience what it feels like to die by poisoning, by electrocution; by a dozen different methods. Your treatment, the one I have paid so much for, will bring me back, restored and rejuvenated, so I can die again and again.”

Lansing was unimpressed. He’d heard the same speech a dozen times over the years.

“As I said, Mr. Brown, it should work…in theory.”

“Then let’s proceed.”

Brown looked at his personal secretary.

“I need someone to do the deed. Lucas, I want you to strangle me.”

Lucas didn’t move. Brown frowned angrily.

“Lucas, I order you to kill me. Lansing will bring me back, there’s no need to worry.”

Lucas laid his hands round his employer’s scrawny neck.

“Now Lucas! Do it!”

Lucas squeezed.

Lansing watched with horror and disgust. Lucas’s face was set, showing no emotion. Brown was ecstatic, his visage convulsed with pain and pleasure.

It was over within minutes. Lucas removed his hands and Brown slumped in his chair. Lucas was visibly shaking. His pampered existence hadn’t prepared him for such an experience. He looked up at the doctor.

“Dr. Lansing, give him the injection. Bring him back.”

Lansing smiled, a bitter grimace. He opened his bag, revealing an empty interior.

“I can’t, Lucas. There never was any therapy. I funneled all the money into cancer research. What he wanted was both immoral and impossible. I chose to help people instead. Despite himself, his money went to a good cause.”

Lucas looked stunned.

“Don’t worry Lucas, I didn’t completely cheat him. He wanted to experience death, and now he has. But once is enough, Lucas. Once is enough.”

∼ RJ Meldrum

Black Friday

February 4, 2026December 20, 2025 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 5 Comments

“I heard the people up front say they were going to push; they said they were going to grab all the bags.” A small woman with thinning hair sniffed. “That’s not very Christian.”

“Consumerism’s not Christian,” a man with a trucker hat told her.

A woman pushing a baby stroller to the end of the line overheard them and added, “Sure it is. Y’all ever hear of Presbyterians?”

The queue wound from the front doors of the store through the parking lot and into the adjacent playground. Workers in purple uniforms patrolled to make sure the gathered people remained in line.

“No overtime for this. Ridiculous,” a worker growled. He readjusted his nametag. Tim, it said.

“Do we get one of those bags?” his coworker asked.

“I haven’t even seen the bags. Where do they keep them?” Tim asked.

His coworker shrugged. “I haven’t seen much of anything. This is as much of a grand opening for us as it is for them.”

Tim and the others in purple uniforms continued patrolling. It was still dark and nearly cold enough to be dangerous.

The line was for a gift bag full of secret items. Those waiting speculated about what treasures they might acquire if they were one of the first one hundred customers to enter the new store.

“It better be more than coupons,” a woman with teased hair and inflated lips said. “I didn’t get here in the middle of the night for coupons.” She stroked the dog she carried in her oversized purse.

“It can’t just be coupons,” a man with a neck tattoo replied. “They can’t promise gift bags and then put some paper in them.” He shook his head. “Gift. That implies an object from the store.”

After some moments of silence, someone asked, “How big are the bags anyway?”

“Huge. I saw some on TikTok.”

“Where on Tik Tok, though? I bet the bougie towns have the swaggy bags. We never have anything nice here.”

“It’s amazing they even opened a branch here.”

A man puffed on a cigarette and looked at the sky. “They haven’t put up the sign yet. No one would even know what this store is.”

“Only if you’re not on Facebook,” the woman with him said. “They’ve been promoting it on Facebook to the neighborhood group. They said they wanted us to get first dibs on the bags.”

A solitary light came on in the parking lot and the doors to the store creaked open.

“One at a time,” a worker ordered and the line advanced slowly.

“I smell something,” the woman with the smoking man said. Naturally, he smelled nothing.

“This used to be the site of the old rendering plant,” he informed her, stomping out his cigarette in preparation for entering the store. “There might be a lingering smell.”

The progression of the line picked up pace. The closer to the entrance, the stronger the smell. It was pungent and sweet and rotten at the same time.

