Issue 4
April 2025
Genre Society
The
The Genre Society
Issue 4 April 2025 Published by Whitney Mcclelland Cover art "A Portal" created By Janina Aza Karpinska
Image Credit: KELLEPICS from pixabay, Josue Velasquez from Pexels, PhotoVision from pixabay, Pezibear from pixabay
Body text
The content provided in The Genre Society is intended for literary and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed in the articles, stories, poems, and other content are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Genre Society, its editors, or its staff. All stories, poems, and other creative works published in The Genre Society are works of fiction unless explicitly stated otherwise. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the authors' imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All content published in The Genre Society is the intellectual property of the respective authors. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to The Genre Society and the respective authors with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. The Genre Society assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content of the magazine. The information contained in the magazine is provided on an "as is" basis with no guarantees of completeness, accuracy, usefulness, or timeliness. The Genre Society reserves the right to update or change this disclaimer at any time without prior notice. Any changes will be effective immediately upon posting to the website or magazine. For any questions about this disclaimer or the content in The Genre Society, please contact us at submissions@thegenresociety.com or visit www.thegenresociety.com. All images obtained via Unsplash. Magazine designed and published through Marq.
Some content in The Genre Society may contain mature themes or language that may not be suitable for all readers. Reader discretion is advised.
Table of Contents
Letter From the Editor ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Poetry Magnetic Fields...................................................................................................................................................... 8 Short Skirts and Tank Tops.................................................................................................................................... 8 Thoughts................................................................................................................................................................ 9 Fabrice Poussin Ghosts................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Here I Go Again..................................................................................................................................................... 11 Amelia Numa-Hopkins They're Coming After You...................................................................................................................................... 12 Cryogenic Man...................................................................................................................................................... 13 Your Classmate .................................................................................................................................................... 13 John Grey Dabbling Debauchee............................................................................................................................................ 14 The Grey................................................................................................................................................................ 15 Swirling Ache......................................................................................................................................................... 15 Sean McCormick Junk Mail............................................................................................................................................................... 16 Service................................................................................................................................................................... 17 Dishwasher........................................................................................................................................................... 18 Stephen Joffe Fiction Metamorphosis ................................................................................................................................................... 19 Amy Allison Long Distance Call ............................................................................................................................................... 22 David Wesley Hill You Bet Your Life................................................................................................................................................... 25 Derrick Webber The Dragon's Breath............................................................................................................................................. 26 Douglas MacKevett Mise en Place ....................................................................................................................................................... 28 L.S. Kunz You Are What You Eat .......................................................................................................................................... 37 Lia Matthew Brown The Summer Bullet .............................................................................................................................................. 47 Paul O'Neill Body text
My animals! Ralph the dog, Blu the sphynx, and Mungo the bengal.
Greetings Genre Lovers!
Letter from the Editor
Wowie! What an insane spring! Finishing my creative thesis for grad school has been kicking my butt but it's almost over! "April is the crulest month," T.S. Eliot wrote. This has been a crazy month. Between my house having to get entierly repiped to finishing my thesis, to preparing students for state testing, this month has been insane. But things are being checked off the 'todo' list. It feels good to do these things. We must do difficult things in order to grow, or something like that. Who am I to say? This year was my quarter life crisis birthday. Time has no choice but to fly and push us along with it. Anyways, I am perpetually exhausted and yet also feel I have hit somewhat of a stride. I have a tendancy to stumble, and I have a lot this year, but the stride isn't broken. I was walking with my dog, Ralph. I'll include a picture here of him, for you. But I was walking with him and he was pulling his leash and it frustrates me but I tried walking faster and keeping up and maybe this is how I have to go about life too. Time is pushing me forward and I just need to wake up and walk faster. I really have been happier recently. Living alone (well, not technically alone because I have my two cats– Mungo and Blu– and Ralph) has been good and bad. But I've made some good friends recently. Having several hobbies is nice too. All my nails have broken on my left hand, which means I can play ukulele again, and I have been. It's cool how my fingers still remember how to play and move on the frets and I remember these songs I used to play like five years ago. I haven't played recently, but it has felt so nice to pick it back up. If you are still reading this, here's what I think. I'm going to start writing these like actual letters. I've been journaling a lot, and I think that's what this can be too. My thoughts are weird and I hope you don't mind but hey, you're the one reading the magazine called The Genre Society. Nevermind that I'm the one making it. Distracting myself with this magazine has been nice. I love reading through the submissions and immersive myself in wacky, insane worlds I could have never dreamt up myself. I think that's my favorite thing about creating this magazine. It keeps my creative juices flowing, keeps me on my toes, and I get so much joy accepting pieces and publishing authors. Thank you again for reading and enjoy, Genre Lovers, -Whitney McClelland Editor and Publisher
Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.
Thoughts I saw her turn to her left; by what need I ponder, was the Canadian Goose motivated, what thought led her to alter so the common unraveling of her morning? On the usual trail, two deer sauntered unconcerned at first as they guessed the shadow of another humanoid disturbing their day they glanced here and there and at each other; why did they run without warning? Frolicking from tree to tree playful squirrels engaged in a seemingly endless chase, what plans do they have for the weekend as they hop around the Chevys and the Fords parked haphazardly in their private realm? What of the great killer of men a giant grizzly laughing with her cubs; does she recall the months in deep sleep, what dreams did she have then in the solitude of her den? What are the thoughts of those lively creatures whose world we steal a little more every day without remorse what do they read in our souls as we ignore the sadness in their eyes?
Magnetic Fields You are light in tense darkness a shining realm made for the weary a magnet the size of galaxies. You take another step into the bright hall a daily destiny awaits you a mile away an escape to what may be too great a joy. If only your passion could be tethered imprisoned in a country so large it could be home to several worlds. For the pull is so strong try as he may he remains helpless as he waves one last time. Short Skirts and Tank Tops Women boasting the legs of goddesses the budding voluptuousness of young mothers yet little girls wide-eyed in tomorrow’s headlights. Danger lurks at dusk as they saunter the safe walkways of academe glad for the carefree days still ahead. They watch, they listen, they laugh those giggly sounds only they know to make pearly skin under the first touch of powder. Immortalized in the halls of knowledge their steps echo in the delighted soul these exceptional creatures so delicate.
Poetry by Fabrice Poussin
Poetry by Amelia Numa-Hopkins
Ghosts There were ghosts in my nursery That raised me. They were the uninvited guests From parental pasts, Slipping past them in unguarded moments To re-enact scenes From another time In my family theatre, To repeat tragedies From generations before.
Amelia Numa-Hopkins lives in London. The student loan company have her on record as a PhD student of psychoanalysis, her uncle is convinced she’s a writer, and her mum thinks she laughs too loud. Amelia just knows she’s interested in this world and the people in it.
Here I go again Well, here I go again, I’ll cry in the shower and drown in my bedsheets Then come up for air Gasping. I didn’t mean to inherit my father’s ups and downs And leave you hanging in the balance But let’s call a noose a noose. Here I go again. I’ll burn the house down around me Strangle myself with the smoke Make a bed out of ash and I can’t sleep in it I’ll get up, Eventually. I didn’t mean to stop watering the plants I wanted to see if they could survive without me They’re probably better off. Here I go again, I’ll make myself sick swallowing resentment Until it spills from my mouth And I choke on my intestines I’ll stop eating, Some day. I didn’t mean to let you down I’d just prefer to be crushed, Under the weight of what I’m carrying Than to keep carrying it. Here I go again, I’ll throw a party for my younger self Before I was a girl Around 3 or 4 When I could still play shirtless in the summer I’ll catch her just before the candles And tell her life gets better She laughs at me ‘You liar’ Well, here I go again.
Poetry by John Grey
Cryogenic Man Now it is clear to me that I am unfrozen, and the eyes, the mouth, the arms, the legs, at my disposal are all mine, that wherever I go, whatever I do, I leave myself open to the poking and prodding of everyone from lab nerds to strangers on the street, and tears will form from the ooze of something I remember, maybe triggered by a wind that feels no different, or pebbles, just as round, just as cool, when resting on the palm, and I can never return to my life where last I left it, for I’ve skipped generations, time moving on in my absence, with endless entrances, endless departures, I can only say, I miss you so much Anna Rachel Daveare and I do not deserve this.
They're Coming After You You run terrified from the window’s cry, scramble your egg-shape down a dark path of back streets, leave a salt trail, fallout from your body’s churlish anatomy, of serried rhythm and blotchy content. Under gleaming star-tent, you are the black hole anomaly, wretched missing pages from the book of what could possibly be, reflected by brick but invisible in glass, claws of red, eyes as scratched as old vinyl, stubble like rat’s teeth - if a heart at all, then it must be held prisoner. You avoid what you fear – the lovers, the children – as you retreat to some moth-hole where you dig deep in the dust. You happen in a place where the law is big-booted, helicopters spin razor blades, faceless tanks jam all escape routes, and what looks most like the hunter is hunted most of all.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, City Brink and Tenth Muse. Latest books, “Subject Matters”,” Between Two Fires” and “Covert” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Hawaii Pacific Review, Amazing Stories and Cantos.
Your Classmate He has a tattoo. Not on his arm or his leg or his chest but right across his brow. And it’s not of a butterfly, a superhero or his favorite girl but a number – 666. During zoology lab, you cut up a frog together. You make copious notes. He waves his arms over the amphibian corpse and intones in a strange language. What to you is dissection, to him is sacrifice.
The Grey I remember the inside of the schoolhouse where we met so many years ago. On a cold autumn night, stuck from chance’d snow. You were wearing those little blue shoes and, I think, that little black bow. your nose was bright red from that chilling grey snow. I could see your breath’s fog, and I wished it close to mine. I forgot that I was looking staring for, likely, too long a time. The moment went, when our eyes met, and the fog stopped all at once. “All clear”, the tall one said, and so So went the months. And now, I am, with memories, of just that little time. and when the day is grey again, I turn to little rhymes. And ask myself, as one does: What if that day had never shined? Swirling Ache When I knew the path to stop: Swirling ache at summer’s stalk, the misty pine, a dew’d drop, resting on the knuckle’s top. Salted hands, freckled tongues, boney knees, (the usual suspects) And all the while a guiltless fire crowed: The hurt is not enough I wish to join the other side The hurt is not enough. I wish our fathers hadn’t lied: The hurt is not enough. Together in our coarsest lies, Protected from the rough.
