Proverbs 16:31 – Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.

When I Was Young, I Did Not Need Magic

by Kat Day

I suggest you don’t try to struggle, my dear.

I’m sure you thought this would be easy. What danger is an old woman, all alone? In and out, simple. Help yourself to the purse on the kitchen table. Grab some jewellery – probably just lying around. Perhaps the Hummel figurines if you’ve any sort of an eye. My shopping bag, to put it all in. Leave the television – it’s too bulky, and who watches television these days anyway, hm?

It’s gone rather differently, hasn’t it? The best laid plans, and all that. Not that, I suspect, you planned very much. (Continue Reading…)

Overnight Home Companion

by Frank J. Oreto

Position: Overnight home companion for shut in. Must be able to read. Lack of imagination a plus. 

Salary: 250 dollars a night. I’ve never seen who pays. But the cash is there every morning at sunrise. A brown paper bag in the mailbox, twenties and tens. Good money, right? But I need to explain some things. I don’t want you coming in blind like I did.  (Continue Reading…)

“We are not lovers. We are not romantics. We are here to serve you.”

Feast for Small Pieces

by Hailey Piper

Never underestimate the seductive power of a woman who’s minding her own business.

“There’s just something about her,” they say. I see myself splashed across a pulp magazine cover, a distraught man in the background. The tagline reads, “He met a woman he Could. Not. Resist.” As if that’s my problem.

These writers don’t realize it’s me they’ve placed in their stories. I’d hoped to escape them when I left England, but their tide is unending. They scarce remember passing me on the street, only the fire I’ve lit in their minds, hearts, and other places. Later they sit with their notebooks or keyboards, tapping out the story of how a man’s peaceful life was shattered when he met me in some chance romance.

Sometimes I’m cast as a vampire. Other times I’m the half-human spawn of an elder god. I might be Eve. Never the same, but always me. (Continue Reading…)

“Devil on your back, I can never die”

The Family

by Margaret St. Clair

“Perhaps David really loves her,” Mother said indecisively. “We wouldn’t want our boy made unhappy, you know.”

Kate threw back her head and laughed. The lamplight glinted brightly on her long, strong teeth. “Of course he does,” she cried in her raucous voice. “Of course he does. Desperately, enormously. Otherwise, why would he want to marry her?” From the ceiling of the dim, raftered room came the obedient echo, “marry her … marry her …”

“Kate’s always been in love with her brother,” Lance said from the other side of the room. Lance was thin; David had never known anyone as thin as Lancelot. “She really must learn to watch out for it. Our family name’s Vlchek, not Volsung, Katharine.”

Everyone laughed. A bright glance of understanding, of shared, familiar mirth rippled from face to face. Only Kate, rumbling in her throat, refused to see the joke.

“No offense meant, Katharine,” Lance said with a touch of haste. “None at all. But it was agreed long ago that David was the only one of us who could pass for more than a day in the outside world. He has certain qualities which make him remarkably, outstandingly, attractive to the opposite sex. There’s no occasion for heartburning. Whatever it is he does, he does for us.”

“But if he really loves her—” Mother repeated, staring down at the worn greenish webs on her hands. “If he really does …” (Continue Reading…)

“There’s nothing in our eyes — As lonely as a moon”

Five Films Reviewed by Dr. Frankenstein’s Creature

by Evan J. Peterson

I. Little Pine Eye
Pinocchio, 1911

In Collodi’s original tale, the unborn log feels the burn of the scalpello, crying out. Some endure chisel and adze just to look human. We massage the grain to soften it to flesh, but the termites are already in. The nose dry-rots off of the face. Carpenter ants take off with our lips shared in their pincers. Pray, fantoccino, that some blue, asphyxiated fairy will hear your mulch of tears hitting the earth floor and pity you, grant you mortality. Pray to live long enough to die a man. How many paths to that eternal forest fire? Choking on an acorn, or boiling in your own sap, soul divorced from stump, but take comfort. Recall that fire is a miracle, the gift of Prometheus who, like Film, stole light. Fire blasts your shadow into sudden cleansing drama, a flood of shine into a darkened wood.

(Continue Reading…)