“Wait,” a worker on a walkie talkie ordered. The doors to the store closed with one-third of the line inside.

“Was that it? Was that one hundred people?” someone asked.

“No, can’t be. I’ve been counting. That was nowhere near one hundred.”

The sound of a motor could be heard and people speculated that there must be issues with getting the heater running.

Before long, the doors creaked open again and the line pushed forward.

The smell nearly assaulted those closest to the doors.

The dog in the purse growled.

“I bet it’s only coupons anyway,” his owner said and left the line for her car.

The man behind her shrugged. “Good. More for the rest of us.”

People filed into the store one by one, thanks to the purple-shirted workers on patrol. No one shoved, no one grabbed.

Once inside, they realized the store was empty.

And dark.

The door creaked shut behind them.

Then, the floor opened.

∼ Elaine Pascale

The Gray Man

January 28, 2026January 25, 2026 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 4 Comments

He came frequently to the library. The gray man. He was of average height but above average weight. His hair had gone missing except around the edges. It was lighter than his skin, whose gray color looked bad. I thought him constantly on the verge of heart failure. But he never stopped coming.

When I first arrived at the university library, people spoke of the gray man with intense irritation. He was retired. An ex-professor. But he seemed not to have recognized the “ex.” I heard that he would pontificate and exasperate. He demanded services loudly. Staff members were sent scurrying after articles and tomes. And he never said, “thank you.” Always, as he made his slow way through the doors, the library folk watched with hooded eyes. No one liked him. Some said they wished he’d retired, “to Hell.”

But the gray man’s “loud” days were behind him by my time. I rarely saw him speak, and then only in a stale, asthmatic whisper. He came in, removed papers and volumes from the black satchel he habitually carried, and spread them on a table, rising ponderously on occasion to fetch more books and journals from the shelves. He scribbled notes on legal pads and transferred snippets from one to another. I never heard that he published an article from it, or even that he submitted anything. Perhaps he was working on a book, but his research materials were too eclectic to reveal a subject. The only demand I ever saw him make was to be left alone.

Slowly, the looks the staff gave the man changed: from irritation, to resignation, to tolerance, to pity. Eventually, they seemed not to see him at all. But I still saw him. He became as gray and ephemeral as a passing rain and I knew I could finally approach him. For the dead do not fear the dead.

∼ Charles Gramlich

Mechanica

January 21, 2026November 9, 2025 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 3 Comments

The toil of survival is the unending burden of maintenance and sacrifice; our most valuable asset. It is exchanged hand to hand, mouth to mouth, and with pen on paper. Orders handed down, given, and taken without resistance or complaint. One faulty piece, and the mechanical system stutters. Its heart feels the pain.

As do we all, as I now, reminiscing about hues of gray in my memory, prepare my own sacrifice. One unmarked and unspoken. The only hand in this deal is my own. It’s a plan I’ve designed for many cycles. One I’ve questioned again and again, but only to be certain it was right.

I ponder the Temple of Life, tubes miles long feeding what it houses. They snake through every neighborhood like tentacles reaching out to keep watch on what it creates. The piston strokes eternal, pumping the great apparatus with all it needs to keep its labor going. It cries out in steeled agony; the wailing echoes across our sprawling metropolis, a remembrance that without suffering, there can be no creation.

We, in our feeble flesh can only bow in awe of its awesome nature—our Mother, our God, our Giver of Animation, the perpetrator of reproduction. It’s the source of this docile throng I am a part of. The creator of an unending mediocrity content with existing only to sustain existence. Nothing more, nothing less.

My most private thoughts, those hidden deep in the night, led me astray from tradition. I looked into the obscured night sky and wondered what was behind the curtain of civilization blocking our view of it. What did those long before us see?

That was the first line in my plan. And as it evolved, I learned the architecture of destruction.

