Pran’s Confession

by Joel Arnold

The young men in Bangkok sometimes called him Grandpa or Uncle as he clutched their lithe oiled bodies. His fingers grasped a bit too tight, his nails dug into their skin and drew beads of blood. Sometimes he’d choke them, but never enough to kill them. He had to be careful. He was gaining a reputation among them, and a reputation was something he had to stay away from. But it was hard not to let the old feelings overcome him, the memories flooding into his mind of how it once felt to watch a life quickly fade behind the suffocating film of a plastic bag.

Samnang startled. He clutched frantically at his shirt pocket. The piece of paper was still there.

Lala Salama

by Gill Ainsworth

“You are lucky; I have already imparted that to you. It is the life inside you that is suffering.”

“The hospital doctor looked at my baby through my tummy. It’s happy and normal. Asifiwe Bwana!”

“You may praise The Lord, but He cannot alter this, Madam. I have told you that!” For the first time, Ess noticed anger in the Mganga’s voice. He swatted at flies again, taking his vengeance out on the insects. “The Lord will thank you if you kill it,” he said in a more gentle tone.

Ess stood. “Kill my baby! For what?” She dropped a couple of shillings at his feet, and then stomped across the dirt track to her car and Kazungu who was waiting to drive her home. As she climbed into the vehicle she shouted, “To keep you and your stupid superstitions in business?”

“Madam,” Kazungu said, as he put the car into first gear, “you should show Mganga respect. He is a very wise man.”

Deep Red

by Floris M. Kleijne

Blood matting her blonde hair, blood on her face, blood covering so much of her it takes a moment to see she is naked. The dream gives me an eternity to see her. Eyes wide open and shining, shining. And she grins. That grin has never stopped haunting me. In the dream, I know what she’s done in the bedroom. And I’ve never seen her happier, more exulted.

Deep Red envelopes her, emanates from her every visible pore. It’s like she has taken a bath in perfume. The scent engulfs me, blurs my mind, until I smell only that and see only her grin. Her lips part, and in the dream, she speaks two words.

“Hey, baby…” she says, and in the calm and affectionate tone of her words, the horror of the dream reaches an unbearable level.

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Sick Day

by Michael Chant

As she leaves for work, my wife kisses me goodbye. It is love in the machine, passion stripped away on the assembly-line known as the workweek. Her car pulls out of the driveway, leaving me with more than an hour to kill before I have to go to work.

I empty a little plastic bag of capsules and gelcaps into my palm. These are all the vitamins a man my age should be taking. I wash them down with a glass of calcium-enriched orange juice, and then it’s time to shower. While lathering up, masturbation gets considered and rejected, the pleasure I would receive is found to be too fleeting to affect my mood. After rinsing and drying off, I pause to look at my face in the bathroom mirror. Seeing is believing — I look older than I am.

Clockwork

by Trent Jamieson

Some places you visit in dreams again and again. Some places visit you. Fourteen and it found me.

I stood knee deep in grass, brittle, yellowing, summer grass. The citadel rose above me, its clockwork beat roaring in my head; gears and wheels rumbling, ticking, tocking, groaning under the weight of all that time.

On the furthest buttress from me, though I dared not look, I knew he would be there, a single figure hanging, broken-necked, spinning in short circles, dancing on the dry hot wind.

And because I was doomed, because the dream was a tide and inevitability, I walked towards the citadel.

When I was near, so close that I could almost touch it, the ground shook and the brass doors at the tower’s base flung open like the wings of an iron dragon and I stared into the guts of the machine.

The Cellar

by Stephen Owen

“I’m Mr. Sinclair.” The smiling old man introduced himself. “Not too early, am I?”

“Whatever you’re selling, I ain’t interested,” said the man, ignoring Sinclair’s offer of a handshake. He was taller than Sinclair by a couple of inches, probably in his mid-forties, with cropped blond-grey hair and a permanent frown etched between tired-looking eyes.

“Didn’t they tell you?” said Sinclair, studying a piece of paper in his hand, then checking the brass door number. “I’ve come to look round your house.”

“No-one said nothing.”

“It is still for sale, isn’t it?”

“Oh sure, just wasn’t expecting…”

“Of course, I can always come back another time,” said the old man. He frowned and scratched his chin. “That would be rather inconvenient, though. I’ve come all the way from Oxford. Traffic was an absolute nightmare.”

Furnace Room Lullaby

by Leah Bobet

The house off Weathervane Street came old, but not haunted.

It came with bright red brick walls on the outside, cherry-paneled floors on the inside, plaster that weeps moisture in the summer that plinks into a hundred dented pots. It came with cats that drink the water, wander in and out of the house, vanish into the weedy yard at dusk. It came old and weeping, rafters twisted, foundation long settled and scented with earth.

Isabelle made it haunted, and so she still lives in the house.

Periods

By Florence Ann Marlowe

Read by Damaris Mannering

“It’s going on three weeks, now.”

“Mmm-hmmm. And there’s no chance of you being pregnant?”

“Oh, no!” Nancy shook her head. “I haven’t even been with a guy in a long time.”

“Good.” Doctor Mason stood up, his eyes still glued to Nancy’s chart. He flashed her a quick smile. “One less thing to worry about.”

Nancy nodded. “So what could it be?”

The doctor seemed lost in thought. He pressed the butt end of his pen to his teeth. He then quickly shifted his seat, uncrossing and re-crossing his legs. Nancy suppressed an impatient sigh.

“I know exactly what it is,” he said finally.

Nancy was surprised. “Oh.”