Poetry by Sean McCormick
Sean McCormick (He/Him) is a writer from Houston, Texas who received his BA in English at Rice University. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his cat, Poocha.
Dabbling Debauchee Just off the coast, Of the dull shores of temperance, Lies sandbar’s purchase: With sweet yellow sand And soft blue surface. Lightly there I tread, weary of what’s swept, carefully picking out: light, measured step. For a riptide threatens With hot, inviting breath. To pull the daring, uncaring, to its sweet, dark depths.
Poetry by Stephen Joffe
SERVICE twenty six daisy oysters on a black bus tray soaking in the tropic heat of a dish pit; i take one, unadorned cutting my lip on its frayed edge: on this rough & rutted life i leave slipshod, only to return unnoticed. forgoing the simple pleasures of a soul deferred, i keep my heart & the company of young liars; the big things always coming. this is my weekend. i do not mind it. to make my hands the gears of a human belt. like the bird that dips its beak into the wine– as much time to breathe as to drink; or the frog watching the pot from within: it will boil, eventually– it will not feel like you want it to. they call this stealing, now. not from anyone in particular. just having things we are not supposed to have. a sunday communion: the body of commerce, at what alter do we worship ?
Stephen Joffe is an award winning actor, musician, writer, and sound designer based in Toronto. He has previously been published as a playwright, songwriter (Birds of Bellwoods, etc.), and poet.
JUNK MAIL ponytails at the gym swing like children ready to leap; the dark thrum of my piano low c sharp in a colour i’ve never seen, a song she sings in dreaming that i could not understand or treasure more– this little life, to love & grieve in turn. things i would– will die for, & get around to eventually, between coffees. god is here, i’m sure of it. just a little tired. who wouldn’t be? so many emails. & mostly– junk. why must something be rare to be precious? why must precious things be so rare? i miss it already. i’m keeping busy.
“Let me kiss you,” he said. He fixed his fathomless dark eyes on me. “You owe me,” he could have added, but we both already knew that. Weeks earlier, during study period, he’d dived into the digital depths of my computer and retrieved a file containing research for a history class assignment I’d carelessly deleted from the trash. I was careless about most things back then, not worried any lasting harm would come to me. I was young, still in high school, and the borders of my suburban world were secure, allowing me to play at danger. “What’s your PayPal email address?” I asked distractedly, scrolling through the recovered file. “I don’t want your money.” He spoke with such vehemence I turned to look at him. Besides being short and squat, he was almost completely hairless. Panicking, I wondered, Does he expect me to go out on a date with him? But he left abruptly, without a word. I couldn’t dismiss him totally from my mind since fate had assigned him a seat directly behind mine in Beginning Chemistry. The day after he retrieved my file, our class received our grades on a test we’d taken earlier in the week. “I could tutor you,” he whispered, his breath prickling the back of my neck. Too late, my hand covered the “F” marked in red ink on my test. Masking my disgust, I swiveled to face him. “How much?” I whispered back. He peered at me from where he sat hunched over his desk. His black eyes flashed. It was winter, and the classroom wasn’t well heated. That’s why I shivered. Finally, his eyes still on mine, he said, “Hot cocoa.” I hid my surprise. With a shrug, I said, “Okay.” Secretly, I congratulated myself. I wouldn’t have to coax money from my parents. And since everyone at school knew what a science nerd he was, I wouldn’t have to lie about why he’d been at my house. Lying took a lot of effort if you do it right. That night I rushed to answer the doorbell when it chimed. My father was away on business, but my mother was home. I’d told her someone at school was coming over to tutor me, still I didn’t have the energy to deal with her reaction to his repellant appearance if she saw him at our door. Snowflakes clung to his camo jacket. The jacket was buttoned all the way to his chin, making him look even more like he had no neck. The light from the lantern beside the door gave his skin a greenish tinge. I beckoned him inside. “Leave those wet boots by the door and hang up your jacket,” I instructed him, pointing with my chin, my nose in the air. He dutifully removed his boots and, wriggling out of his jacket, hung it on the coat rack, never taking his eyes off me, as if he didn’t trust what would happen if he did. In his stocking feet his toes appeared strangely splayed. I ushered him through the hallway leading to the kitchen, past the living room where my mother lounged on the couch flipping through a magazine. Gesturing him to remain in the hallway with its gathering shadows, I stopped and called out to her, “We’ll be in the kitchen, Mother. We’re having cocoa while we work.” My mother nodded almost imperceptibly, not looking up from her magazine. After pouring milk in a pan to heat on the stove, I pulled a couple of mugs from the cupboard. “No,” he said from where he sat at the kitchen table, next to the chemistry book open to the chapter on balancing equations. I looked quizzically at him. “I want us to drink from the same mug.” I couldn’t say how long we stared at each other before I admitted to myself he would win this game. I heaved a sigh and returned one of the mugs to the cupboard. The next week when he came over, my father was away on another business trip and my mother was watching TV– I heard voices coming faintly from the living room. He removed his boots and jacket and followed me down the hallway without me having to remind him. Neither of us talked until we talked about chemistry, which was a relief to us both. The one thing we had in common was that routine talk bored us. After that week’s session, I passed a pop chemistry quiz with astonishing ease. Giddy with triumph, I proposed a third session. I couldn’t have said why, but I anticipated it with maddening impatience. Up until we reached the kitchen, the only difference from the previous week was that my mother was upstairs in bed with one of her migraines. So I wasn’t expecting him to draw near me at the kitchen counter rather than sit at the table as usual. He cocked his head at me, his eyes pools of dark water. That’s when he said, “Let me kiss you.” Feeling oddly calm, I nodded. It was so quiet I could hear the snow brush against the window pane. I would never have imagined a boy’s lips to be so soft. I gave in to their wordless tenderness. When I opened my eyes I could see he was taller than me. Had he had a growth spurt without me noticing? Was it a trick of the light that made his face so alive with beauty? Or was the magic the way my heart fluttered free of its cocoon?
Amy Allison's flash fiction also appears at NewMyths.com. She lives in deceptively sunny Southern California. Visit her at ByAmyAllison.com.
DISHWASHER sunshine washes plates at the hall. his name is anthony, i learn after six months of screaming together songs from a broken radio. he was born in manilla. loves nickelback. laughter like a freight train in winter. i still forget sometimes, how different we are- he calls me boss man, would die for his children; i hear the hard candy click against his beautiful, yellow teeth as he relives what they taught him yesterday across seventeen hours of ocean, airwaves. they sent a care package. i try one. it tastes like medicine. in a way it is. his daughter will be a dancer, one day; i know a dancer, too. do you see? there are people everywhere– if you only care to look.
Metamorphosis by Amy Allison
Today, we are astronauts. “I love space,” Helen says, checking the charge of her laser, and then jetting full throttle toward 6945 Dahlgren. The asteroid– a four-kilometer chunk of nickel iron– has become infected with Golgothans, insectile invaders from Aldebaran, and it's our job to clean out the alien nest. “The view really is amazing,” I agree. We're 1.4 au from the sun, out past the orbit of Mars, and the immensity of the omniverse is palpable. Soon, we're zigging and zagging to avoid defensive fire, and then we're on the rock, engaging the creatures hand to hand. Golgothans are affiliates of the Dark Nebula and neither give nor expect quarter, so we kill them all. Later, as we're having lunch, Helen says, “Bree called.” “Everything OK?” I ask absently. “Oona has Covid again,” Helen says. “Mark learned how to tie his laces. Bree misses us.” “I miss her, too,” I say, and smile, thinking of our beautiful daughter. “Oh, we'll see her soon enough,” Helen observes. “Sure, and the grand kids, too,” I reply happily. Today, we are gladiators. Helen, dangerously sexy in a leather bodice and a skirt of chain mail, more resembles a warrior princess than the elementary school teacher I married. Myself, I'm naked except for a loincloth, the better to advertise musculature worthy of the barbarian I am. Helen hefts her scimitar and sprints across the sand toward our opponents, tentacled mercenaries sponsored by the local despots, affiliates of the Dark Empire. Then she drops and rolls under a pair of clawed appendages, and thrusts her sword into the belly of the thing, releasing a filthy rain of viscera. I take out the second mercenary, throttling the monster with my bare hands, but not before its stinger pierces my thigh and injects a lethal dose of toxin. Our victory, although somewhat Pyrrhic, is a symbol to the masses. People rise up in the stands, and by the thousands begin heading implacably toward the royal loges. Helen cradles me in her arms. “I heard from Bree again,” she says. “Really?” I say. “I missed the call.” “Long-distance connections are terrible,” she observes. “You think?” I reply, and laugh a little even though it hurts. “Mark was accepted at Columbia,” Helen goes on. “Oona married a nice doctor named Wendy. And Bree divorced Joel. She's having a rough time.” “She'll get through it,” I groan, and prepare to die. Again. Helen kisses my cheek. “See you soon,” she says. Today, we are dolphins. Well, not really. We're dolphin-like inhabitants of a water world circling a dusky sun in a galaxy far from the Milky Way. Helen and I, both females, are swimming with our gender pod through an aquamarine sea, on the lookout for elements of the Rascal Brigade, a masculine affiliate of the Black School, whose idea of fun is ultra-violence and gang rape. Helen arcs from the water, her hide afire in the scarlet light. Cutting back below the surface, she squeaks, “The bastards are northeast. Saw their spouts.” “Let's go, girls,” I squeak to the rest of the pod, and we hug the sea bed until we reach a thicket of kelp, where we wait in ambush, holding our breaths, until the Rascals arrive. Then we rocket up and plow like cannon balls into them, collapsing their lungs and causing them to drown, each and every one, which is no more than the creepy incels deserve. Helen nuzzles me with her snout. “I heard from Bree today,” she says. “Damn!” I squeak back. “I always miss her call.” “That's because you're not paying attention,” Helen says. “I am, too,” I protest, although she's right. There's always so much going on, my mind is usually on other things. “Well?” I ask. “What does she want?” “Nothing, Jerry,” Helen answers. “She was just thinking of us.” “After thirty solar years– “ I begin. “Forty,” Helen corrects me. “Forty solar years,” I repeat. “That's sweet. Bree's a good girl.” “We'll meet again,” Helen assures me. “Some sunny day.” “Don’t know where, don’t know when,” I agree, half singing the lyrics, which sound really weird coming out of my inhuman throat in a language lacking any resemblance to English. Helen snorts and slaps me with her tail. “You’re a funny guy, Jerry,” she says. Today, we are ourselves. Our best selves, how we looked in our twenties, not as we were when a drunk driver t-boned our Volvo decades later while we were backing out of the driveway. The thing about the quantum omniverse you never understand during your first life is reality is as parsimonious with consciousness as it is with energy. Neither can be destroyed, just transformed. As Helen and I have been. A thousand times so far, maybe more. We're on the veranda, having coffee, under sunlight as sweet as butterscotch. Helen's scrolling through a news feed on her tablet. “How's the war going?” I ask. “Seriously, Jerry?” she answers. “It's going the same. The same as it has since the beginning of time. Evil never dies.” Helen sounds down. “True,” I say, “but look on the bright side– we have gainful employment for all eternity… and who doesn't love slaying monsters and kicking Nazi butt?” Helen laughs a little but clearly something's on her mind. “What's the matter?” I ask. “It was Bree's birthday last week,” she says. “Oh, no,” I say. “I forgot. How old is she?” “Ninety-three,” Helen answers. Now I get what's bothering her. “Bree will be coming by to visit us soon,” I predict. Helen sighs. “And she’s always so judgmental. I can hear her now. Mom, Dad, I called and I called and you never called back.” “Well, everyone knows long-distance lines are awful– and fighting bad guys throughout infinity really keeps you busy,” I say. “But we forgave our folks eventually, didn't we, honey? Bree will understand.” ”I hope so,” Helen says with a worried tone as the entrance bell chimes. Over the intercom sounds a familiar voice. “Mom? Dad? You there?” Helen shoots me a meaningful look– this is your job, Jerry. So I rise and go to the front door. It's time to welcome our daughter into the next world.
