CURRENT ISSUE | the-zodiac-review

Classes wouldn’t start for the winter semester until the following Monday, and as a last-minute art teacher fill-in due to an unexpected departure, I was there getting the lay of the land, so to speak. As I wandered the halls, through an open door beneath a sign reading 6th Grade English, I spotted a slight, neatly dressed young woman. Her back was to me, and she was busy filling a whiteboard with elegant script upon a tangle of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines. Curious, I stepped inside and watched, spellbound, as she worked. Although work, I would later learn, this was not. For this was how Penelope wished to live her life, and this was her art.

Beginning to feel a bit like an intruder into someone’s private moment, I made a sound, part sigh, part throat clearing, and caught her attention. As she turned round to face me, I stepped closer and recognized that what she’d been creating on the whiteboard was, if my hazy recollection of my early grammar edification was correct, a sentence diagram. But not the simple diagram of something like, “Joe likes beer.” No, this was something more elaborate. Something like the cliché formula-filled blackboard of some unkempt, possibly unbalanced, certainly colorful mathematical genius. It was the Sistine Chapel of sentence diagrams, and she looked anything but unbalance or colorful. As the saying goes, she looked prim and proper. Like a 21st-century schoolmarm. Pretty, delicate, 27ish, every hair in place, only now with a trace of a rare blush upon her cheeks.

“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. You, er, is that a real sentence or are you just messing around?”

I swear there was a ripple upon the placid surface of her countenance as she let the cutest little smile come up for air before coaxing it safely back beneath the surface of her carefully controlled demeanor.

Composure regained, she spoke: “My yes, it’s a real sentence. In fact, it’s one of the longest sentences in English literature. It’s from Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in James Joyce’s Ulysses. I’ve been attempting to diagram it for years. I was close-” She paused, and the way she looked at me left me feeling like some extremely unpleasant odor had followed me into the room. “-very close. In the zone, as they say.”

“And now?”

“There’ll be other days.”

I noticed the nameplate on her desk: Penelope Pekrul, and having gone through a period in my youth with a fascination for Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, I remembered learning later that in Joyce’s Ulysses Molly Bloom corresponded to Homer’s Penelope in the Odyssey. Although still feeling awkward, I couldn’t resist and gestured toward the nameplate.

“Penelope, just like in the Odyssey.”

For a moment, her eyes left me, and I sensed she was feeling uncomfortable with the playful way I had of expressing myself.

Composure once more regained, she said, “Is there something I can help you with, or do you make a habit of walking uninvited into rooms and disturbing the privacy of their occupants?”

“Yikes,” I said. “Privacy is generally not to be assumed when a door is left open.”

“Yes, well, I’ll try to remember that in the future. Recalling this little conversation will prove helpful in that regard, I’m sure.”

“On the other hand, even if closed, if I’d noticed you and your whiteboard masterpiece through the door’s window, I’m pretty sure my curiosity would’ve gotten the better of me, and I’d have had to come in anyway. You’d no doubt have described it as me barging in.”

She moved around her desk, crossed her arms, and let her butt rest along the front of the desk. “I see. You have a problem with impulse control. I believe there are medications that can help with that. Regardless, just who are you?”

“Glad you asked,” I said, stepping forward, extending my right hand.

“Zack Wisnewski of the Cudahy Wisnewskis, at your service. I’m the new art teacher. A multi-media artist extraordinaire, familiar and more than accomplished in mediums from traditional paint and sculpture to jewelry, graphics, and photography. I thought I’d done or seen it all, but your work with sentence diagraming, it borders on some of Blake's illuminated printing.”

Hesitant at first, she unwrapped an arm; a hand came out, and I gently took it in mine for a brief moment as she said, “Joyce Purdy won’t be with us teaching the rest of the year then?”

“No. The way it was explained to me, she unexpectedly took a job away from the cold and snowy charms of Wisconsin in exchange for the tamer, sunny climes of southern Arizona.”

“Oh, I was unaware. But I seem to often find myself out of the loop.”

“Say, you wouldn’t happen to be in the mood for a cup of coffee? Talk about being out of the loop; I was looking for the teacher’s lounge when your creation caught my eye, or as you put it, my impulse control problem kicked in. Would you care to join me, or at least point me in the right direction?”

# # #

Robin Riebe started as a songwriter/poet, transitioning to prose in his early thirties. Retired now, he worked in the audit department of a business insurance company for 40 years, maintaining his sanity by writing whenever the right hemisphere of his brain told him it was time to take a break from number crunching. To date, he has written two novels, a book of creative non-fiction, and several short stories, poems, and songs. His publishing credits include the short story Retribution in the December 2025 issue of Mobius Blvd.

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The Dancing Man

by Charles Hayes

BO JANGLES ON THE TIES: a one, a two, a hop to the rail, on down the tracks of time. White water calls the beat and sidelights of leafy green splash from the walls of steep timber. Soft-shoes on lines of dusted steel kick high. Suddenly a flash douses the spot, sweeping rivers and roads to dead flats, time hooks to nowhere, and high kicks shrivel to torn sneakers atop a trash pile. Mood becomes fickle, an independent push. And the beat is the simple thumping of my heart.

