Gasp!

A young woman awakes in total darkness, not knowing where she was or how she got there, leading her to believe she might be in purgatory or worse... Hell!

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…awoke in total darkness, cold and alone.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, she struggled to stay awake, but it was a battle she felt herself losing. Just how long she had been in this state of semi-consciousness, she could…

By Michael Fright

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The Leaves on the Trees

One man comes to grips with climate reality

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…leaves never came. Everyone had heard of climate change, but many did not believe the global news.

Jack had heard the stories of increased intensity of storms, flooding, drought and wildfires. He didn't believe it.

His father used to say, “Don't believe it till you see it. Damn Democrats lie about…

By Alex Almeida

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Tears

A short story based on the things that live deep inside my mind

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…you wipe your tears today, yeah you didn't hear me walking into the kitchen.

I looked at you and asked what's wrong hating the cold counter top under my hand.

You looked back at me and said it's just been a long day and that you are tired, if I could go back I…

By Marina Vos

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A Shade of Wilderness

A student of art history starts a hunt for the story behind an obscure 1700's German painter. Can it help her finish a master's thesis?

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…I had been utterly frustrated with the odd jobs I was surviving by, I had likely never managed to motivate myself and return to my master’s thesis to finish my degree. My studies in art history had been miserably delayed. There were probably several reasons for my procrastination. After the final months of student-support gone by, I had ended up working a low-wage job at the Helsinki Kunsthalle. I had hoped that the job…

By Teemu Korpijärvi

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The Robot Overlords

Near future; post climate apocalypse. Robots run things and have a weird sense of humour ... because they're robots!

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…the humans, on their way to work, passed under a sign that read Noah 48.

Tyler had a cush job putting food into the tubes. Day in; day out. He had successfully delivered his human charges their sustenance. He listened to early 20th C Pop and rock. He was told that had been popular before everything…

By Alex Almeida

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Brainard Bullion: Creative Consultant

This is an ekphrasis fiction collaboration between myself and photographer Dario Saraceno

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…do I look like to you? Don’t be shy. Do you find me attractive? Repulsive? Charming? Scary? How about determined?  

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Brainard Bullion and I am a certifiable creativity coach, a conduit to the sacred hermaphroditical muse, CYN.  I reside in a Long Beach, New York rental unit that offers a partial oceanfront view. My passions include somersaulting in the nude and doing…


By Mark Blickley

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The Woman Who Wore A Mask

We all wear masks...

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…head Doctors told me I was cured. At least my urges to spy through people's windows was gone. That was until I saw the woman who moved in next store a few weeks later. That's when those urges and feelings that I spent hundreds of hours trying to work through and eliminate returned.

Dusk came and the sun bade farewell to the world surely as if it had been slain in one glorious black swallow of darkness that left its remains to dry themselves on the earth. Shadows lengthened and devoured the…

By RayFed

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The Town Werewolf

Basketball playing Werewolf in Iowa??

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…people of Dew, Iowa, had long known about the town werewolf. No one knew for sure who she or he was in human form. On full moon nights the wolf could be heard crying out from the corn fields. The next morning some poor bleeting or mooing animal would be found mostly eaten. The local sheriff would look for the remains by the carrion birds circling in the sky.

None of this was known to a road-trip weary traveller by the name of Ginger and her cat, Thelma. They had been traveling down the…


By Alex Almeida

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Chameleon

…regret the day I said hello to him and letting him walk me to my car because there were thugs out on the street at that time of the night. He was a friend of a friend. She talked him up to the point that I just had to meet him. His face was pleasant, his teeth straight and white. He had to have worn braces as a child. I kept thinking as we talked. The conversation flowed smoothly between us. We had a few things in common, but enough differences to keep it interesting. So, when he asked me…

By Dawn DeBraal

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The Room

Reality an illusion? ..Or illusions that are a reality?

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…alling beads of water momentarily caught the street lamp's dull glow as they continued their suicide plunge from the clouds to the wanting street below. Some cautiously lingered in the cascade of the languid yellow beam before slithering down the creased, worn paths formed in the air by their predecessors. Travis lie spreadeagled on the pavement seeping into the crevices waiting for his wet splattering companions to be weighed down by their own watery mass and accompany him on his journey to the furthermost cracks in the pavement. The raindrops seemingly…


By RayFed

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