Long Distance Call by David Wesley Hill
David Wesley Hill is the author of around forty short stories and a couple novels, including the award-winning nautical adventure At Drake's Command. Mr. Hill lives in rural North Carolina.
Derrick Webber (he/him) is privileged to write on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations in Vancouver. Recent publication includes a story in a queer sci-fi anthology, I Want That Twink Obliterated! (Bona Books, UK), one in The First Line (USA), and two in Witcraft (Australia).
You Bet Your Life by Derrick Webber
Familiar but jarringly discordant theme music… Three of us lashed to contestant podiums, me in third position. “Answer correctly, save yourselves from eternal hellfire.” The decaying host looms. “Contestant One, think your name.” He teeters. His skull implodes, spewing grey matter. He bursts into flames. Canned laughter. “Contestant Two, write your name.” She lifts the pen, her fingers brittle, unbending twigs. She’s likewise engulfed. Raucous applause. “Contestant Three, say your name.” I open my mouth to respond, teeth crumbling like chalk. My tongue a teeming mass of maggots. An excruciating inferno, an endless shriek. Familiar but jarringly discordant theme music…
Douglas MacKevett is a writer and mythologist based near Lucerne, Switzerland. His work focuses on flash fiction, spoken word and myth. When not crafting stories, Douglas enjoys the Swiss Alps with cross-country skiing in winter and hiking in summer.
The air was heavy and damp, with each breath the seven men pulled in the scent of earth and decay. Niklaus led the way, his boots scraping over jagged rock as he whispered to the others to stay right. “A fall here could be fatal,” he warned, his voice steady despite the tension humming in his chest. He hoped that no-one would question his knowledge of a trail none had supposedly traveled before. Concentrating on their steps on the slippery rock, they didn’t. The Fräkmünt loomed above them, its dark silhouette cutting through the dawn mist. The six clerics followed, their robes sodden at the hem, their faces drawn tight. No one spoke of it, but the dragon weighed on their minds. Climbing the Fräkmünt was illegal for fear of waking the dragon and disturbing the rest of Pontius Pilate. The dragon’s draw for pilgrims from afar, however, was becoming a problem. The prelate had sent Niklaus and the other clerics to dispel this heretical myth. Most had steeled themselves for the task– but there was one among them who believed. Martinus pointed to the peak and cried out, “The dragon’s breath!” All eyes rose to the clefted summit where a pale wisp of mist curled and vanished. Niklaus pushed forward, his voice sharp. “Mist and wind, nothing more. Keep moving.” The lake appeared suddenly, a green gash in the stony landscape. Warily, the seven neared the still waters. “It’s here,” Martinus said, his voice trembling in awe. He stood by a jagged hole near the treeline, a stench of rotten eggs wafting from its depths. The others hesitated, looking to Niklaus. Niklaus approached slowly, his eyes narrowing. “And how do you know this, Brother?” Martinus turned to them, his face alight with excitement. “God Himself has sent the dragon to watch over the remains of the Pilate and his wife”, Martinus said. “The dragon is here to guard their grave. Our Prelate wants us to put an end to it. But who will stop the desecration then?” “The lair matches the descriptions. The width of a man’s torso, the stench of sulfur. I’ve studied the texts.” He hesitated, then added, “I have prepared myself, ingested the salts. Once you have ingested enough, you can understand their language. I have done so these past few months and am willing to try.” The clerics exchanged uneasy glances. Martinus leaned into the opening as though it might breathe its secrets to him. Niklaus stepped closer, his voice calm but hard. “Then go, Brother Martinus. We trust in God that He will show us the Truth, and it seems that He has chosen you as its vehicle.” The others held their breath. For a moment, Martinus hesitated, but then, emboldened by Niklaus’ words, he crawled inside. The silence that ensued was broken only by the sound of Niklaus issuing quiet orders. Together, the remaining clerics heaved a nearby boulder, their hands slipping against the wet stone as they rolled it into place, sealing the opening. The thud of finality echoed in their ears. “Let us go,” Niklaus said, his voice flat. “No more of this nonsense.” He didn’t look back, not even when the first roll of thunder cracked over the peak. The descent was slow, the storm unleashing sheets of rain that turned the trail into treacherous mud. The Fräkmünt seemed alive in its fury, the wind howling through the clefts as a warning. No one spoke as they stumbled toward the distant spires of Lucerne. At the gates, a bailiff met them, his expression grave. “In the name of the City Council of Lucerne, I arrest you for trespassing on the Fräkmünt.” Niklaus and the others were too exhausted to protest. As they were led toward the newly built Water Tower for incarceration, Niklaus glanced back once, toward the mountain now shrouded in storm. He thought he saw a flicker of light– like a fire– but dismissed it. The city records of that day list six clerics detained. Of Martinus, there is no mention. His name has vanished into the mist and wind.
The Dragon's Breath by Douglas MacKevett
Mise en Place By L.S. Kunz
Chelsea regretted her choices. She should have brought her purse or her car or at least some self-control. But no. Now, here she was. A cautionary tale to impulse buying as she trudged down the sidewalk, arms aching under two teetering reusable grocery bags, hands fumbling her wallet, her cell phone, and, inexplicably, a tube of lip balm. She had gone into the grocery store with a list of ingredients for cauliflower parm and come out with enough fall-themed treats to throw a Halloween party for every kid in her condo complex. Veggies and some balsamic, yes. She wasn’t a complete child. But also candied pecans, fresh-baked pumpkin bread, candy corns, gummy spiders, cinnamon devils. A tub of pumpkin-spice ice cream. A whole tub? She already hated herself for eating it. Before leaving the store, she had tried slipping the wallet, phone, and lip balm into her pants pockets only to find she had none. Stupid girl slacks with their stupid faux pockets. So, six Salt Lake City blocks from home, she found herself juggling a handful of loose items and two overflowing bags of regret. In Salt Lake, every city block clocks in at 660 feet. She looked it up when she first moved downtown. Six-hundred-and-sixty feet. Longer than the Washington Monument. Longer even than two Statues of Liberty stacked torch to toe. In 1847, Brigham Young designed the streets to be wide enough for a team of oxen pulling a wagon to make a U-turn. It seemed excessive. But what did she know? She didn’t have any oxen, much as she regretted that oversight now. At the first red light, a passing car hit a pothole and splashed mud up Chelsea’s slacks. Enough. She dumped the grocery bags on the curb, dropped the lip balm into one, and freed up her right hand to call for a ride. Rideshare– the life-saving service for those who make the fatal mistake of grocery shopping in October. As she pulled up the app, her phone rang and Chad’s name popped up. Chelsea grinned and remembered why she had walked to the store in the first place– it was getting late but it was still a beautiful fall day. Rainbow-splashed leaves tumbled overhead and fluttered underfoot. Cheery orange pumpkins gathered in shop windows and graveyard-themed front yards like forgotten friends popping by to say hello. Even the scary witches and skeletons posed in porch swings and rocking chairs looked friendly. Maybe the bags weren’t so heavy after all. As the sun set, a chilly breeze made the skin on her arms prickle. She should have brought a jacket instead of lip balm, but it was still pleasant enough outside. With a little effort, she could find a spot for everything and walk home with the promise of pumpkin spice in the air and her best friend for company. She swiped right. “Hey Chad, hang on.” She cupped her wallet in her palm behind the phone. Then, stooping, she grasped the handles of one bag in her left hand, snaked her right arm through the handles of the other, and let the handles slide down into the crook of her elbow. Straightening up, she checked the ground around her. All clear. The streetlight turned green. She stepped off the curb and started for home. Halfway across the street, she managed to get the phone back to her ear. “Sorry. Making a spectacle of myself. I bought the entire Halloween candy aisle and don’t have my car.” Chad laughed. “Let me guess. No purse either.” Chelsea shifted the bag in her left hand. The handles were already digging into her fingers. “How’d you know?” “Chels, I’m always carrying something for you. Wallet, I.D., lip balm. I don’t know why. You own purses. I’ve seen them. It’s one of life’s great mysteries.” Chelsea huffed. “I can’t find a purse I like. They’re always too big or too small, too many zippers or too few compartments. And the straps. Don’t even get me started on the straps.” Chad wisely let the straps go. “Where are you? I’ll swing by and pick you up.” “Two minutes ago, I would have begged you to come. But I’m situated now, and it’s so pretty tonight. I think I’m good. I’ll enjoy the walk.” On the far side of the street, Chelsea continued north. She had six blocks to go and no intention of walking them on Fourth South. All traffic and no trees, Fourth South was loud and crowded and dirty. Third was so much prettier, with its tree-lined sidewalks and quirky antique shops sure to be decorated with bats and ghosts and old-world ghoulies. Plus, at this time of evening, she’d have the street to herself. At Third South, Chelsea scoped out her options– the south side of the street or the north? The south side hulked in the long shadows of buildings, and the north glowed fiery orange in the setting sun. Ordinarily she’d choose the sunny side. Fewer puddles. More warmth on her cheeks and chilly arms. Plus, the antique shops were on that side. But hauling the two overloaded bags had left her armpits slick as steam baths, and damp hair was glued to the back of her neck. Plus, there was the ice cream to consider. She turned left into the shade. Chad was narrating his mise en place for potato leek soup. Not food prep. Mise en place– Chad loved fancy words. Fancy words and good food. If it was fun for the tongue, it was in his mouth. Freud would have called it an oral fixation. But who asked Freud anyway? On Chad it was adorable. Still, enough already with the potato leek soup. Chelsea couldn’t stop herself from asking. “Didn’t you make potato leek last week? And the week before?” Cozy sounds of kitchen clatter echoed over the phone. “Sure did. It’s delicious.” Chelsea adjusted the bag in her left hand. The straps were like fabric torture devices. “I don’t get it. A world of recipes to try and you keep making potato leek.” Chad ran the faucet. “I don’t have to try all the recipes in the world to know what I like.” “Well, you’re trying something new tomorrow. You and me– weekend warriors extraordinaire– will be making cauliflower parm with real Parmigiano Reggiano.” Chad launched into a history of Parmigiano Reggiano. How did he know this stuff? By the time Chelsea reached the next light, her right arm ached, and the fingers on her left hand were numb, but she