I maintained conformity throughout this process of inner transformation. I had to remain blended with the community, else I be liquidated as fuel for the societal engine. I walked with the pack, expression blank, while exploring the vivid thoughts unfolding in my mind. A new dawn arose in my heart. A rising light made known all the dreams and wonders that my hands could never touch. To have this knowledge is a blessing and a curse. I’m grateful for the gift of illumination, yet sigh with grief that it cannot exist outside the realm of fantasy. A true metamorphosis within the confines of this autonomous world would not suit its function.

There was only one conclusion I could come to…

So the blueprint in my mind continued. Its foundation was built from hopes and dreams, but as they weathered, I constructed over them with sorrow and despair. Never have these things occurred to me before. A mindless automaton, I filed in with the system in which I was birthed, right where I belonged. I could not see past the horizon; only the menial tasks I was assigned from the moment I came into this world occupied my mind. But now I am awakened, now I can see.

The great mechanism that produces our producers is an abomination. We have aligned to the point where no figureheads are needed, no leaders are required to lead a population of sheep. Some may call this utopia, the apex of achievement, with our vast cities which are living, breathing entities themselves, and the peaceful nature of our lives within them, speak to the eradication of conflict and strife. But are these things not part of what make life alive? Are they not the darkness to give light meaning?

To suckle on the ribbed feeding tube you’re given is to accept death before it is dealt.

As I sign this contract in my mind, I leave my place of rest, the only space I’m free to pursue these ideas. I notice how moist my palms are as I close the door behind me. My legs are weak as I enter the assemblage of others going where they are needed. But the choice has been made, the plan set in motion.

I’ll consume no more, give nothing else to the needless demand we have forced upon ourselves. We have enslaved ourselves to no one master, but the endless living mechanism that we keep alive, so that it may sustain us. It’s a symbiotic relationship with no future, it’s stalled, stunted, halted at this time we’ve been stranded in for countless ages. Our biological mastery of life itself has taken that very thing from us. We’ve grown our infrastructure, and its living mass has covered all land and sea. It is the great connector, the infallible supreme being that has stolen our very souls by nothing more than its inherent purpose.

As I approach a crossing, I travel left instead of right. My heart races as I fear even a subtle change will raise the alarm of any passerby. I’m where I don’t belong, where I’m not deemed needed by the many. I’m a gear turning the wrong direction.

But no one takes notice. They only continue marching in unison as intended. They allow my place in line just as compliantly as anything any of us have ever done. As I continue toward my ultimate and last destination, my blood boils with the thrill of deviancy. This trifling act of defiance, this willful alteration to the system awakens my heart ever more. My insides bloom with life. I feel the air against my face, the impact of my feet against the ground. My skin tingles with anticipation. This radical digression stimulates my being, spawning a rebirth in my core self. I want to grin in the splendor of change, but I must be diligent in my reserve. I mustn’t reveal this revelation. Not if I want to achieve the end of this terminal journey.

My last meal churns in my gut as I see the Temple of Life stabbing the horizon. Its monumental height dwarfs all which surrounds it. It was created to be the creator, it is the edifice to represent all we are, the face of our inhumanity. It was once an icon of glory in my singular thought, but now I see past it, now my eyes are focused, and my heart is open.

It is why I must do what I must do.

As I approach, the living, breathing Mechanica towers before me in its sickening configuration. Black, ribbed pipelines crawl up its sides in geometric patterns, veins carrying nutrients essential for its purpose. Its curved edges and snaking girders mock me in their asymmetrical symmetry. The entrance, a great black maw waiting for no one. There are no guards, no one enters or leaves this place. I walk in, an unchecked heretic among my people.

The Great Queen Mother hangs in the center of the chamber by shining black chains. A tangle of gargantuan pipes and wires extends from her head up into the darkness of the hollow spire above. Feeding tubes penetrate her massive abdomen. It expands and contracts in rhythmic motion as young are pushed from within. They’re placed on a conveyor, ready to be checked, marked, and processed. I look down at the chip in my arm and vaguely remember my youth. I was a child once, birthed from this very same place, the same Mother.

For the first time since my awakening, regret creeps up and holds me by the throat. Suddenly, I don’t want to commit to what I intended. I feel…affection for Queen Mother, my Mother.

