They ate us out of house and home. Martha and the children would arrive in the middle of the night, Frank left behind in a drunken stupor. We would hear the Volkswagen coasting up the driveway, the engine running on empty. And after a couple of weeks, we were too. ***
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Pelican Beach Resort – January 3 Matteo T. In the morning, we leave our hotel room early to go down to the beach for a pre-dawn dip. The air unusually salty and sticky-sweet. The surf shorn like a crew cut. As the thin shimmer of sun settles on top of the water, we see the bodies bobbing in the foam. Blood flowing like watercolour paint. Dark Jurassic shadows weaving figure eights just below the surface. ***** Belinda S. I arrive at the beach with umbrella and blanket, floppy sun hat, and spf 60, and plop the kids in the sand with their jetson-coloured beach buckets and shovels, and we settle in aways down the shoreline, me with my beach book and a glorious view of the Belize oceanfront. Darcey screams, ‘Mommy Mommy, I see a dolphin and there’s another one.’ I don’t want to get up, we just arrived, but her shrieks are insistent. The rogue wave tossing the bodies up onto the sandbank. I only wish I had seen them first; the kids won’t easily forget this horror… ***** Bruce R. The party lasted into the early morning, the drinking and drugs flowing. They ventured down onto the beach, we could hear them singing and laughing, wading knee-deep. Soon the screams. It’s unusual for Carcharodon carcharias to hunt in shoals at night, so close to the shore, they said. The hotel called it a tsunami. The island publicity said otherwise. We left a bad review, of course. *** His body lays still, skin flaky like paperbark. How long, she wonders, placing Myrtle across his chest —the white flowers pop against the atrament-black of the forest burial ground. Lips stained dark-blue like Haskap jelly are already fading; she has stood by long enough. She stamps out her Viceroy cigarette, the tip of her shoes a muddy cattle-brown. In the distance, a pileated woodpecker jackhammers into the void; petrichor filling her lungs. And through the trees, a tiny shard of light—the secret opening of the universe-—a wisp, the colour of smoke disappearing. He walks away from the Instabank and the list falls out of his pocket. Snoopy me, I pick it up, before inserting my bank card in the machine. It’s terrifying. I’m not sure who to contact. Will the police do. Should I call my solicitor first. Maybe pick up the baby from daycare, drive to the country, make our escape before all hell breaks loose. I turn around to the fellow behind me, pass him the list without a word, maybe he’ll know what to do. This is not something I want to handle alone, a burden I don’t want to carry, or take to my grave… The fellow shudders, his face blanches, parboiled-white, his lips quivering… It’s almost noon, people will be pouring out of their offices in droves, no time to waste. We clutch one another and look for someone who can help. Not a word uttered, not a one. "ATM" was published in SWITCH January, 2024 It is mid-week in the quartier in front of the museum’s commanding staircase and the cellist is playing a Sarabande. His tangle of curly Moroccan hair jumbles like Hokkien noodles with each rhythmic nod of his head. He is concentrating, eyes shuttered. The mournful melody is played slow, spare, lonely. Lean sinewy fingers shimmy up and down the instrument’s neck. Notes yawn and camber. The sound is resonant, arcane, haunting. He has performed this piece umpteen times before. Fingers and bow arm animate with independent muscle memory. The rest of his body idling. The cellist busies himself with the audience. Scanning. He glimpses a woman in the crowd perched like a tropical bird. Tall, elongated sinuous neck curved in an S-shape, rainbow-coloured hair, spikey and barbed. He’s seen her before at open-air concerts. By the second movement, her eyes are glistening like sea salt, her chin trembling like an open flame. Once upon a time he too felt something. Could feel the notes burrowing, stirring desires and furies, obsessions, and slings. Each note igniting an involuntary sound-to-colour burst of tourmaline blue, ballet slipper pink, antelope brown, disco purple, and hullabaloo red. …. But that was then. Before