had a whole new appreciation for parm. While waiting for the light to change, she shifted her load. Left hand let the bag slide into her elbow and took over phone and wallet duty. Right arm straightened and let the bag slip down into her fingers. The change was glorious. She sighed and stretched her neck. The light turned green. She put her phone to her left ear and continued west. Three blocks to go. A sizzle spattered through the phone. Chad said something Chelsea couldn’t hear. “What? I couldn’t hear you over your sauteing.” “I said, do you want to start the party tonight? Soup will be ready in thirty. We could stay up late and watch scary movies.” Chelsea sighed. “Tempting, but I can’t. Ten p.m. drinks with some guy named Darrell.” “Darrell? Sounds like a match made in heaven.” “That’s what the app said.” “Let me guess. He loves dancing and Dostoevsky.” “No, silly. That was Antony. Darrell loves skiing and Edward Abbey.” “Interesting. A tree hugger who supports deforesting slopes so he can slide down them on sticks that don’t recycle. At least he’s well-rounded.” Chelsea rolled her eyes. “Oh, go back to sauteing. You don’t approve of anyone I date.” “I don’t know why you bother with those dating apps. You’re always disappointed.” “How else am I going to meet the love of my life?” The sizzling splattered and spit as Chad added liquid. “Look around you. Maybe he’s already here and you just don’t know it yet.” Chelsea laughed. “Ah, the meet cute. Any minute now, I’ll bump into a handsome stranger and spill my groceries all over the sidewalk. He’ll definitely be a prince in disguise. Once we clean up the groceries and weather a series of endearing miscommunications, he’ll whisk me away to some wealthy European country no one’s ever heard of before.” Chad snorted. “Remember to send me a postcard from Waldorfia or was it Pradanstein?” “Ha. You’re hilarious.” Chelsea shifted her load again as she waited for the next light. Phone and wallet back to the right hand, so the left arm could straighten and stretch. “Excuse me,” said a voice that wasn’t Chad’s. Chelsea rolled her shoulders. Homestretch. Two blocks to go. “Excuse me,” said the voice again. Louder this time. Chelsea’s skin prickled. She turned to discover a man standing so close she could see the constellation of blackheads on his pointy nose. Shoulders slouched in a stained basketball jersey, flat-brimmed baseball cap, scraggly goatee. He looked like every other boozed-up methhead wandering downtown. His small eyes were pale blue and glazed as a donut. But unlike every other boozed-up methhead, this one’s eyes, to the extent they could focus on anything, were focused on her. Definitely not a prince. Not even one in disguise. Chelsea backed up to the curb and willed the light to change. The man followed her. “Can I use your phone?” Chelsea shook her head, retreated another step, skirting the curb like a tightrope, and tried to concentrate on Chad’s voice. The man hitched up his pants and lumbered forward. “Please?” His voice was plaintive, tinged with an irritating whine. Chelsea cocked her eyebrow toward the phone at her ear, gave her shoulders a shrug as if to say, “I’d totally help you, dude, but I’m on this important call,” and turned away. The man pulled at Chelsea’s shoulder. Her body recoiled. It was a light touch, harmless really, but it squeezed her stomach like a trash compactor. “Come on, lady. Please. It’s an emergency. My grandma’s expecting me. I just need to call her real quick.” Chelsea addressed the man while retreating from him. “No. I’m sorry, but I’m using my phone. Find someone else.” She tried to put force in her voice, but the man’s unwelcome touch had left her arms and legs as wiggly as half-baked brownies. “Are you okay?” Chad’s voice sharpened. “Is someone bothering you?” Chelsea slowed her breath. “No, I’m fine. Someone just wanted to borrow my phone.” The light turned green. Chelsea darted into the street. The man followed her. His scuffed sneakers shuffled on the asphalt. They sounded close, but she didn’t turn around to confirm. She walked faster. On the far side of the street, she kept walking west. So did the man. She could practically feel his sour breath on her neck. She searched the shadows for other pedestrians but didn’t see anyone. No traffic either. Just parked cars as empty as coffins in a display room. She walked faster. The Martian sunset had faded to twilight. The sky wasn’t orange punctuated with shadows anymore so much as shadows punctuated by a few flickering streetlights. The lampposts were spaced out like introverts at a Halloween party. Chelsea was pretty sure she didn’t have Brigham Young to blame for the stingy lighting. But she cursed him anyway as she scurried through long stretches of darkness between halos of light. At least she tried to scurry. The grocery bags interfered as they bounced against her hip on one side and banged her calf on the other. “Come on, lady. Just thirty seconds. Please. It’s an emergency.” “Is that guy still there? Is he following you?” Clutching the phone to her ear, Chelsea lifted her arm and let the loops of her grocery bag slide up onto her shoulder. Better. She started to trot, wishing there was someone around to tell her she looked ridiculous. No matter. In a block and a half, she’d be safe. Chad’s voice sounded pinched. “Is there anyone around? Can you flag down a car?” The man was on her heels. Why didn’t he find someone else to bother? She looked ahead to the light. It was green. She could make it. Chad’s voice deepened to a growl. “I’m calling the police on my landline. Where are you? Never mind. My phone has your location pinged.” The man grabbed Chelsea’s arm. His hand was hot and clammy around her bare, goose-pimpled flesh. She tried to yank her arm away, but his grip held firm. “Let go of me.” She pulled her arm again, but his hand clamped down like a crocodile. “Now look what you made me do.” His voice wasn’t plaintive or whiny anymore. It was as cruel and unrelenting as his grip. He pushed her up against a building. She stumbled. Her head smacked against the brick. She dropped her wallet. It slipped from her palm and hit the ground with a dull thud. Stars danced in her eyes. She tried to shift right or left. Up or down. Her elbows scraped against the rough wall. Her hair caught in the grout. But her body wouldn’t budge. She scratched his arms, shoved his chest, tried to gouge his eyes. But he was as immovable as the building at her back. He shoved the bags out of the way. Groceries spilled onto the sidewalk. Chelsea wished now she had kept the lip balm. Maybe she could have used it to poke out his eyes. Not sure what else to do, she gripped her phone like a club and pounded at his shoulders, his forearms, anywhere she could reach. He pressed his forearm into her neck. Her throat constricted. She tried to gulp in air. Her lips sucked at the sky like a grounded goldfish. Her right hand turned up. Her fingers opened. She offered the phone like a gift worth dying for. For a moment, the man loosen his grip. Chelsea gasped and coughed and tried to twist away. But the man shoved in again, pressing into her airway till her back grated against the brick and her feet lifted off the ground. As Chelsea yanked at his arm and strained for the tiniest toehold, the man leered up into her bulging eyes. “Too late,” he said, his pale irises inches from hers. “You should have let me borrow it when I asked.” Chelsea panicked. She needed air. Now. Her arms pulled, her legs kicked, her teeth bit, her body thrashed. But she was stuck. She might as well have been caught in a vise. Her vision went dark till all she could see was fuzzy stars. Somewhere, Chelsea could hear Chad’s voice, tinny and faraway. “Get away from her! I’ll kill you!” Chelsea pawed at the man’s face. She wanted to scratch him but she couldn’t find her fingernails. Her arms were limp as two dead fish. That’s what she was. A cold, dead fish. Chad was screaming now. “The police are coming, Chels. I’m coming. Hold on!” Somewhere in the distance Chelsea could hear sirens. Were they coming for her? She couldn’t think. Her whole body, her brain, everything felt heavy, like she had been tied to an anvil and tossed into a lake. She had to do something. It was now or never. If she didn’t act now, she would die. What did she have? Nothing. A phone. Groceries. And the groceries were in the way. She forced her struggling arms to relax. It was like prying a stuck jar open, but her elbows straightened and the bags dropped to the ground. One plopped at the man’s feet. The other toppled and sent groceries tumbling in every direction. With the weight gone, her arms felt light as balloons. Gripping her phone in both hands, she let her hands shoot up between her attacker’s arms. The phone clipped the man’s jaw and jostled his head. Arms stretched as high as they would go, she slammed them back down like a spear. The blade of the phone smashed into the bridge of his nose. Something cracked. Blood spattered and shot from his nostrils. He screamed, grabbed his nose, and stumbled back. Chelsea crumbled to the ground. Sprawled on the sidewalk, she sucked in air. So much air it made her lightheaded. She coughed and sputtered and scrambled to her feet. The man was already coming again. Blood streamed from a deep gash between his eyes and from both nostrils. His pale blue eyes were black. Black as murder. He was going to kill her. Chelsea knew it as well as she knew the scent of spiced apple cider. She threw her phone like a rock, dove for the nearest bag of groceries, and came up with a head of cauliflower. She threw it. As the cauliflower exploded against his chest, she reached into the bag for another weapon and another. Onion. Garlic. Parm. Candied pecans. Pumpkin bread. Cinnamon devils. One by one groceries flew at the advancing man, bouncing off his face and chest and arms like the weak, ridiculous arsenal they were. The sirens were louder now. Nearer. But not near enough. Chelsea screamed and pulled out a bag of carrots. A reusable bag of carrots. If only it was a plastic produce bag. Maybe she could have used it to suffocate him. He was upon her. She lifted her arm to throw the carrots. The string on the reusable bag flicked her in the face. She stopped. String. Rope. A weapon. As the man grabbed for her, she shifted right, slipped behind his back, slapped the string around his neck, and pulled. His fingers shot to his neck. He wheezed and bucked and broke free. Chelsea slid the produce bag open, grabbed the bag by the base and swung. The carrots shot out like orange arrows and scattered across the sidewalk. With a wild scream, Chelsea gripped the reusable bag tight, twisting the base around one hand and the string around the other, and snapped the bag taut. She finally had a weapon. Like Bruce Lee, she circled her opponent, and he circled her. She sneered. He growled. His foot thudded against something. It tinkled and rolled. They both recognized the sound at the same time. A bottle of balsamic. A glass bottle. They dove. The man got there first and yanked the bottle away. He stood, smashed the bottle against the brick façade, and held up the jagged bottleneck. He grinned. Blood streaked his teeth. Balsamic dripped down his arms. Chelsea stumbled back. Her hands shook. Her bag didn’t feel like a weapon anymore. It felt like mesh and string. The man lunged. Eyes flashing in the dark. Glass glinting. Chelsea dove right and tumbled to the ground. She rolled and came up bloody. Her heart seized and she searched