Her eyes look down upon me, an expression of anguish warps her face. She begs for mercy. Although a new concept, no words are needed for me to understand compassion. I sigh, knowing now my intentions are more right than ever. She wants this. More than any of us ever could.

I nod to her in the only gesture I can summon as a goodbye, and step to the pipeline which gives her life. I wrap my arms around its slick surface and pull. It rattles slightly in its port. I take a deep breath, squeeze tight, and wrench it loose with every bit of will I have. It falls to the floor, its torn end pumping white ooze. The port left in her belly leaks bodily fluids, they mix and congeal into a sickly black oil. I weep as it begins to cover my feet.

The throb of the Great Machine quiets, the pumping slows its rhythm. Mother takes a long breath, hot steam mists from her vents, and her once eternal hum of life ebbs away forever.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

The Vengeance of His Evil

January 7, 2026December 28, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 2 Comments

Ted visited psychic surgeon Dr. Munstre Croon after relentless daily pressure headaches pounded the side and top of his head. Tad’s own doctor diagnosed stress and tension with possible depression and hypochondria “you don’t need a specialist,” she said.

“If you won’t help me,” Tad responded, “I’ll find my own cure. Pills aren’t the answer here.”

Sally, the janitor at Ellis and Company Insurance where Tad worked as supervisor, gave him Croon’s name. “This man’s a unique psychic healer.” she told him, “He will charge five thousand dollars cash, but he will solve all your ills.”

Tad wondered for a moment why Sally was being so nice. He always criticized her cleaning because she kept leaving half full wastebaskets all over the office and never scrubbed under the fridge. Tad gave her a written reprimand and announced that the next time she forgot to thoroughly sanitize the wall behind the couch she’d lose her job. “But thanks for the doctor tip,” he told her, “I haven’t tried the psychic angle, but I’ll do anything to get rid of this pain.”

Ellis and Company had hired Tad to get rid of all its unproductive employees so it could cut costs, and he’d been firing a lot of people. Nan, the old boss’s secretary was three months from retirement, but Tad dismissed her anyway, “you’re too set in your ways,” he said.

She pleaded and cried “I’ll lose my pension,” but Tad explained that the company couldn’t keep “dead wood.” She picked up all her family photos and ran crying from the room. Sally gave her a long hug and they whispered together. Tad thought “I’ll keep an eye on that janitor.”

Tad’s headache drilled into him as he sat in Dr. Croon’s office waiting for the healer. Eventually, the Doctor appeared, a very short round faced fellow with big sad eyes. “Sally said you have bad pain in the cranium,” he said, in a low and barely perceptible voice. “I’m sure she told you my cost.”

“I don’t care,” said Tad. “No one else will help me.” He was raking in the dough in his new position as assistant to the executive director, so had no problem passing the doctor five thousand dollars in small bills. “Cheap compared to the regular rip off artists,” he said.

“Let’s begin our assessment,” nodded the Doctor, as he carefully placed the bills in a paper bag, and then carefully placed both his hands on the sides of Tad’s head, as gently as he’d handled the money.

“Hmmm,” he whispered. “Please put on these glasses.”

He stepped back and handed his patient some fake-jewel encrusted specs from a gold case. Tad pulled them on.

“Jeezus,” he said. “What the hell is that?”

“Most glasses look out. These are looking in,” Dr. Croon said. “What do you see?”
“A giant grey and brown blob!”

“That’s your brain. What else do you perceive?”

“Wow, it’s pulsating… and there’s something on it!”

“Hmmm” Dr. Croon put his hand up to his client’s ear. “Now what?”
Tad peered closer with his reverse glasses and exclaimed “Something’s climbing around in there! It’s got suckers!” Tad gasped.

“Hah!” nodded Croon. “I knew it! Does it look like a devil?”

“Well, it’s got spines and omigod, it’s staring back at me… it’s got no eyes!” Tad ripped the glasses off as his head pounded.

“Yes,” said Dr. Croon. “You’re possessed with an extraordinary type of cancer.”