Children with smooth lidded eyes over flashes of alabaster dip and bump black winged gargoyles above the muddy Mekong. A little one runs to catch up, a broken and tailless kite swirling in her draft. Stopping, she holds her kite to me, dark eyes saying, “You can do it, you can make big people die. This is only a toy, fix it.” Pushing away the rags and bamboo, their smell of nuoc mam shooting slivers up my nose, I walk on.

Turkey vultures lift from the rails, offal trailing from their beaks. Like kites they soar, hovering high while their radar feathers my skin. The pushback of a mashed eyeless carcass, nested in thick bone colored snakes, looks up at me from under foot. Locked by its haunt, I am suddenly jarred back by a blare. Leaping aside, I wash in the coal dust with the opossum’s severed head, draining down to the clack of steel wheels.

In the canyons of the yard the walls of ebony blocks shiver and screech, protesting my steps across their sooty plain. Slag piles give up their ghosts and morph to the dirge, a lazy waltz for one.

Smoking rags hanging from blistered lumps of wet red beg, “Kill me, it will be fine. Please.” A phantom screams over as waves of melting wax run purple down the waving engineer’s face, his locomotive throwing spears of color from its tumbling canisters of sunshine.

From the stage Lucy says, “About time you got here. We’re missing Joe, Jane will take his lines. You’ll do the same ole same ole. Where you been? You were supposed to be here an hour ago.”

Looking to the steep hardwoods rising sharply all about, I feel more at home in this small amphitheater. Like a bit of colored glass in a bowl of jewels. Sometimes I think it would be nice to just stay here and put on faces.

Planting her fists on her hips, Lucy loudly cues, “Well are you going to answer me or not?”

“I took the tracks,” I reply. “It’s been a while. Just wanted to pass that neck of the woods.”

“Well, I’m glad you made it. Nobody else can do that part like you. Hard to believe that you’re not even a veteran. How’d you ever miss that one?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Well get on backstage and suit up. They’ll start arriving soon.”

Heading around back, thinking that life is but a stage, I am pulled up again before I can exit. “Oh! And one more thing. You missed the run through. We’re going to pull it back a little tonight. You know, like no big deal, got it?”

“I got it, no big deal.”

# # #

Charles Hayes, a mainstay contributor to The Zodiac Review and a multiple Pushcart Prize Nominee, is an American citizen who lives in the Philippines near the grave of his wife. A product of the Appalachian Mountains, his writing has appeared in Ky Story’s Anthology Collection, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Fable Online, Unbroken Journal, CC&D Magazine, Random Sample Review, The Zodiac Review, eFiction Magazine, Saturday Night Reader, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Scarlet Leaf Publishing House, Burning Word Journal, eFiction India, Blue Lake Review, Piker Press, and others.

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Working Blues

by Dale Scherfling

EDDIE'S SHIFT at the Dollar Saver ended at nine, but he stayed an extra half hour to mop up the spill in aisle three. Someone had dropped a jar of pickles, and the brine soaked into the grout like it had somewhere better to be. The manager didn't thank him. She just clicked her pen and wrote something on her clipboard, which Eddie hoped was "reliable" and not "slow."

Outside, the February air smelled like exhaust and wet cardboard. His car—a '98 Civic with a cracked taillight—started on the third try. The heater didn't work unless he kicked the panel under the glove box, so he did that, gently at first, then harder. It rattled like it was thinking about cooperating.

He drove to the all-night laundromat because his work shirts smelled like fryer oil and pickle juice. Inside, a woman in a puffy coat slept in one of the plastic chairs, her chin tucked into her chest. A TV mounted in the corner played a sitcom with the volume off. The laugh track flashed across her face like lightning.

Eddie fed quarters into the machine and watched his shirts tumble. He thought about calling his sister, but it was late and she had kids now. She'd ask how he was doing, and he'd say "fine," and she'd say "good," and then one of them would find a reason to hang up.

When the dryer buzzed, he folded everything carefully, smoothing each sleeve. He liked the order of it. The small proof that something could be made neat. That some things, at least, came out warm most of the time.

On the way out, he held the door for the woman in the puffy coat. She nodded without looking at him, pulling her hood tighter against the cold.

# # #

Dale Scherfling is a full-time writer and poet, a former newspaper sportswriter, editor, and photographer, and a retired U.S. Navy photojournalist. He teaches creative writing and photography at the college level, and his work has appeared in The Monterey Poetry Review, Chiron Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, and other journals.

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Searching for Shalom

by Karen Zlotnick

JUST AS THE SUN was setting on a lonely Friday night, I found a dog. He was sitting behind a Domino’s Pizza truck in the courtyard of the college where I teach American Studies. Near him, Hillel students were gathering for an outdoor Shabbat service. One of them shouted his thanks for the temperate weather, and another yelled her agreement. Baruch HaShem! Her exuberance made the rest laugh, and they joined in—Baruch HaShem!

The Hillel students thanked the campus police for their vigilance and shouted into the night air. Shalom aleichem! Peace for all the world! The air was thick with their good will. I wondered when I’d last felt that, and now the thought of leaving the dog there plagued me. I asked the Domino’s driver to sneak me a piece of crust off a pie in the back. I offered it to the dog, and the moment he leaped into my lap, one of the Hillel students yelled to me, He’s yours now, Professor! A gift of peace and well-being from the universe! Call him Shalom!

