Toby has been obsessed with squid since we were seven. Said he liked the way ‘cephalopod’ felt in his mouth. I liked the way it squelched through his gap teeth and fell off his lips with a lisping splash. Birds of the sea, he said. I tried to tell him about penguins, but even then…
Tag: Locked
Posts that are for Patreon’s only.
“Some Seeds Only Bloom After Burning” by Lindsay King-Miller
In the wildfire-ravaged summer, everything disappears behind a haze of smoke: first the sun, then the mountains on the horizon, and then the women. They leave at night or at high noon, following the smell of smoke and the currents in their own blood. Something unnameable carries them toward the hills. In absentia, the missing…
“Shoe Leather” by Edmund Schluessel
Benny came to the city and he’s looking for work. He’s got good strong legs and a straight back and he walks the streets tirelessly, stopping in for every Help Wanted sign. He hobbles over cobbles and clops down the sidewalk and he comes home to his dog, tired, dog-tired, oh so tired ‘cause his…
“Vanishing” by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez
This story never happens to anyone we know. It’s something passed along, something heard by a friend of a friend. In most versions, it’s not something that happens here. A woman stands at what she thought was her motel door and doesn’t recognize the number. At first, she brushes away the first tingle, light as…
“Eating Bees From The Ass Of God” by Joe Koch, with Joseph Bouthiette Jr.
The old man bends over, bearing a sphincter like the eye of Horus, unblinking. An empty cyclopean gaze surrounded by puckers and hairs. You don’t notice the fragrance. It’s the usual antiseptic. The previous day’s fast combined with laboratory protocols render the client’s anal canal sterile. You have no qualms about the efficacy of the…