“Omigod, Doctor, how did that happen?”

“Well,” Croon took out a huge pair of curved forceps, at least two feet long. “Everyone’s born with a seed of evil, and while some extinguish that seed with good acts, others feed it with bad ones.” He clicked the forceps. “Do you want me to take the demon out?”

“Oh, indeed!”

“The tumour has grown very large,” Dr. Croon concluded. “You must have done a lot of bad things.”

Tad thought of all the hard decisions he had to make in his life. “A man needs to be tough to succeed,” he thought. “Sometimes he has to be ruthless.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have disowned my son,” Tad told the doctor, “but he did marry trash.” As if in response, needle like agony squeezed its way through his eyeballs, and Tad thought of the demon sucking his brain. “Doctor,” he moaned. “I want this to stop.”

“Well,” replied Dr. Croon. “Then we should go ahead with the operation?”

“Certainly,” Tad nodded as enthusiastically as he could.

“Sit right there.”

Dr. Croon took his giant forceps and stuck the ends inside each of Tad’s ears. The forceps fitted neatly over Tad’s head, and Croon moved the points further in. “Hmmm,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen such a huge devil tumour.” He adjusted his tool and tapped the forceps on the table to remove the ear wax. “In order for this method to succeed,” he explained, “You must tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done; get it out there, and the demon will show itself”

Tad thought of all the rotten lies he’d told, all the firings, all the foreclosures and property seizures he’d ordered when he ran a loan company, but those weren’t the worst things. Tad wasn’t sure he should tell Dr. Croon, but he wanted the pain to end.

“I killed a man,” Tad said. “In the South African jungle, when I served in the army twenty-five years ago; he was injured, and his wound became badly infected.”

“He was one of yours?”

“Yes. I was the patrol sergeant when this stupid guy was holding us back from getting out of there, moaning and crying, he acted like such a pussy. It was gangrene, sure, but he endangered everybody with his noise.”

“So you killed him?”

“I strangled him in secret away from the others. It had to be done. The enemy might hear him and discover our position. Also, we were out of morphine.”

“Well,” the Doctor frowned and rubbed his round stubbly chin. “That fellow is the main demon in your head right now; it’s your worst sin, fed huge by all the others.”

He adjusted the forceps and commanded “Put on the glasses.”

Tad lifted his specs.

“See how fat that sin is.” Dr. Croon insisted.

Tad gasped, witnessing the living tumour behind his eyes, and perceiving the demon’s attached suckers pulsating on his brain. The devil twisted its horny head, showing hollow skull bones and the demon face like the soldier Tad killed, mouth slack jawed in the moment of death. Tad saw huge growths and lumps pulsating all over the demon, and the being’s huge gut “all your other sins are stuffed into it,” said Dr. Croon. “It’s feeding now. A good time to pull him out.”

“Get it outta me!” Tad yelled. “This thing’s a f….. parasite!”

“We will,” said Dr. Croon. “Hang on, Tad!”

The forceps moved in, and through the reverse specs, Tad saw the steel pushing; he screamed as the force points jerked and pierced the devil in his brain. He screamed again and the devil screamed too as liquid and chunks of rancid meat poured out of Tad’s ears. He felt the gushing and pouring, an overwhelming sulphur stench, and an immense immediate pain free relief, like the lancing of a boil. He yanked off the glasses. “What in the name of God?” he yelled.

In front of him, a demon formed from the liquid rushing from Tad’s ears. It twisted and molded itself into human shape right there in Croon’s office, and it looked exactly like Tad.

“There’s your devil,” said Dr. Croon, as the coal-eyed stinking demon snarled and leaped towards Tad’s throat. “And it’s coming for you.”

Tad writhed as the demon pushed into him completely, forcing all its matter back inside Tad’s body. Tad convulsed for the last time and his features shimmered back to normal, as if nothing had ever been cast out.

Dr. Croon pulled out his smart phone and called Sally the janitor.