I’m not a believer, but Shalom fit into my apartment in a weirdly serendipitous way. Three months earlier when my husband left me for a woman eager for children, he took my favorite couch pillow with him. But Shalom claimed that spot, rescuing it from my sad glances. Also, his Aussie-like blue-gray coat matched my comforter. And I swear he spoke to my plants, producing a low, soothing sound every time I watered them. The plants grew thicker than I’d ever seen.

Shalom improved my mood, too. I found myself looking for signs of him when we were apart—stray hairs or the scent of his eucalyptus shampoo on my sleeve. A colleague remarked that I seemed less sleepy. I began to infuse my lectures with an optimism I forgot I had, highlighting the hopefulness of Democracy, the resilient voices of the American people.

I spoke to my department chair about bringing Shalom to campus regularly, which she approved. I completed his vaccines and got him certified as a therapy dog. His vest arrived the first day of the spring semester, and he swelled with pride. He greeted colleagues in their offices, elicited smiles from administrators wandering the campus, and calmed anxious students who sat stroking him while he lay on the crusty lecture hall carpet, often belly up, legs stretched over his head like a synchronized swimmer gone rogue.

The night the mother of a freshman set off some firecrackers in the courtyard, I was at the main desk of the library. Shalom leaned into my leg as I chatted with the library clerk. When we heard what we were sure were gunshots, we turned toward a closet where we could hide. But Shalom bolted away from me.

Students running inside the library for cover inadvertently opened the door for him. Panicked I would lose him, I stumbled through the metal detector, into the night air, toward the shots. Just as I spotted his blue-gray tail, he sprinted to the woman with singed hair standing in the center of the abandoned courtyard. I froze, detached from the reality that I had no business being there, other than the fact that it was my dog who was leaning up against her, trying futilely to get her attention.

Breathless and hunched, as if her shoulders were crumbling under the weight of a giant stone, the woman ranted. She was there because her boy had called home again, crying. She needed someone to hear her now, before it was too late. The world was turning to shit, and everyone needed to listen, to hear about all of it—about limited Kosher food options, about poorly chosen roommates, about learning disabilities, about homophobia. About swastikas on synagogues. Swastikas on dorm room walls, right here, under our noses. Then, about God. About misogyny. ICE. Guns. The supreme court. Children of war. (All of God’s children are our children, for fuck’s sake.) About aloneness. About loneliness.

In one hand she swung a rainbow scarf over her head, causing it to sway to music I thought she might have been hearing in her head. With the other hand, she swung the end of a smoldering firecracker, which under dim campus lampposts, looked very much like the tip of a smoking gun.

I remember the look of calm on her face when the campus police arrived, as if she were thinking, Finally, help is here. I might have imagined this, but I could have sworn I saw her lips move: Baruch HaShem, as if thanking her God for much-needed peace. I’m convinced she didn’t know how she appeared to them—a deranged woman with a weapon.

Shalom didn’t flinch when they shot her. In fact, he leaned into her leg when it twisted behind her, and he cushioned her fall despite the fact that she was already dead.

Shalom sleeps a lot these days, curled into his spot on my couch, his coat more gray than blue. Sometimes he hides under my weighted blanket and makes me search for him. On campus, he wears his vest and lets my students stroke him, but he appears deflated. His shoulders sunken.

I’m sleepy too. Yesterday I returned to the spot where the desperation of a boy’s mother overflowed into a pool of blood around her. She hadn’t come to hurt anyone. She’d just wanted to make some noise.

# # #

Born and raised in New York, Karen Zlotnick lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband. Some of her work has been featured in Pithead Chapel, Typishly, jmww, Stonecoast Review, and Moon City Review. In addition, one of her stories was nominated for Best Small Fictions.

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Veg Out

by Robin Bloom

THE MEAT SAT HEAVY on Pete’s stomach and threatened to come back up, but he didn’t want to disappoint his wife when she presented him with a sizzling porterhouse for his birthday. For every piece he managed to swallow, he hid two under the lettuce leaves on his plate.

Pete patted his belly, “I have to move around.” He picked up his dish and said, “I’ll take these leftovers for compost.”

In the backyard, Pete tossed the steak over the fence to the neighbor’s shepherd. He grabbed his makeshift walking stick – a thick branch from the maple that came down in the last storm.

His hobble had grown worse, and his wife was suspicious of his excuses: worn shoes, a stubbed toe, a turned ankle.

He slept with his socks on now.

Late Summer shadows sprawled across the lawn as Pete lurched into the garden.

Inside the garden fence, the energizing vibrations beneath the ground massaged his feet. He pulled up a carrot laden with soil. He cuddled it to his cheeks, and inhaled the earthy aroma. He didn’t bother to brush off the dirt before he bit into the sweet orange flesh. Minerals surged through his body like a healing elixir.

He sat down, slipped off his shoes, and yanked off the confining socks. His toes on both feet had fused together into one solid mass. Long root tendrils grew from their tips. Smaller ones sprouted from the tops of his feet.

Near the zucchini, Pete lay down in a shallow trench, more comfortable than his own bed, and used his arms to scoop dirt over his legs and torso. He took a long drink from the hose, then watered himself until his head and shoulders rested on a soft cushioned puddle.

At peace, Pete turned his face to the fading rays of the sun.

# # #

Robin S. Bloom, a native Pennsylvanian, lives in a small town between the Poconos and the Anthracite Coal Region. She is a watercolor artist who also likes to dip her pen into ink, and says writing is like painting with words. Inspired by her rural roots, her down-home stories have an underlying darkness she calls “Cozy-Creepy.”