he lost touch. Before he played by rote. His eyes scrutinize the bird-woman over the black-horsehair bow as it zigzags across the fingerboard. Keeping the notes light and thin, like the whisper of a secret affaire. Then abruptly nosedives down the instrument’s neck plunging to a dark cavernous C two octaves below middle C. Her avian limbs respond with a sudden flutter. He wants to know her story. He imagines she comes to feel. The dark sonorous C impaling deep within, excavating buried emotions, memories, and experiences. She is overcome by the cello’s vibrations. The bow lurching, snapping, and shuddering, and for a moment, she is made whole. When it pauses, in a semibreve rest, she holds her breath. Folds up. It is only when the cello throbs, that she can let herself go. He plays for her. The cellist leans in. The notes undulating, enveloping; serpentine. His lips pucker and purse, his mouth bursting with delicate tiny prickles. Something marvelous percolating. Something sudden, something altogether new. With each note he tastes a distinct flavour. Soon, a medley of sumptuous Maraschino cherry, black Mission fig, Malabar pepper, Saskatoon berry, Madagascar dark chocolate, and Kentucky bourbon, tickle his mushroom-shaped papillae. His head is swimming, saliva swirling. He is back. His performance astounding. The concert, over. He packs up his instrument lasering through the crowd for a chance to meet her. But she has already flown away. A migratory bird. "Bird" was published in NUNUM December, 2023 He’s a player they say, debonaire, zoot suit, melon-colored upholstery, and uber pointy shoes to push up in the crannies. When he enters a room, he waits until he sees everyone looking in his direction. Except her, what’s wrong with her… he voices loud enough for those clamouring around to hear, his chin cocked in her direction. Heads swivel – the madame is disinterested, clearly. Her arms folded in a vice grip, engrossed in conversation with no one as important as he. Her loss, he mutters with a flick of his wrist. But he can’t stop looking… she’s got pointy shoes too, embossed with rigour. They flick like the second hand on a grandfather clock. The rhythm has him hooked. "Tick Tock" was published in Scapegoat Review December, 2023 Jerzy counts the steps to the summit – 88 flagstones, solid, rooted, arcane. Breathing heavy. The mid-autumn wind whips his rust-coloured hair into stiff peaks, a will of its own. He can’t bear to look over the craggy edge, cantilevered. What if he sees something, what if the remains are picked over by birds, ravaged by scavengers, even worse, what if there’s nothing there. His third eye refreshes, recalling the spat that made his arms lunge, made his body inflate like the incredible hulk, made his will gust like the wind… made Arturo topple over the edge like humpty dumpty. "Blame It On The Wind" was published in Friday Flash Fiction December 2023 The cowboy-red lipstick pops. She draws over it again leaving a thick impasto line. Repositions the venetian glass baubles dangling mid-chest and snatches a last glance in the hall mirror ‑—spray tan deep antelope-brown— as the doorbell rings. The delivery boy hands her the flat pizza box, piping hot he says. The lady motions for him to come in but he stands firm, toes gripping the transom. Insistent, her fingers coil and uncoil as she smoothes the plunging neckline of her gold lamé silk robe. The ravelling and unravelling of thick epithelial tissue, hypnotic. Her dancing fingers gesture to the long sofa finely upholstered in chintz and rose-pink fringe, velvet pillows from the grand bazaar. She pats the cushions with a little more oomph than is reasonable, and the boy still does not budge. His hands ball up in his pockets, face slack-jawed and parboiled-white. He cringes but only slightly. An invitation? The lady’s index finger is pointy like the tentacle of a giant Humboldt squid, its powerful barbed suckers reach out to grab, grip, and tear apart her prey. Behind the bolting door: a pile of crumpled softshell jackets with high visibility reflective band, pairs of slip-resistant shoes, and red baseball caps emblazoned with delivery company logo. The tall stack of pizza boxes: Neapolitan with extra cheese, untouched. "The Lady in Apartment 2B" was published in Coffin Bell Journal October, 2023