for the stab wound. There wasn’t one. Not blood. She dabbed the dark liquid and licked her finger. Balsamic. In the dark, she groped around till she felt it. Sharp. Jagged. Deadly. The man turn and lunged again. Confident. Too confident. As the man came high, Chelsea wrapped her fingers around the shard of glass and dove low. Ducking beneath the jagged bottle top, she drove the shard of glass into the man’s thigh and rolled away. The man screamed and grabbed at his leg. Chelsea smacked her head on the ground as she rolled. The world faded black at the edges but she didn’t slow down. She rolled to her feet and lunged. The man’s back was to her. His focus was on his leg. She wrapped the produce bag around his neck and squeezed. The man groped at the bag. He thrashed and clawed. He flailed at her thigh. The bottleneck sliced her slacks and nicked her skin. Blood oozed into the fabric. Chelsea didn’t let go. She widened her stance, bent her knees, and squeezed. The man kicked and jabbed and thrust. The bottle bit her cheek and scored her arm. Chelsea didn’t let go. She couldn’t hear anything. Couldn’t see anything. Time stopped. She screamed and squeezed as if to take his head clean off. Then there were hands on her shoulders and arms. Gloved hands. They pulled and yanked and tried to take her weapon away. She fought them off. They surrounded her. Pulled her back. Forced the bag from her fingers. Like a firecracker whizzing by, sound came back. Sight came back. Loud voices shouted commands. Strong hands shoved the man to the ground. Gentle hands slipped a blanket around Chelsea’s shoulders. The blanket was soft and scratchy at once. Her fingers needed something to hold. They gripped the blanket. “Take a deep breath. Come on. It’s all over. You’re safe.” The voice floated down from space. Deep and firm. Full of authority. Chelsea’s head swiveled till it found the source. He had brown eyes and a day’s worth of growth on his square chin. He smiled. “There you go. Have a seat. Let’s check you out.” Chelsea sat but wouldn’t let go the blanket. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The man looked in her eyes and made her count his fingers. He examined her head and cleaned her cuts. He looked like a prince– kind and handsome with comforting hands and caramel eyes. But he wasn’t a prince. There were no princes. Just a bunch of faux Dostoevsky fans and methheads armed with broken glass. She was alone. Someone was yelling her name. Chelsea tensed and wished she still had her reusable bag. She gripped the blanket tighter. Then the yelling stepped into the light of the ambulance. Chelsea’s fingers loosed and her tears flowed. He was sweaty and panicked and still wearing his “Kiss the Cook” apron. He had soup in his hair and he was gripping a wooden spoon like a sword. Not a prince. Not a purse. Better. Potato leek soup. Why hadn’t she seen it before? “Chad.” The name came out like a croak, and she obeyed the apron. Letting the blanket slip from her shoulders, she stepped into his arms.
L.S. Kunz is a member of the League of Utah Writers. Her work has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Baubles From Bones, The Last Line, Winter Horrorland: An Undertaker Books Anthology, and Utah’s Best Poetry & Prose 2023.
Lia Matthew Brown is a Toronto-based screenwriter, novelist, and culture critic. He is the author of The Cinema of Survival, a book of essays about trauma and survival narratives in George Miller's 2015 film, Mad Max: Fury Road.
The first time Sally Summitt’s Omnifeed™ showed her a ten-second close-up of baby toes, Sally did not even notice her finger slowing down, hovering– briefly!– in mid-air, before finishing its languorous flick “up,” which told, or would tell, the Omnifeed™ to scroll to the next parcel of content. Today it was videos. From the baby toes, the feed moved on to the oatmeal sponsorship and three clips in a row of kid gymnasts falling down, two of which Sally watched twice, like she always did, because she always found them heartwarming. The second, third, and fourth times that week that Sally’s Omnifeed™ surfaced “baby toe content”– two of the pieces involved putting tiny little nail polish on the tiny little things (one being a simple still image, the other an 8K SuperDefinition™ video), and the third piece was a simple, grainy film clip from 1996 of a mother chewing on (presumably) her own child’s own adorable feet– Sally flicked “up” again without pausing or even truly taking in what she was seeing. She filed it all under the same mental category of “no” by which she made decisions against the algorithm’s unwanted selections, which– as everyone knew– trained the algorithm to show Sally things she actually wanted to see. Sally’s “No” applied to all forms of sponsored content; any rants about the conservative bias in the media; and dozens of other kinds of material, including anything involving eating gross things, the latter of which might have been marginally triggered within the algorithm’s depthless mind by any interaction on Sally’s part with the video of the mother nibbling on her baby’s cute lil’ toesies. Sally hoped not. The fifth time the Omnifeed™ served up baby toe content, though, all of the prior pieces concatenated together into a straight mental line and Sally, at last, noticed them. “Why baby toes?” she wondered to herself, hovering over the latest video. A baby was scrunching his or her or their little feet like they were balling up fists, in a tub of mayonnaise that was, comparatively, large enough for the baby to seal itself up in, should it have taken a notion to. Why toes? And why so many toes, Sally wondered inside herself a second later, meaning not “why are there ten of them on most babies,” so much as “why, suddenly, are baby toes the only thing my Omnifeed™ wants to show me?” It knows you better than you know yourself, some distant part of Sally’s brain told her, repeating the common wisdom. To which Sally, loudly and to no one within earshot, said “HA!” She ceased her mental perambulations and simply flicked “up,” vanishing the mayo kid and their ten scrunching toes to the ether of wherever “up/no” content lived in the Omnifeed™’s endlessly questing A.I. spirit. When the Omnifeed™ next showed Sally some baby toes, she flicked “up” again, this time, with a purpose. She didn’t need to see any more content hashtag babytoes, nor delve deeply into why the silly thing had gotten in its silly head that this had any relevance to her. “Up.” “Up.” “Up." “No.” “No.” “No.” And yet, after a week had passed, baby toes– in at least three distinct sub-genres– were taking up half of Sally Summitt’s feed. “Do you remember, Jenn, when you were a little girl and you were spanked…” Sally trailed off, feeling weird, stirring her cortado with her fingertip, which was itself weird. “When your parents spanked you, do you remember if you were clothed or bare-bottomed?” They were on the patio at Gingko Espresso, one of the thousands of individual, family-owned coffeehouses that had proliferated in the wake of the divestiture decree and Great Chain Collapse of the 2030s. The air was easy out here, the sky only slightly orange and smoky. Although the patio did– by law– have a facing wall of Wild Mirrors to ensure that any customer could access– by law!– their Omnifeed™ at need, most of the patrons at Gingko did not use them. For one, almost all of the patrons were too old; Sally and Jenn noted that they were on the young side of Gingko’s core demographic by perhaps a generous thirty years. There was a retirement castle nearby, and the phlegmatic old men liked to take up residence on the various patio chairs and holler at each other and passers-by for most of the morning, before the sun moved over the trees and baked the stonework. It was hard to get a table outside, most sunny mornings, but Sally had arrived early, and had read her paperback while waiting for Jenn to arrive. “Spanking?” Jenn murmured, like she was clawing her way out of a deep green sinkhole. She was clutching her SmartLens™ with both hands and hadn’t touched her coffee; Sally was side-eyeing the biscotti on Jenn’s saucer, wondering how many more minutes she could politely pretend that it was not just sitting there, unwanted and roughly toe-shaped, before nabbing and nibbling it, in that order. Jenn’s eyes caught Sally’s, and Jenn blushed, almost convincingly. “Sorry,” she said, putting her SmartLens™ face-down on the table. Doing so was functionally irrelevant, since SmartLenses™, of course, displayed their displays legibly in every direction at once. But it was the thought that counted. “If you need to…” Sally began graciously, but Jenn’s head-shake was so quick and automatic that it was nearly preemptive. “I’m here. We’re here,” Jenn said firmly. Her palm came to rest on the SmartLens™’s Lesula Laminate™ faceplate, blocking most, but not all, of the display. It didn’t really matter; the Wild Mirror to Sally’s immediate right had synced up with Jenn’s SmartLens™ the moment she’d walked onto the patio, and was now faithfully displaying all of the same content. Jenn, trying to forcibly demonstrate that she was definitely not looking at the Wild Mirror and was definitely instead paying attention to Sally, looked like she was chewing on a particularly hard, particularly sour, candy. “What were we saying?” Jenn asked brightly, with a trailing edge of asperity. Sally was too embarrassed to say it twice. She shook her head, and then ducked down and slurped at her cortado. It was after they’d settled the bill and gathered their things and peed in tandem beside one another and adjusted their hair and sanitized generously and checked their SmartLenses™ for any urgent updates from their respective workplaces, and were walking away from the coffeehouse and back into the flow of morning foot traffic, that Jenn remembered the question. Perhaps, Sally thought, the sheer mental effort of not looking at her own SmartLens™ had filled whatever information superhighway that passed for Jenn’s cognitive function to its capacity; and now, relieved of the burden of not looking, Jenn’s mind could finally relax into low-impact multi-tasking, as she flicked through her Omnifeed™ without looking where she was going. “Clothed, I think,” Jenn replied. “We weren’t spanked much. But I remember the sound of a flat palm against the ol’ Osh-Kosh-B’Goshes.” Whap. Whap. Whap. Skin on corduroy. Sally could hear it too. “My parents insist I was never spanked,” Sally said back. “But all three of us remember it very clearly. So I think my parents are either embarrassed or insane.” “Or both,” Jenn and Sally said simultaneously, with a shared giggle. In Sally’s faulty but insistent memory, it was always on bare skin. The tights rolled down, the dress hiked up, the underpants around the ankles. Skin on skin. Smack. Smack. Smack. Sally found that when she was down a glass of wine or two, she tended not to flick “up” quite as aggressively as usual, on whatever her Omnifeed™ deigned to show her. Tonight, her SmartLens™ was throwing her Omnifeed™ into the middle distance of her HomePlace™, using 2.5D holography. The glowing contours of the rich and varied content dispersed and reshaped like a floodwater dream. Well into her cups, Sally independently decided that she could let the algorithm take the stick for a bit. There was more out there, after all, than her nominally tight control of her Omnifeed™ exposed her to. Sally was splayed out on her fusty green couch, legs akimbo, absent-mindedly stirring her CabSauv™ with her