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An Appointment

by H. M. Wilson

IT STARTS WITH the thought, I should just cut it off.

He thinks of the thought as a joke, after the initial pain has subsided.

It was the kind of pain that was as much surprise as pain. It was all about the actual impact, the slight dislocation. That’s what it had to be, dislocated. It is tender, his toe, as he puts weight on it. But it’s nothing that won’t stop him from going on with his day.

It’s only after work a few days later when he realizes that something might be really wrong with it. He’s on his bed getting ready to shower and he peels off his sock. His pinky toe is all black and blue, and shaped differently than he remembers. It almost curls.

That week at the office, each time he stood to go from his cubicle to the bathroom, his cubicle to a conference room, his cubical to his car, he felt a consistent throbbing. That is to say: it was uncomfortable.

He grimaces now, inspecting the blood pooling under his nail. The contrast is obvious, the rest of his toes their normal reddish pink color. He grazes the tiny nail just to test it, and it feels like a stab, like he’d just taken a knife to it. He inhales and falls back on his bed.

Eventually, he hobbles out of his room, sockless, into the kitchen. He fills a plastic sandwich bag with ice.

Back in his room, he turns on the TV and lowers himself down against his headrest and places the bag on his foot. He falls asleep with it still there.

He wakes to find the bag empty, a puddle under his legs.

The toe has doubled in size. He goes to the app for his primary care office. He hasn’t booked an appointment for years but he does remember they don’t answer calls. Just messages.

When they finally answer his message later the next day, he learns his doctor is no longer employed there and they don’t take his new insurance. The problem with plans that switch yearly, he thinks.

The customer service rep recommends an urgent care. As he reads the messages, he’s prompted to rate the response. He rates it five stars.

He’s still able to walk. He just does it less. And when he does get up, he tries to do as much as possible in one go. From his cubicle to the fridge, to the bathroom, to the conference room.

After work, he sits at his table and calls his insurance. He would usually just search the insurance app for doctors that are in network. But the app kept crashing and he gave up.

The customer service rep gives him ten options and sends him names and numbers through email. It’s only as he goes to dial the second office that he realizes each option has the same number. Which means they all go to the same place as the first number. The first number went to a hospital’s internal pharmacy, a defunct number, which instructed him to call a different number, in a plain, uniform voice. He’d written the number down, so he just calls it now.

“There are no doctors here,” the pharmacy rep at the new number says, “They must have old information.”

He works from home the next day. He is struggling to walk. His toe is the size of a water balloon, and the blood under the nail is no longer contained within it. When he applies any pressure to his foot, the blood mixes with a yellowish green liquid, staining his socks. He feels lightheaded when he looks at it. He asks his boss for the afternoon off.

“We just need to have finals by four,” his boss says. So, he stays until four.

He drives to the urgent care using his left foot. He checks in at a screen and then surveys the room, its mint green walls and chairs upholstered with a rough, carpet-like fabric. Each chair is full. He leans against the wall, trying to keep the weight on his left foot. He can feel his sock dampening. Lifting his toes in the air, to put some weight on his heel, he feels the liquid running down his foot, the tight toe box squeezing his toes like pincers.

After an hour, he’s called up to the receptionist.

“Unfortunately,” she says, without looking up from the screen, “We don’t take your insurance.”

“How much is it without insurance?”

“The visit starts at $250, but anything else, besides the visit itself would be more. Depending on what it is.”

“What does the $250 cover then?”

“The visit, like I said,” she looks up at him, “Would you like to proceed or not?”

The doctor tells him that he should go to the hospital. He wraps his toe in gauze and tape, so he can no longer fit his foot in his shoe.

The hospital is thirty minutes away. His wet sock and shoe sit on the passenger seat in a brown paper bag.

He hobbles out of the car after parking in an empty lot. There’s no one waiting inside.

“The emergency department is closed,” the receptionist says, from across the lobby’s open atrium.

“The urgent care said—”

“I wish they’d stop doing that. It’s been years that we’ve been closed.”

“I’m having an issue with my toe,” he says, as he makes it to her desk, “Could I make an appointment?”

“We are referral only. Did they give you a referral?”

“I was referred by the urgent care.”

“Do you have it?”

“Have what?”

“The referral. The script. Like the piece of paper.”

“No, they just said—”

“I’m sorry sir, I can’t help unless you have a referral.”

By the time he gets home, his toe is numb. It’s like it is not really there. He takes off the gauze and tape. It still looks horrible. It’s almost black in color now. The liquid coming out of it is greenish brown. It smells, too. Even though it doesn’t hurt anymore, it’s certainly a bother.

He tests it, poking it. He feels nothing.

He takes a swig of vodka straight from the bottle in his freezer. He’d seen people do this in movies. He finds a rubber band and a bread knife. He hobbles to the bathtub, grabbing towels along the way.

He lowers himself into the tub. He shoves a towel in his mouth. With the band tightly wound around the ballooning flesh, he starts. The skin first, the almost easily the muscle. It’s the bone that causes him problems.

He pulls the towel out of his mouth and douses it in vodka. He puts it on the exposed flesh and bone. He knows it stings, but it feels, somehow, like it isn’t stinging him.

There’s blood circling the drain. He realizes, watching it, that he’ll have to stop the bleeding somehow. He doesn’t have a sewing kit. Maybe with heat?