When the police arrive, the children are already a little calmer. Parents clustering around their offspring like a mother hen. The body draped under a beach towel. No one had noticed the splash, only the tree-swing rocking erratically and empty. A grief-stricken mother, her head bobbing in her hands. The serene Monet setting forever altered. *** Picnic was published in Microfiction Monday Magazine June 2023 The boy sprouts haystack hair above Dobby ears. He leans into every bad decision a nine-year-old can make. A handful they say. On a day like any other, he sends Tanta Sofía’s precious kitten out on a makeshift boat cobbled together with popsicle sticks and Bazooka gum, towards the middle of the lake. By the time the trembling furball is discovered, it is nitro-cold, the light whisper thin like a sweep of fresh-drawn blood. The boy waits for Tanta Sofía’s reaction. When he sees her shoulders cave, thin lips pressed tight, hand clutching her ulcerous belly, he puffs up; job well done. The following morning Tanta Sofía cringes when the boy spears a gecko with a forked twig, its toes splayed shapeless beneath his acid-green gumboots, innards oozing like a sweet meringue filled with pistachio ganache. She yanks the boy by the arm, gives him a swift whiskey-swat. Where’s your sense boy. He shrugs, sheathes his wolverine claws, and stomps off flicking the switch back into the twisted juniper thicket. Later that afternoon, the boy catwalks in low-slung dungarees, baseball cap hitched cocky, skulking around the cottage like a bad omen. The scent of fresh hay in the air. A sudden trickle of smoke, barn mousers scattering, the whiff of kerosene trailing. There is a scuttle of activity hauling buckets to douse the flames. The boy nowhere to be found. Tante Sofía’s goodwill sinking to murky depths. At dinner that evening Tanta Sofía watches not wanting to see, as the boy plunges his knife into pillowy slices of white bread, twisting and gouging. His fingers locked in a sabre grip as if practicing. His crude carving, a primordial totem she cannot decipher. She swallows hard and portions out the peas. Fear nestles, not the kind that comes in silent waves, but a roaring tsunami hell-bent on upending everything. A boy without a father, yoked with grief since the man’s untimely death in the mines. A boy beyond her reach in need of what she doesn’t have to give. She would take the boy to the baker, Tomás. A reformed lout, Tomás’s reputation stuck to him like a prison tattoo. But he would know what to do. Tomás would take the boy under his wing. He would turn him around. In the early light of dawn, Tomás prods the boy with a wooden rolling pin, inspecting his new charge. Tanta Sofía looks on, relieved. Luscious pies and tarts, bombón, flan de nata, churros con chocolate, pastelitos and empanadas, and the boy’s favourite syrupy sponge cake filled with cream and cinnamon rolled up into a cylinder drenched with rum-laced syrup and crowned with toasted cream and sugar, fill the long table and baker’s rack. The boy would learn a respectable trade. By afternoon the boy is schooled. The baker gestures for him to make his way outside to the coop. Tomás is not a patient man. He hollers down the laneway urging the boy to get on with it. Empanadas de pollo require an exact temperature for the crust to turn golden and flaky, not a minute more, not a minute less, he barks. Tomás turns back into the kitchen to spoon the herb and légumes mixture into the puff pastry, waiting for the main ingredient to arrive. The boy repeats the countdown as instructed, Uno, dos, tres, and takes a deep breath. With fists squeezed tight, the boy grips the head behind the skull with his thumb under its beak, stretches the neck downwards, at the same time pressing his knuckles into the neck vertebrae, and pulls the bird’s head back, shaking until it yields. Its limp neck hangs, thin strings of sticky-dark-red dripping on top of blue suede Nike’s. The stink immediate. The boy’s hand rushes to his nose pinching nostrils closed before nausea sets in. He did not hear the snap, he thinks to himself. Usually, the snap is the telltale sign. He would try again with the next one. Eyes gleam mixed metal. |
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March 2024
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