index finger– weird! she thought again– and letting whatever clips were served to her play in full in the space before her, flicking with her other hand when the videos were done. It was about half-and-half baby toe content to anything else at this point, but tonight, Sally didn’t care. By and large, she’d seen the preponderance of baby toe content in the past several weeks fall into three distinctly noticeable groups: Group A): Footage or stills of baby toes themselves, naked, tiny, and tender. Group B): Video involving baby toes associating themselves in a variety of food items, usually spreads, usually (and especially, Sally thought) mayonnaise or creamy peanut butter. Group C): Parents (Sally hoped they were the parents!) nibbling on their babies’ feet in a state of obvious, social-media-persona- defining bliss. Some of these images were staged in fresh-tilled fields of cotton or asparagus, the sun hanging low over the fetid horizon, dandelion dew floating dreamily through the air, as though filmed in the realm beyond the edge of the world, where Eternal Beings™ went to their rest. Sally’s finger was still in the CabSauv™, drifting lazily counter-clockwise through the silky red juice, when a Group B video started, before quickly revealing itself to actually be a Group C. A proud, tradwifey mother started to suck the creamy peanut butter off her baby’s toes, and then, quite matter-of-factly, bit down, tearing the baby’s ring toe off at the root. 2.5D holography splattered rubies “towards” Sally as the video baby’s artery was severed and, almost as fast, Sally splattered her HomePlace™’s far wall with CabSauv™ as she quickly and violently flicked “up” and then “left,” killing the Omnifeed™ display entirely. The room went black. Sally found herself gulping breaths that felt like jagged plastic. She noticed there was a pool of CabSauv™ near her foot– she noticed she was standing– she noticed she had dropped her wine glass and that it had shattered– she noticed her finger was still dripping CabSauv™, but then she noticed it was actually blood. At first she thought this was almost certainly the 2.5D holography blood, of the baby with the severed ring toe; and then, only gradually, Sally realized this was impossible, and that the blood was likely hers and that she’d likely cut her finger on the glass of CabSauv™ when she’d tried to stop the feed and that her doing so was, quite likely, why she’d dropped it. But Sally didn’t move for a long time, because it was dark and her feet were bare, and glass was all around her. Sally did not generally bring her SmartLens™ to her coffee dates with Jenn, mostly because she found Jenn’s near-perpetual state of distraction so annoying. When Sally did have her own device with her, she made a prim point of putting it in her satchel, her hands folded neatly on the table in front of her when they weren’t cradling her coffee. This, of course, would not stop the SmartLens™ from syncing to the Wild Mirrors, but Sally was usually in New Airplane Mode™ while out and about anyway, which meant that the SmartLens™ only connected to the network when in range of an in-flight aircraft. Which should have been never. Neither Jenn nor Sally heard the sirens at the retirement castle until the two long fire engines pulled up in front; nor did they fail to chuckle when one or another greasy old geezer, who’d been squatting on the patio chairs at Gingko Espresso every morning since time immemorial, grabbed his chihuahua’s leash and scarpered away across the street, muttering something or another about leaving his sandwich press “on.” When the news Heliocopter™ began circling overhead, its fans making swirling eddies of the dark black smoke that looked almost artful, Sally and Jenn only raised their voices to speak louder over the noise. Sally was in the middle of saying “– don’t think she has even a snowball’s chance in the FairElection™, unless those chunks that calved off last week miraculously calve themselves back on–” when she noticed that the Wild Mirror directly behind Jenn’s face was, quite definitely, showing a video of a man eating a baby’s toe. “Christ’s bloody wristwatch,” Jenn said, when she followed Sally’s horrified gaze over her own shoulder. At least four other people on the patio were already watching as well, and a susurration of their displeasure grew loud enough, even, to compete with the brrrrrrrrrrrrrddttt of the Heliocopter™ above. “I didn’t do that,” Sally stammered weakly, when Jenn turned back around. The raise of Jenn’s right eyebrow was almost imperceptibly slight, the tightening of her lips only an impression. “Nobody said that you did…?” she replied, the slight, questioning lift at the end of the sentence all but confirming Sally Summitt’s doom. The truth was– when she was alone by herself many hours later and the lights were turned off and the duvet was pulled quite high and there was no one who could hear her thinking or, certainly, judge her thoughts, had they heard him– the truth was, she could see herself eating baby toes, if the situation presented itself. It never would, of course. But if it did. Word of what the Omnifeed™ algorithm had populated into Sally Summitt’s For You Scroll™ and displayed on the Wild Mirrors at Gingko Espresso shot through Sally’s friend group like lightning through a ten-cent circuit board, meaning, there wasn’t much left of it by the time it was finished. Sally was able to convince Jenn to meet her for coffee– once more, as it turned out, and only because Sally swore several times to leave her SmartLens™ at home, which was dually painful/funny because, by no means whatsoever, had Sally, would Sally, or would Sally ever trust the device outside the confines of her four HomePlace™ walls, ever again– but by the time the date arrived, after two postponements and an “unavoidable” last minute cancellation... Well, by that point, Jenn was the only friend who was answering any of Sally’s messages at all. For the first eighteen minutes of the coffee date, Jenn was either on her phone, or answering Sally’s broad, generalized questions in as brief and direct a manner as possible. All the while, her dangling stiletto pump was jiggling on the edge of her big toe like the last leaf on a tree in November. Jenn was wearing dark glasses at least three sizes too big for her– likely her husband’s, Sally mused– and looked unabashedly unhappy to be here. She applied white dots in critical positions across her forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin, which meant that an AurAugment™ was running over her IRL face, against any digital lenses that happened to scan her. Sally found herself distantly wondering what AurAugmented Jenn looked like, or if she was visible at all. Perhaps the A.I. was simply wiping Jenn out of any video footage entirely, leaving it looking like Sally was talking to herself. “Well,” Sally said finally, unable to think of any more non-political, non-confrontational topics with which to fill the remaining twelve– no, eleven– scheduled minutes of their coffee. “Well,” Jenn replied, though when she said it, it sounded more like a statement, less like an ellipsis. Two more of the minutes were gobbled up by uncomfortable silence. Even the greasy old men had ceased their barking. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” Jenn said at last, as tightly and bracingly direct as any of her earlier answers regarding exercise, her partner, the big deadline at work, or Jesus™. “I don’t–” Sally began, but Jenn was already talking again. “Like what am I even supposed to do with this,” she was saying. “Leaving aside the personal what-the-fucked-ness of it, which is considerable, have you stopped for a moment to think what will happen to me, professionally and socially and, fuck, reputationally? If anyone thinks I’m still friends with you?” Sally– who had practiced approximately 2,400 variations of this conversation before sitting on the patio at Gingko today– was struck temporarily dumb. “I didn’t…” she stammered. “I don’t….” She tried to begin again. She suddenly found herself wondering if the old men had gone quiet for no reason better than to listen to what the toe-muncher had to say. This, she found, produced an equal-if-not-more-so energetic internal response, wherein she wondered how many of those men, privately and with no consequence to themselves, had fantasized about eating all the baby toes they could find, and were not sitting here being pilloried in public by their literal last friend in the world. This latter thought, Sally suddenly realized with some horror, had drowned out whatever Jenn had just said, pointedly and with clear expectation of an answer, in response to Sally’s stutterings. “I do not watch material like that,” Sally said slowly and carefully, as she had done in rehearsal. “I do not know why it was in my feed. I am incredibly embarrassed.” The jiggling stiletto pump on Jenn’s toe jumped, fell, and clattered to the patio cobbles. Jenn reached forward with a peremptory sigh, and jammed the whole shoe back onto her foot. “The thing is,” Jenn said, taking long enough to do so that Sally found herself noticing that for the first time in longer than Sally could remember, Jenn was not looking at her SmartLens™ at all, and didn’t even seem to want to be. “The thing is, ” Jenn said, “I don’t see how that’s possible.” Sally’s heart sank. “The Omnifeed™ knows you better than you know yourself,” Jenn continued. “That’s the whole point of these bloody things. Nobody needs an Omnifeed™ if it doesn’t show you things you want to see.” “I… I…” Sally stammered again. “I don’t,” she finished limply. “Well. A superintelligent machine whose sole purpose is to understand you based on your every interaction with any type of thing you might like in the world has decided that you’re wrong.” Their time was up. Jenn paid– for both of them– and when Sally said she needed to use the washroom before she left, Jenn said goodbye and left. Five months later, through highly indirect means given the subsequent block that Jenn had clearly put on all of Sally’s platforms, a notification on Sally’s Omnifeed™ informed her that Jenn and her partner had welcomed their first baby, a girl. There was no picture posted. Why wouldn’t you stop and look at their toes, though, Sally wondered to herself one night, in bed. Their toes are beautiful. She had stopped using her SmartLens™, even for 1D feature streams, between the hours of sunrise and sunset, as a new life policy. Some nights, after the sun went down, she didn’t even bother to turn on the lights. A year into The Reality Wars patent pending, Sally Summitt received a voice ping on her Omnifeed™ from a Dr. Chee at M.A.R.S. Syndicate, a local accelerator, think tank, not-for-profit-organization and all-around theoretical black box whose downtown head office looked, ironically, like the bleached-white bones of a gargantuan, prehistoric whale. Sally cycled the ping to SpAm™ and moved on to more important messages. In the six years since the incident at Gingko Espresso, she’d been reducing her screen-and-holography time through a bespoke App Limiter, and her total minutes per day was now in the single digits. She didn’t have them to waste on SpAm™. Several more similar messages from Dr. Chee went straight to SpAm™ in the days to come, though The Reality Wars patent pending had necessitated a temporary pause on some automated filtering once per week, since nobody knew what was real anymore. So, eventually, Sally had seen enough “URGENT!” and “OPPORTUNITY!” and “PLEASE!” message headers from Dr. Chee to open one of the voice pings. This made a two metre by two metre glowing green head, presumably Dr. Chee’s, appear in the midst of Sally’s HomePlace™ via 3.33D holography. Sally’s App Limiter cut the feed for the day as soon as the holographic Dr. Chee was intaking her first breath to speak, and in the hour and a half it subsequently took Sally to locate the control settings for her App Limiter so that she could temporarily extend her minutes for that day, the sun had gone down. In the darkness of her HomePlace™, Sally finally watched the following message: “Ms. Summitt, my name is Dr. Lilian Chee, and I am a Lead Thinker™ and Immersive Experience Curatolutionary™ at M.A.R.S. Syndicate. I apologize for bombarding you with voice pings, but I have an exciting opportunity for you. This opportunity will cost you nothing and may, in fact, bring you considerable income along with, I believe, great personal happiness and health. Please ping back an available morning for you to visit, weekends included. I will make myself available. I am very excited to meet you. Thank you!” Sally, who had to admit to herself that she didn’t have much going on, pinged Dr. Chee back on a morning eleven days later, to present the illusion that she was, in reality, very busy. When the day arrived, it took quite a bit of convincing on Sally’s part to prevail upon Dr. Chee– a deferential and efficient-seeming researcher whose professionally- inappropriate youthfulness (she was, at best, twenty-two years old) seemed to crackle at the edges of her white labcoat at all times– not to give Sally the standard tour of the M.A.R.S. building. She found the edifice offputting, especially when she passed into its Shadow Field™ from the bright sunshine of the morning foot traffic on Bloor Street. Besides, Sally had spent all of the past eleven days thinking of nearly nothing but what on Earth the young “curatolutionary” had contacted her for; and on her third refusal of the standard tour, Sally lost just enough of her temper to blurt out, “will you please just tell me what this is about?” Dr. Chee transitioned smoothly into the pitch. “You see, Ms. Summitt, when your full data profile was sold to us in the conglomerate bake-off that broke up Anodyne Supertechnica™ six months ago–” “–I don’t think I gave permission for that,” Sally muttered weakly– “–you did, it’s right here in the checkbox,” Dr. Chee annotated smoothly before continuing– “your specific algorithmic choices in your, let’s see, yes, your Omnifeed™ app, fit a profile that we have been searching for.” Dr. Chee seemed to be politely moderating the degree to which she was certain, absolutely certain, she was paying Sally an enormous compliment. “You broke open my algorithm?” Sally stammered. Dr. Chee almost smiled. It came off as a sphincteral smirk, instead. “Of course. In short, we need someone just like you to begin a series of tests on an immersive new technology that we believe will have great market value, particularly if and when The Reality Wars patent pending go in the direction we believe they will.” “Which is…?” Sally sighed, already exhausted. Dr. Chee’s rapid-fire delivery seemed to slow, her jaw muscles loosening. “Well,” Dr. Chee began, more like she was having a coffee conversation with a friend. “That’s political. I don’t want to offend anyone who’s on one side or the other. You know how things are. But let’s say, certain… shall we say… boundaries will soon be no longer enforceable, or at least, might become more permeable in different ways.” Sally blew her last gasket. “What the hell does that mean??!” she spat. From the startled look on Dr. Chee’s face, Sally gave herself a small point of mental victory; for clearly, whatever was in Sally’s private data had not prepared the young researcher for that. “It would be easier just to show you,” Dr. Chee said sullenly, and led Sally into the interior of the lab. The System brand name not final put Sally in the place she loved most in the world, under the weather she loved most in the world, wearing the clothes she loved most in the world, and filled the air with faint wafts of the aroma she loved most in the world. None of these logically matched up with one another, or needed to. They were not the point. In front of Sally, crawling or lolling on the silk-soft green grass, were dozens and dozens of babies, all bare-footed, all euphoric. Sally’s body, in the suspension nutrient fluid with its strong analgesics and total deprivation of light and sound, somewhere in the darkened M.A.R.S. lab– itself a whale carcass from the ancient world sitting hollowed-out on a street in a city– perceived nothing but the virtual (V-) world. In the V-world, V-Sally hesitated, her own toes naked on the grass, demure and uncertain in spite of the very clear instructions from Dr. Chee. In front of her, one of the babies rolled onto its backside and kicked its feet in the air, and squealed with a ferocious, beckoning delight. Sally’s debrief took seven hours, mostly because Sally needed to confirm, at nearly every step and before answering any single question, that none of her responses would follow her back into her “real” life. Dr. Chee, whose features had taken on the aspect of a particularly self-satisfied tabby, eventually tired of giving Sally the same validation over and over again, regarding what Sally had or had not chosen to do or not do to the V-toes of any V-babies in V-world. Instead, Dr. Chee asked Sally if she thought The System brand name not final might be better sold under the brand name Real Life, which would be marketed without air quotes or trademarks.
You Are What You Eat by Lia Matthew Brown
All I wanted was to see someone else’s face, to look another human in the eye, to know I wasn’t the only one left. I guess you don’t realise what true loneliness is until it’s too late. Outside my living room window, the quiet sky burned a deep, angry orange. The whiskey distillery in the next town over had turned into a ball of flame. I could taste the burning malt of it seeping through the window frame. I used to think of myself as a lone wolf, not needing anyone or anything– typical teenage chest-thumping. Mum used to say in her quiet but firm voice, Jude Guthrie, one of these days you’ll realise how much you need me and I hope it smacks you across the face like a wet fish. Well, she was right about that. She left the house two, maybe three days ago. It was hard to tell. All the days blended into one big vortex of swirling nerves as I resisted the urge to bludgeon my head off the walls until I became numb. No radio, no internet, no more YouTube readings of Charles Bukowski or those compilations of cat videos I’d never admit to watching– just me and my soaring panic. I gasped at shadows and flinched like a nervous cat whenever I heard someone talking, only to realise it had been me. Before the great shut down, there’d been reports of massive, alien-like blob things swallowing cities across the world. We’d all laughed it off, thinking it was some stunt like that War of the Worlds radio show that made everyone go nuts, thinking the world was going to end back in the 30s. When the blob came to Balekerin I was in my room, sunshine prickling my forearm as it beamed through my bedroom window. School had finally ended for the summer, and my head was abuzz like a kid on Christmas Eve. Weeks of freedom lay ahead, hanging loose on street corners with my mates, raising hell, maybe we’d even sneak in some booze. My daydreams of blue skies and laughter burst away when Mum screamed into the house, slamming doors. “Jude? Shut all the windows. Now!” The torn note in her strangled yell killed the question inside me. I leapt up and slammed my window shut, then bolted through to the other rooms to make sure all the windows were closed upstairs. I opened my mouth to shout, to ask what the heck was going on, but my jawbone hung loose like it detached from muscle. A rolling, oily blackness slimed its way over the window. The wooden frame of our house cracked under the immense weight of the lava-like sludge that slowly shut out the sun. My legs gave in and I slumped to my knees, my insides turning January cold. A smell like burning tar and soggy mushrooms floated through the walls as the thing engulfed the window, smothering the house, locking me in a darkness so deep I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or not. It trapped us for six days. Mum and I huddled together, leaving all the lights on as the air grew stale and thin. There was nothing to do but go crazy with worry. I was staring off into space, dreaming of the summer wind whipping through my tangle of brown hair, a sob baking inside me at the thought of never feeling free again. The blob unstuck itself from our house with an ear-rending noise like a million suckers ripping away all at once. The house cracked, settling into place as I rushed to the window, almost blinded by the beaming, glorious sun. To my right, I saw the rows of houses that marked the start of our long street. Past our neighbours on the left, a black tide engulfed everything. It was massive, moving with slug-like muscles, pulsing itself onward. Mum and I argued about whether to stay inside or go hunt for food, for help, for Dad. He was still out there somewhere. We had to find him, but we had no idea when or if the blob would be back, and what would happen to us if it sucked us into its black mass. When I took the first step outside into clean air after six days inside, the oxygen whooshed straight to my brain like the whiskey Dad sometimes let me drink with him when he got home from the pub. I stifled a silly giggle and batted away a tear. The sun shone hard on my skin, urging me outside. By the time we stepped through Mr. Kellerman’s open front door, the fuzziness wore off. Our old neighbour’s skeleton lay in the middle of his living room floor as if he’d fallen off the couch, a clawed hand stretched toward something no longer there. His bones had been stripped so clean they were shiny. We took his food and I nabbed myself a few books, hoping the old guy wouldn’t mind. The collection of beat-up Michael Connelly books came in handy when the thing consumed our house again the next day like a nightmarish wave. It went on this way, covering our house and then moving off days later only to come slithering back, swallowing everything. When we ventured outside those first few weeks, anyone we passed looked at us in horror, like I was the blob, ready to steal their life away. They’d jump to the other side of the road, refusing to look us in the eye. I wanted to shout at them to grow up, that we could help each other, that the government would be here soon to nuke the black thing into oblivion. I’d always thought that when the world ended, we’d all band together, but that wasn’t the case at all. Humans suck, big time. The thick, orange sky was enough to make the base of my stomach quiver. I tiptoed closer to the window. It was one in the afternoon and the sun tried to burn through the orange haze while I went out of my mind, wondering where Mum had got to and whether or not to go after her. Being inside all the time withered my soul– I was made for the outside. Growing up, Mum and Dad knew grounding me was the only thing that would get through. They could take my toys, but when they forced me to stay indoors, something would stir inside me, demanding to be set free. I was born to scrape my knees, to swing high, to feel the wind push and tug at me as I sped