He uses the wall to guide himself to the kitchen. He heats up a pan. He figures the principle would be similar to cooking meat. You don’t want it too low that the meat sticks. But you don’t want it too hot that the meat chars, either.

He returns to the tub, placing the hot pan on the tile. Biting the other towel, he lifts the pan to the and puts it where his toe was. It makes a sound he doesn’t really know how to place.

He turns on the cold water, and realizes he forgot to grab it, his toe, blocking the drain. He picks it up, two times its normal size still, a strange feeling of having only just been alive.

The next morning, he wakes to a phone call. It’s his old doctor’s office. They say they have room for an appointment, and that they’re sorry, but the rep got it wrong. They can take him today and they do take his insurance.

“That won’t be necessary,” he says and hangs up. He drifts back to sleep, his head resting on the cool tile.

# # #

H. M. Wilson is a survey researcher based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Happily Ever...?

by Olga Smirnova

YOU RUN COLD WATER over your hands, rub your neck with wet fingers. You put the sides of your palms together, pool some water, and splatter your face. Your left shoulder still hurts. But your heart is still beating. You look in the small blurry mirror on the medicine cabinet. Nicole. Nicole Smith. Remember. Repeat. Your name is Nicole. It’s n, i, c, o, l, e. Nicole.

The black suitcase stands in the middle of the empty room like a centerpiece. You don’t want to unpack now. It can frown at you a little longer. Freedom isn’t inside anyway. It’s too valuable for check-in luggage.

You roll your sweater into a pillow and lie down on the floor. The ringed carpet stains emit a merely perceptible cat-urine smell. No bother. You’ve made your bed, lying in it is kind of what usually comes next. Up on the ceiling, leaks have painted a splashy canvas with mold. The elusive contours of the forever-chased American dream are expertly captured by this kind of wet-on-wet technique. There is a white picket fence, a nine-to-five, an apple pie, there is a front lawn, a flying flag, a porch. If you squint long enough, there is even a Swedish minivan. The masterpiece. But you don’t drive. Somebody else can have it, somebody else can live the dream. You just get to live.

You hear steps in the hallway. You creep through the room like a mouse, press your ear to the door, and listen. Nothing that you recognize.

You look out of the window. There is nobody in the dead-end on the left. There is nobody by the building door on the right. There is nobody. They can’t find you here. He can’t find you here. He can’t find you here.

You don’t need to do this anymore.

You can’t not do it. Not yet, anyway. When all is said and done, there will be time to mourn the versions of you you had to leave behind—the one that let you down and the one that helped you survive. Here and now, you’re not ready to fight them. And they won’t go down without a fight, you can count on it.

You keep the list, adding to it things that pop in the middle of the night out of haze, and fog, and cold sweat. It’s not that you want to live in the past. Though, hell, maybe you do: what do you know, really. But no. You keep it for in case of emergency. You know what kind of emergency. In case he’s not that bad. Again. In case you’ve lost your senses. Again. In case, on a cold day, or a hot day, or on some not-in-any-special-way special day, you feel particularly lonely, or just need someone to fix your boiler. Then you’re going to read the list and use your own two goddamn hands. Or call the super, for devil’s sake.

You can argue about how you got there all you want, but you scraped your way out of the pit. You do get to live, damn it. He ain’t gonna get no more chances to take that away.

You make new lists, just in case your bright and shining future catches up with you someday. So you write it down. Manifesting, so to speak: cleaning supplies, a shower curtain, some WD-40 (he taught you that, didn’t he?), a few lightbulbs, those energy-efficient ones, what else? A bathroom door is missing—this goes on a separate list. Do they call it a flat or an apartment here? And what is the correct answer to howdoyoudo? That is an altogether different kind of list. It is your thing now, the lists. They keep you busy. No time to wallow.

In your pocket, a phone number from the tear-off ad at the super’s office. Help wanted. You should call. You should eat first. You don’t make the best kind of decisions on an empty stomach. Historically speaking. The landline by the door rings before you can figure out how to spread the $9.78 you have left in your wallet over the next few days. It rings once. Twice. Nobody knows that you’re here. It can’t be him. You know that. It rings a third time. You pick up with a rehearsed voice.

“Hello, this is Nicole speaking.”

“Hi, I’m calling on behalf of SCTC,” a dubiously cheerful woman says.

“Are you currently happy with your phone service provider?”

“Yes, I am,” you say. “Happy.”

# # #

Olga Smirnova is 36 years old, living in the Netherlands. She is a software engineer who’s following her passion for writing. She’s a Level III student at International Writers’ Collective in Amsterdam. She writes about emotional struggles, complicated inner worlds and mysteries.

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I Picked You

by Lynne Curry

I SLIPPED into the stairwell, dim light, dead air. The flash drive nudged my leg, tiny and loaded with secrets, numbers, names, timelines. Enough to burn them all.

The landing light cut through the dark ahead, a beacon or a warning. My hand hovered over the handle. My husband, Trey, would call it betrayal. But turning back meant crawling into Gunnar’s pocket. Two options. No middle.

I pulled. Hinges groaned in protest. Warning me.

The hallway held its breath. No footsteps. No movement. I strained for both.

Nothing. I slipped into low light and a silent hallway. Shay’s office loomed at the end, sealed and final. Leave the flash in her inbox—clean, quiet, anonymous.