“Hey, Sally,” he announced. “This Tad guy seems to have had a stroke or something like that in my office.” He looked at the paper bag full of money on his desk and said “I’m giving you a discount. You don’t have to pay for the removal of the body, the police will do that for free. I’m calling them now.”

Dr. Croon knew it was a bit of a risk, having the police involved, but Tad looked peaceful there lying with one hand over his heart; the Coroner’s report would diagnose a burst aneurism. Croon picked the jewel encrusted spectacles off the floor, carefully examined the lenses under the office’s fluorescent lights, and secured them back in the gold box.

∼ Harrison Kim

The Hunter’s Heart

December 3, 2025November 30, 2025 ~ Miriam H. Harrison ~ 3 Comments

They told tales of her heart. They said she was a wild woman, a hunter, living off of the flesh of her traps. In life, she was little more than a dark spectre moving in fleeting glimpses at the edge of village life. In death, her sightings were all the more thrilling, her tales all the more chilling.

No one quite agreed how she died. Some said it was her own traps that caught her, leaving her prey to the appetites of the wild. Some said it was a human beast that preyed upon her, a lover turned wild by her feral influence. Still others said it was her own dark dealings, dues collected on devilish debts. Yet every story told of her heart: of it beating, even now, out in the shadows of the trees.

He had heard the tales. He had scoffed, yet also wondered. And now, out among the trees and darkness, the stories came back to him. The stories, and the sound. The pulsing thump-thump that seemed to come from all around. From the shadows. From the very trees. Steady, but growing louder. He felt the fear of prey, felt the dreadful certainty of a hunter drawing near. He stood frozen, as though stillness would save him.

But when the pace quickened, he knew too well that the hunt was on.

∼ Miriam H. Harrison

No Madonna

October 15, 2025August 27, 2025 ~ Marge Simon ~ 4 Comments

At sunset she serves herself with a candle on an oaken tray, a glass of wine, a plate of fruit. As she eats, she flips through an album. It contains her trials, loves and tribulations in photographs. There is the damask tablecloth from Surrey, embroidered towels, silver spoons; that certain green silk dress, a size too small she wore for King Henry ll’s ball … Melmac dishes from the sixties, the kind a gypsy could afford, they never broke when thrown … the dark-haired boy with smoky eyes, (she made him happy for a time, until her needs got in the way) … a shredded ticket to Belize with Sven, who never understood a word but never did that matter, at the time. One last sleigh ride in snowy Switzerland. Green yarn from a knitted hat. That sad faced man with the cowboy hat, and the older gentleman, the one she wed, both cattlemen and rich, back in the day. A columbine, pressed in wax paper. The lady smiles, having rekindled memories of her many passions. She blots her lips, wipes her fangs with a clean blue napkin.

∼ Marge Simon

Let It In

October 1, 2025September 20, 2025 ~ afstewart ~ 7 Comments

Awake in my bed, I embrace the oppression of the silence, that moment, not at midnight, but before dawn when the night struggles to remain. It presses against your skin, tangibly scratching at the surface of my being. A smell engulfs me, not the stench of old houses, moldy, stale, but the bitter, smoky scent of lightning in summer.
I wait for it, an unearthly presence constraining at the edges of nothing, an impervious void lingering behind the smell. It murmurs cryptic words, weaves unfathomable visions, its existence liberating fear and solace, like the icy touch of death for a terminal patient.
Sometimes I fight against it; more often I concede, accepting its supremacy over my mind. I squirm as it wiggles inside my brain, excising parts of my existence with surgical precision. Yet, I feel free afterward, and my burdens of conscience, of benevolence, vanish.
With the light of day I function as I was, but I am changed.
Hour by hour, day by day, I become…detached.