downhill. I pressed my palm against the cold window. Were Mum and Dad laying somewhere like the countless, pristine skeletons I’d seen? Was anyone out there fighting this damned thing? Was I the only one left? Remembering the last thing I’d said to Dad spiked me in the gut. I told him he could go to hell. I guess, in a way, he did. He’d walked out the door, a hurt look in his eyes. I watched him kick stones up the path, his head down as he rushed away. Soon after that, the blob came to swallow reality as we knew it. He binned my bike– my beautiful Summer Bullet. I used to ride that thing until my legs couldn’t keep up with the pedals and then whoosh. With the wind pressing at my back, I’d close my eyes, a bullet shot from a barrel, tunnelling through the warm, summer air. I didn’t ride it enough, he’d said. He looked hopeful when he said that, like a kid who’d just been told Santa wasn’t real, pleading for a grownup to take it all back. The lads at school teased me rotten about going ‘riding’ with my dad, so I let the Summer Bullet rot, and our relationship along with it, I guess. What I wouldn’t give to stand on that red bike’s peddles, the bumpy pavement rumbling up the handlebars and my forearms, wind catching and whipping my hair as I flew down the street, the bright sun sizzling my back. All thoughts and cares blurred when I rode my Summer Bullet. I’d whip round corners, crunch over stone, slice through grass, the rubber tyres churning and zipping over hot concrete. Dad would be with me, hunched over his bike, spinning his long, dangly legs, the years thawing off his face. My stomach roared at me, snapping me out of my happy place. It wasn’t just a subtle hint for food, either, but a long rumble like it growled at me. The last of our food– a tin of hot dogs– sat lonely on the kitchen counter. The orange light that buzzed through the window made it look like I stood in the centre of some ancient, sepia-toned photo. It made everything feel fake, like I was watching a film– a film about a boy, a blob, and the end of the world. Man, I was so close to losing it. I closed my eyes and my stomach screamed at me again. No. I needed to wait on Mum. I couldn’t trust myself not to wolf down all the hot dogs once I got started. She had to come back soon, before the thing returned to blot out the world again. Hot blood thundered around my ears as I opened the front door. A whoosh of muggy air flowed over my face. For a brief, childish second, I thought a ghost leapt at me. I stumbled back into the house, nearly falling on my butt. I exhaled a meek laugh and stepped outside, shaking my head. I needed to find Mum before the blob returned. The baking heat made a sheen of sweat prickle my forehead before I reached the end of the path. The taste of cloying ozone held the promise of a thunderstorm as I stared up at the glowering orange sky. I closed my eyes, recalling frantic neighbours shooing kids to school, straightening their ties before fleeing to work in the morning bustle. It was nice here – the kind of street you could belt up and down on your bike all day long and no one would give you any bother. I slunk into Mrs. Peterson’s house, the remains of her front window twinkling on her lawn, courtesy of yours truly. The cold kitchen tiles welcomed me when I broke down, sobbing hard. What sort of dirty rat sneaks into a nice lady’s home and raids her cupboards? I threw the bag of tinned food inside my house then walked down the silent street, trying a few doors, shouting my loudest but friendliest hellos. No one answered. How long could we survive like this? What happened when the food ran out? I slumped down on someone’s doormat, back against a sun warmed door, resting my arms on my knees. I didn’t even know who lived in this house just a few doors up from ours. Crazy how you can live your life so close to someone and know nothing about them. On the path, tiny black slugs crept, their oily skin glittering under the dull orange sky. It was as if the big blob left little parts of itself behind. My shoulders rattled against the door as a shudder rolled over me, and I inhaled a sharp lungful of the fire-dead air. A small slug reared up like it stood on hind legs, sniffing at me. Its shunting movements made cold ants swarm underneath my skin. A wet, slopping noise like rising surf broke the silence. I leapt to my feet, bounding across the road to my house, looking over my shoulder. A mass of black tar sloshed its way around the corner and into my street. It slithered over garden walls, cars, fences, trees, until there was nothing but a black tide rolling toward me, consuming everything. This close, greens and blues swirled off its surface like oil in a puddle. My legs turned to gum under me as it folded itself forward. Tips of houses vanished slowly under the blob’s dark depths. The air shifted my hair as a string of blackness shot past me. It slapped the pavement with a sucking noise that made my insides shudder, then the black mass hauled itself towards me like it gave chase. I nearly made it to my house when the darkness swirled around me, splatting against the front door. It toyed with me, ready to slurp me into its flowing, glistening dark. I ran in the only direction I could – through my gate and into my back garden. The gate swung open and without thinking, I sprinted to the shed, jangling at the padlock, a bubbling moan wailing up my throat as the tidal wave of nightmare blotted out the sun, turning my skin cold. The padlock clanged loose to the ground. I opened the door and leapt into darkness, rattling it closed behind me. I gasped in ragged breaths, old books, paint and wood mingling inside the muggy air of the dark, spacious shed. The thing thumped against the door, making me fall backwards over a plastic bag full of hard, plastic junk. Sweat tumbled down my temples as my scrambled nerves settled. Dad must’ve been in here before he left, forgetting to lock up. The wood above me groaned and splintered. My mind wobbled at the thought of that darkness engulfing the world above me, like I was a submarine lost at the bottom of the deep ocean. I slid along the wall, tracing my fingers over the rough wood, reaching for a light switch like a man walking on the ledge of a tall building. I hit the switch, and two fluorescent tubes pinged to life, sharp light shooting along the length of the shed. Dad came through for me again, big time. In the corner, in the largest shopping bag I’d ever seen, was a supply of tinned food. Fair enough, it was the food from the back of the cupboard that no one ever wants to eat, but beggars can’t be choosers, right? He must’ve emptied our cupboards to donate to the food bank. He was always doing stuff like that. My surge of elation turned to mushy desperation as I hunted for something to open the tins with. Hunger howled at me, clawing me down as I sat with a heavy tin of beans and pork sausages in my hand. I managed to pry the tins open with a pair of pliers, slicing up my lips as I shoved the contents down my throat. I’d no idea if Mum made it back, Dad vanished the day the blob showed up, and I couldn’t tell if it still engulfed the shed. It was just me, the tins, and the huge spiders that claimed the shed as their home. My Summer Bullet was in the shed, all sleek and red and wonderful. Maybe Dad couldn’t bring himself to bin it after all. I wiped a tear from my cheek and lifted the back wheel off the floor and gave the wheel a spin. Its tic, tic, tic lifted me back to days spent peddling, weaving, popping wheelies, hopping over kerbs and zooming through my childhood. Ah, to feel that light again, like air, like freedom. “Fly, Bullet, fly,” my croaky voice echoed off the walls as the wheel gave its final tic. I closed my eyes. I was with Dad, flying down the street, my Summer Bullet wheeling under me, the uneven path rumbling up the handlebars and through my wrists as I channelled through the warm air. Dad was behind me on his bike, a smile stretched across his face. It was as if he turned back into a kid when we cycled together, and I could imagine that kid being my best friend. The memory socked me in the gut as I traced my fingers along the brilliant red of my bike’s frame. Why couldn’t I have swallowed my damn pride? I let my ‘mates’ mock me into ruining something special. It was only sitting alone amongst the junk and the spiders in the shed that I realised Dad needed those bike rides as much as I did. My supply of tinned goods wouldn’t last much longer, especially since I couldn’t stop eating once I begun. It was the only comfort I had in the four days I’d spent crammed in here amongst the junk. The sane part of my brain screamed at me to ration, but once I started one tin, I found myself ripping open another, and a wave of self-hate would take over. I needed to find out if the thing still consumed our street. A sizzling fire zapped its way up my fingertips when I touched my Summer Bullet. It missed the wind, the speed, the jealous wonder on blurred faces. “I can’t go on like this.” My hands quivered as I leaned over, grabbing a handlebar in each hand. The rubber creaked in my palms as I pulled the bike off the wall and walked toward the door, thetic, ticof the spokes singing to me. “What you say, Bullet?” I said. “Time to fly.” I leaned my hand against the door, images of the black, swirling blob shooting into the shed, smothering me into its darkness, ending everything. I pressed the door gently with a finger and it flew open, swinging out, slamming against the side of the shed. A smile stretched up my cheeks as the sun warmed my skin. The light made my Summer Bullet pulse with red fire. The burning orange sky had been replaced by a wondrous, unbroken blue. I threw my leg over my bike and onto the leather seat. Something melted inside me as I rode out onto the empty street, slowly at first. The blob was nowhere to be seen. Just me, a beautiful day and my Summer Bullet under me, ready to fly. The chain clunked as I changed gears, then pushed down with all my might, my unused thigh muscles aching with pleasure. The wind shoved at my back, willing me forever onward. A vision of my dad appeared, roaring with silent laughter as he cycled behind me, a boyish smile plastered on his face, willing me to go faster, faster. I obliged. I whisked round a corner, Dad’s image flickering in and out as I gave my tears to the cooling wind. A mass of blackness engulfed the bottom of the long, winding road, eating up houses, the bright sun glittering off its oily surface like a distant, tar-filled sea. My fingers hovered over the brake. The song of rubber mowing over hot concrete, the tunnel of blowing wind, and the whirring of pedals clutched at my soul. I dropped my fingers from the brake, and pushed down hard on the pedals, zipping down the street, screaming at the sky until my throat cracked. As I whizzed downhill, closer to the blob, it smelled like a campfire gone cold. I pushed until the pedals went loose and free under my feet. I closed my eyes, holding on tight to the handlebars, holding on tight to my Summer Bullet.
Paul O’Neill is a short story writer with more than fifty published tales. He runs Short Story Club on Substack where he and over 175 readers analyse the classics on a regular basis. He lives in Fife, Scotland.
The Summer Bullet by Paul O'Neill
Text
www.thegenresociety.com submissions@thegenresociety.com The Genre Society
Next Issue: July 2025 Donate to Support this independent magazine
Images obtained via Unsplash through Marq unless otherwise noted