The air changed. A hand clamped onto my shoulder. Fingers crushed over my mouth. A gasp died in my throat. Panic exploded through me. I clawed for purchase.

“I had Trey tell you we’d be off-site.” Gunnar’s voice pressed low and furious. “I knew you’d do exactly this.”

His arm cinched around my neck and dragged me back through the stairwell door. It slammed shut behind us.

My back hit concrete hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. I staggered, fighting for footing.

His eyes locked onto mine. Then dropped to my jeans pocket.

To the flash drive.

Panic surged through me. I slapped my hand over it.

Gunnar moved faster. His fingers closed over mine, pried them away and reached toward my pocket—

“Hey!” a shout rang out. “What the hell’s going on?”

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Gunnar’s grip slipped; he bolted for the third floor.

My legs jolted into motion. I shoved past the two men charging upward. I didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Air bit into my lungs as I hurtled down the steps. The door flew open and spat me into the parking lot. I dove into my car, slammed the door, and jammed the key into the ignition. I threw it into gear and shot from the lot.

My hands shook on the wheel, breath coming sharp. Gunnar’s look replayed in my mind—cold, assessing, the look a man gives a leak he intends to seal. “Siri. Call Tanner.”

The line clicked. “Skoey?”

That one word anchored me. “It’s happening.” My voice cracked. “We need to leave. Now.”

“I’ll gather everything and meet you at... I won’t say where. They may have tapped your car phone. Is the plan still good?”

I locked my fingers around the wheel. The plan still held—barely. “Yes.”

A week ago, Trey stormed out after a fight over Gunnar.

I’d asked him one question. “Are you protecting Gunnar?”

Trey had looked away.

Not because he’d answered. Because he hadn’t.

We hadn’t spoken since, a full week of glacial silence.

This morning, Trey told me he, Gunnar and Shay would be off-site. I said I had something to tell him.

He didn’t ask.

The silence hurt more than the fight.

Now, racing toward escape, Gunnar’s words slammed back into me. “I had Trey tell you we’d be off-site.”

Rain clouds massed as I sped home. Every second stretched, my grip on the wheel tight. I veered into the garage, killed the engine, and bolted for the bedroom. My lungs burned, chest tight.

I’d run out of options. Staying in Anchorage meant Gunnar would track me down. Trey had given me up. The thought carved deeper every time it surfaced.

I’d spent seven days trying to hate him.

I hadn’t managed it yet.

I shoved clothes into the duffel until the zipper strained. My passport landed on top. The flash drive burned against my thigh. Enough evidence to bury Gunnar.

I turned one last time. A small envelope rested on the bed.

SKOEY.

Inside, a USB-C drive.

I plugged it into my iPhone. A video message. IF_FOUND.MOV.

My pulse stumbled. I tapped play.

Trey filled the screen.

For a second I couldn't breathe.

"If you're seeing this," he began, dragging a hand across his face, "Gunnar figured it out."

Rain rattled against the bedroom window.

"Trey..." The word slipped out.

"I thought I could control it.” His gaze dropped. “I was wrong. And then…I needed you angry at me. To keep you safe."

Pain sealed my throat. The fight. The silence. “Are you protecting Gunnar?” Trey looking away. I’d treated that moment like proof. Now it belonged to a man trapped between two impossible choices.

“Everything you need is on this drive.”

Gravel crunched outside. Three vehicles, their doors slamming.

I jerked toward the windows. Black SUVs. Headlights swept across the house.

Trey leaned closer to the camera, exhaustion etched into every line of his face.

Outside, men’s voices.

“Trey…” My fingers gripped the phone.

He dragged a hand over his mouth. "If this reaches you before I do, then I need you to know one thing." His voice cracked. “I never picked Gunnar. I picked you.”

The air left my lungs. I’d spent seven days building a case against him. Replaying every silence. Every look I’d convinced myself meant betrayal.

I’d spent a week mourning a marriage that hadn’t actually ended.

Not betrayal.

Protection.

And if he was right—if he was already gone—

I’d never get to tell him I knew.

Trey glanced away from the camera. When he looked back, something in his expression hollowed me out.

The look of a man already saying goodbye.

The recording ended.

A pounding rattled through the house. The front door.

My head snapped up. Another blow shook the frame.

A voice shouted my name. Ice flooded my veins.

Wood splintered. The door wouldn’t hold much longer.

I locked the bedroom door.

The front door crashed inward.

I lunged for my laptop and jammed the USB-C drive into it. A folder sprang open. Contracts. Emails. Bank transfers. Enough to bury Gunnar. Enough to explain Trey.

Recipient: Shay Richards.

SEND?

I clicked.

The bedroom door shuddered.

A second blow cracked the frame.

The screen flashed.

FILES DELIVERED.

Gunnar filled the doorway.

To late.

I smiled.

# # #

Alaska/Washington author Lynne Curry—nominated for the 2025 Best of the Net Anthology, the 2024 Pushcart Prize and Best Microfiction—founded “Real-life Writng" https://bit.ly/45lNbVo and publishes a monthly “Writing from the Cabin” blog, https://bit.ly/3tazJpW and a weekly “dear Abby of the workplace” newspaper column. Curry has published thirty-four short stories; eight poems; four articles on writing craft, and six books.