Yesterday, my perception altered.
It granted me the gift to discern its reality.
It is here.
My home is its conduit.
Slime oozes through the wall cracks, past the floorboards, thick black goop painting my house in shades of the void. A physical manifestation of my entity, cold to the touch, and pulsing with a rhythmic heartbeat. It is my connection, my lifeline. Alive, subsuming, struggling to enter our world.
In response to the cadence, my blood roars, energy surging deep inside my veins, my thoughts explode in a kaleidoscope of radiance and colour, while a lullaby of starfire sings in my ears. And still no outward sign. I still smile and serve breakfast to my oblivious family.
They used to be my world. A husband and two children.
No longer.
I feel nothing…not as they die, not as I feed their blood and meat to the slime.
Not as I watch the black ooze grow, invading, slithering inside this empty house.
Not as it embraces me, unravels my flesh and drinks my blood.
I welcome the pain, the promise.
We will be reborn as one.

~ A. F. Stewart

Natural Inhumation

September 24, 2025September 20, 2025 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 4 Comments

The rolling landscape extended beyond sight in all directions. The emptiness engulfed me in insignificance. This dead world I found myself on was as lonely as I. The howl of the constant wind was my only companion, and this planet was accompanied by a dying star that would one day stop sharing its warmth.

Tumultuous rumbles shook the ground. My compass pinned it south, so I headed north, away from whatever force caused the terrifying shakes. My footprints were swiftly erased by the constant gusts of sandy air. I mentally weighed how I might find my way back to the ship if I went too far, but disregarded those thoughts when I remembered there would be no reason to go back. It was irreparably damaged. I was stranded with no hope of rescue.

I knew this place was where my journey ended. Somewhere on this barren world my corpse would lay with no one to bury it. The distress call would eventually reach home, but by the time it did, it wouldn’t matter—the flesh will have rotted from my bones.

I almost wished for a crack in my visor, a tear in my suit, then at least the scythe would greet me with haste. But I had plenty of oxygen, I’d waste away before I suffocated.

I looked behind me every time the ground quaked. Despite my walking in the opposite direction, the vibration grew stronger. I could feel a violent power in the distance, something I didn’t want to be near. I supposed it didn’t matter, I’d meet my end here one way or another. But fear is the great motivator, it pushes one to survive even when there is no hope to be had. So I walked on.

Soon, daylight receded and the vast abyss of unreachable stars yawned above. I’d never felt so desolate and alone, never so meaningless and fleeting. Madness crept into my skull and began wrapping its fingers around my fading mind. Logic and training would soon fail me, I’d watch them fall with relief. They served me no more, not in this cursed place.

The next quake hit with ferocious tremors, its origin no longer beyond sight. The ground opened in front of me, sand poured in as the hole grew larger. Terror struck and slunk behind by back like the coward I was, fear wouldn’t even allow me to run.

As the sand began to move beneath my feet, I welcomed the swifter ending it would bring. This world would consume me. At least my miserable corpse would be buried after all.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

Reindeer Antlers

September 3, 2025October 12, 2025 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 5 Comments

“Myrna, wait!”

The old woman heard a familiar voice behind her, yet she continued to weave her way through the crowded parking lot to her car.

“You forgot your lemon.” Cheryl sounded much closer than she had before. Myrna silently cursed her frail legs and the fact that she had to move slowly to avoid falls. Her doctors warned her that at her age falls could be deadly. She believed that at her age most everything was deadly.

Myrna knew she could no longer ignore Cheryl. “I have no need for that or for you,” she spat. Literally. Droplets of saliva shot from her dentures which sat awkwardly in her mouth. She had lost weight recently, despite having a healthy appetite and, at 85, weight loss did not herald the joy it had in her 30s.

Cheryl stepped in front of Myrna, crossing her arms and examining her in a way that Myrna hated. All younger women gave her the same expression now: a sour look mixed with sympathy. “Did I do something to offend you? I try to be helpful to everyone in the neighborhood.” Cheryl smiled around her perfect teeth and straightened her hair beside her wrinkle-free brow. “My grandparents taught me that ‘we rise by lifting others’ and I have always lived by that.”

Cheryl’s smugness infuriated Myrna. Cheryl’s smugness and all that she represented—women who felt they were better than Myrna because they had careers and educations and advantages that came from being young in a time period which allowed for such things. “You humiliated me!”