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Brian’s Laughter

by A. Allan Chibi

HE HADN’T thought about Brian in years, not in any way that carried weight. There were passing flickers, of course, a name overheard, a joke someone told with the wrong timing, a song that brushed against an old nerve. Nothing that stayed long enough to hurt. Then, one evening, while washing dishes, he heard it.

A laugh.

Not loud, not sharp, just a warm, rolling sound that rose from the back of the throat and filled the room with the easy confidence of someone who had never learned to doubt himself. He froze; hands submerged in the soapy water and listened.

It came again, softer this time, as if it were slipping through a crack in the world.

He turned, expecting to see someone behind him, but the kitchen was empty. The window was open a fraction, letting in the cool night air. For a moment he wondered if the sound had drifted in from outside, but the street was quiet. The neighbors were quiet. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath.

He shut off the tap and waited.

Nothing.

Only the faint hum of the refrigerator, steady and indifferent.

He told himself it was a memory, nothing more. A trick of the mind. A sound dredged up from some forgotten corner. But the laugh lingered in the air, faint as the last note of a melody he had once tried to catch and never managed to hold.

Later, he sat on the couch with the lights off; the room lit only by the streetlamp outside. He tried to summon the memory deliberately, but it wouldn’t come. Not the way it had been before. He could recall the shape of Brian’s face, the slope of his shoulders, the way he leaned back when he laughed as if the world were generous enough to catch him. But the sound itself stayed just out of reach.

He closed his eyes and tried again.

A flicker. A warmth. A breath of something bright.

Then silence.

He felt a tightening in his chest, the kind that comes when something important slips through your fingers before you even realize you were holding it. It reminded him of the street corner, the woman in the sweater that kept changing color, the moment that tilted and sealed itself shut. Memory had been unreliable then. It is unreliable now.

He wondered when that had started.

He found the old photograph in a drawer he rarely opened. Brian stood in the center, arms thrown around two friends, head tilted back in mid‑laugh. The image was slightly blurred, as if the camera had been unable to keep up with the moment. He stared at it for a long time, waiting for the sound to return, but the photo remained silent.

He traced Brian’s outline with his thumb. The paper was cool, and the colors faded. He remembered the day it was taken or thought he did. A backyard. A barbecue. Someone told a joke. Brian laughed first, as always, because he never waited for permission to enjoy himself.

He tried to hear it again.

Still nothing.

The silence felt heavier than the memory.

He set the photo down and noticed, in the corner of the drawer, the ring box he had tucked away months ago. He didn’t touch it. He didn’t need to. Its presence was enough to remind him how easily meaning could drain from an object, how quickly a future could become a relic.

That night, he dreamed of a hallway. Not the white one from before, not the one with the sleeping man, but a narrower one, dimly lit, lined with closed doors. He walked slowly, listening. Somewhere ahead, faint and muffled, he heard it — Brian’s laughter, distant but unmistakable. He followed the sound, heart pounding, but each time he reached a door, the laughter moved further down the hall.

He woke up with the echo still in his ears, though he couldn’t tell if it was real or imagined. The room felt slightly misaligned, as if the dream had left something behind.

In the morning, he made coffee and stood by the window, watching the street come alive. A dog barked. A car door slammed. A child called out to someone across the road. Ordinary sounds. Real sounds. He waited for the laugh, half hoping, half dreading.

It didn’t come.

He sipped his coffee and tried to steady himself. He told himself that memory was unreliable, that grief played tricks, that the mind sometimes reached backward when the present felt unsteady. But the truth pressed against him with quiet insistence: he had forgotten the sound of Brian’s laughter long before last night. What he heard in the kitchen had not been memory returning. It had been memory slipping.

He closed his eyes and tried one last time to summon it.

Warmth. Light. A breath of joy.

Then silence.

He stood there a long time, listening to the quiet, trying to understand how a sound could be both familiar and unreachable, how a person could be both present and gone, how grief could echo long after the voice that made it faded. And somewhere, faint, almost imagined; he felt the shape of the laugh he could no longer hear, a hollow where something bright had once lived.

# # #

A. Allan Chibi is a Canadian historian and fiction writer based in Windsor, Ontario. His work blends memory, myth, and the uncanny, and his stories have appeared in venues such as Altered Reality Magazine and House of Long Shadows.

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Top of Current Issue page

The Low Spark of High-Heeled Harry

by Daniel Gauss

ENDING A NATION-WIDE TOUR, the singer known as America’s “Limbic System” (a pun based on the center of emotions in the human brain and his name), Harry Lymbic crossed onto the stage for what would be his final appearance. Lymbic stood at the microphone, his axe slung over his shoulder, looking at the churning mob cheering loudly for him, about 20,000. He didn’t care.

He began: “Hello you happy idiots!” The crowd laughed, perceiving this as a good-natured, ironic joke. They were cool and couldn’t get enough irony.

Harry laughed too. “No, I really do think you are a bunch of pathetically happy, delusional idiots living abject lives of denial!”

They laughed again as if they were saying, “Bring it on Harry! We get it! We can’t get enough Lymbic for our limbic systems!”

“Thank you for making me shockingly rich because I make noise to help you stop thinking!” They laughed again. This guy was hilarious.

He pulled his axe around to the front of his body and strummed it. “It’s great to be in Chicago again!” The crowd went wild.

“No,” he seemed to change his mind, “Frankly, it isn’t. This is the most corrupt and racist city in America. I grew up here and couldn’t wait to get out of this cowtown. If I had any real ethical compass I would have avoided it. It’s an apartheid city.” Some people were laughing so hard they were shaking.