“Humiliated?” Cheryl looked confused. “When? How?”

Myrna felt her cheeks burn. She thought back to the day when she had been walking with a friend and they had passed Cheryl’s house. Cheryl had been in her yard, seemingly watering plants, even though her hose was not turned on. “You…you…you made reindeer antlers at me!”

The confusion remained on Cheryl’s face. “Reindeer antlers?”

“Yes.” Myrna placed one of her thumbs against her temple and raised her second and last fingers. “Like this.”

Cheryl tilted her head, looking at Myrna quizzically. “My hands were just like yours? At the temple like that?”

“Yes, exactly like that.”

“Show me again, where were they?”

“Here!” Myrna put her hand at the side of her head.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely!”

“They weren’t…here?” Cheryl’s hand moved quickly. Myrna felt a lightning bolt of pain shoot across her forehead. Then she felt nothing at all.

***

We rise by lifting others…we rise by lifting others…we lift others to you, oh ancient one…

Myrna could hear voices chanting. Were they talking to her? She tried to rub her forehead but found that her arms were bound. The voices continued to talk about lifting and she felt the air move around her. Her stomach dropped as it had when she had ridden the old wooden roller coaster at the beach.

Myrna opened her eyes to discover that she was tied, crucifix style, to upright wooden pallets. She had no idea where she was. All she knew was that she was in a cavernous concrete room, like a warehouse.

We rise by lifting others…accept the sacrifice at our hands, oh ancient one…

Myrna turned her head to see an old man beside her. She recognized him; he was often at the pharmacy when she was picking up her medication. They had exchanged complaints seasoned with humor about the plethora of pills they needed to wake up each morning. They had compared aches and pains and laughed at how old age had snuck up on them. No complaints or pleasantries would come from this man’s mouth again, as his throat had been slit and blood poured from it as if from a garden hose.

Garden hose…Myrna remembered that she had been talking to Cheryl in the parking lot. As her vision cleared, she could perceive the chanting people. They wore robes that covered their faces and bodies, only their hands were exposed. They caught the old man’s blood in chalices and then poured the blood into a golden tub in front of Cheryl. It was clear they had been addressing Cheryl; she was the ancient one.

Myrna watched as Cheryl rubbed the old man’s blood into her skin. With each application, her skin appeared younger and more vibrant.

“Better than Botox,” Cheryl said, smiling with her wrinkle-free lips.

Myrna gasped, which garnered Cheryl’s attention. “My old friend…but still younger than me,” Cheryl laughed.

That makes no sense, Myrna thought, as she tested the ropes that bound her arms. Even if she were still a young woman, she would not have been able to fight her way free from the pallet.

Cheryl pointed a manicured finger at Myrna. “These wrinkles appeared in the short time I spent talking to her.” Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Normally one sacrifice would be enough, but because she rambled on and on, I have to make it two.”

“Yes, exalted one,” the robe wearers chanted.

Rambled on? “But you, you did something to me!” Myrna tried to remember what happened in the parking lot. Instead her mind went back to the day she had encountered Cheryl on her walk. She realized that she walked by Cheryl’s house often. She realized she had walked by Cheryl’s house for years, maybe twenty years, yet the woman looked no older than when they had met. “You…you made those reindeer antlers,” Myrna spat, not knowing what else to say. Fear had overtaken her. She did not want to meet the same conclusion as the man from the pharmacy.

“’We rise by lifting others’,” the devotees chanted. They lifted Myrna higher, tilting the pallet so that she was bent over a large bucket.

“Antlers?” Cheryl laughed. “Those aren’t antlers, they’re horns. As in devil horns.”

One acolyte produced a large knife and Myrna screamed.

Cheryl tsked. “That’s the problem with this younger generation, they never know when to be quiet.” She rubbed blood into her décolletage. “And when to keep their copious complaints to themselves.” Her smile grew wide. “As I said, ‘I try to be helpful to everyone in the neighborhood.’ I was just returning your lemon. If you had simply taken it then…we wouldn’t be here.”

∼ Elaine Pascale