“But you don’t care, do you?”

Many people shouted, “Noooooooooooo! We don’t! Share your Lymbic System Harry!”

Harry yelled into the mic, “You just wanna hear rock and roll music! Right!?”

The crowd let out the biggest roar of the night, as Harry realized he was taking too long. Better get this over with.

There was a noticeable impatience now as a few people started shouting out their favorite Lymbic songs. “Play ‘Rise Higher!’” “Play ‘My Peace Truck!’” “Play: ‘I Am the Change! I Am Spare Change!’” “Play: ‘Leave My Brother Alone!’”

“You’re all a bunch of damn salon fascists living in your segregated city, paying taxes for a prison system for the poor.”

The crowd went nuts again. They nodded their heads and applauded. They loved it when Harry engaged in social criticism. People were bouncing through the air in joy. Harry was in rare form tonight.

“You know,” Harry stopped strumming and got really serious, “I’ve been singing about positive personal and social change for about 12 years now. I’ve won 6 Grammies, sold millions of records. I’ve met Popes and presidents. I’m sure you bought my last recording: The Hungry Inch Worm of Idealism (or History Will Win!).”

People applauded loudly and whistled.

“I’ve been telling you proles to rise to a higher level of being in my songs. I’ve been telling you to initiate change in the world. But I made one mistake.” Harry started strumming again. “I didn’t tell you how to rise or how to change things. I didn’t tell you what behavior to change or what social evils to challenge. So you’ve done nothing.”

Wild laughter in the crowd.

“I didn’t tell you exactly what needs to be done because I don’t friggin’ know what to do either.” The drummer conveniently added a rimshot. The crowd applauded Harry’s self-deprecating honesty.

He started to play three or four recognizable chords. The crowd realized he was beginning his set with “Ethical Coffee, Brew Those Beans of Kindness”.

“Alright Chicago! I’m going to make so much noise you won’t have to think for a good two hours! After that, you’re on your own. I know you can handle it.”

He then broke into his extended version of Ethical Coffee as the crowd swayed, hands in the air, and sang along with the chorus. “We won’t buy any right-wing beans. Only poor farmers get my dough! Gimme that ethical Joe!”

He finished his set with My Peace Truck. Before playing it, Harry said, “This one goes out to all the suckers getting thrown into meat grinders around the world for the personal whims of one dictator or another, one good cause or another, one reason to fight or another.”

He then began his most popular song, “I got a peace truck rollin’ down the line/ Chrome wheels shinin’, mercy on my mind./ No bombs in my trailer, just flowers and song/ If you ride with me, baby, you can’t go wrong./ Got my headlights beamin’ justice through the rain,/ Every mile I’m drivin’ eases someone’s pain./ From Memphis to Madrid, from Seoul to Tupelo,/ I’m haulin’ peace, sugar, let the good times roll.”

Near pandemonium.

Harry had purchased an estate near Plan-de-la-Tour. It was getting hard for him to churn out the kind of empty idealistic garbage that won Grammies and made people cry. His financial planner had created a nice portfolio for Harry. His immense amount of money would be making money for him for the foreseeable future.

After Peace Truck, his band went back to the green room, but Harry stayed on stage to announce his retirement.

After a stunned silence, the crowd rose and applauded Harry for his remarkable service to humanity. He bowed his head, wiped tears from his eyes and left for his limo. He was not seen in public again until he appeared, several years later and several kilograms heavier, to accept his Presidential Medal of Freedom.

# # #

Daniel Gauss holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin and an MA from Columbia University. He lives in China and has been published in a wide-range of outlets including 3 Quarks Daily, The Good Men Project, ZNet, Bright Lights Film Journal and Daily Philosophy, among other quality platforms. His writing focuses on socially relevant themes, with particular attention to both micro- and macro-level moral questions, exploring how individual behavior intersects with broader political and cultural systems. My very DIY portfolio (Google Sites is free and possibly eternal): Daniel Gauss, Writing Portfolio

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The Domestic Art of the Aftermath

by Anastasiia Drahunova

"Terrible weather.” The man dropped a bag on the floor.

He took out some rope, small bottles with unknown contents, and latex gloves.

The stout man, who sat chained to a chair, swallowed convulsively. Grey hair covered his belly, visible beneath his untucked shirt. He couldn’t say anything. Through the duct tape his words sounded like, “Mmmph-take-mm-money.”

“They say drizzle will last for a week.” The woman snapped her gloves on.

The man nodded, carefully filling the syringe. The fatty strained his heavy neck attempting to speak to the woman. But he got only a reassuring tap on the shoulder, and a folded sheet of paper tucked into the breast of his blazer.

“By the way, I’ve met our neighbour.”

The woman took the syringe and tilted the poor soul’s neck. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. He tried to scream and break free.

“Whose fingers cramp up whenever the weather turns?” The man held the poor wretch’s neck steady for his wife. “I don’t like that family. They’re mad.”

“Yeah.” The woman injected the liquid. “They wander about smiling and wishing ‘enlightenment’ to everyone.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they were keeping ritual sacrifice tools in their house.”

Through half-lidded eyes, the large man tracked the other as he moved behind him. A slight tremor ran through him when he felt the noose tighten around his throat.

“You know Bobby and their son are friends, right?” The woman took a plastic spray bottle and a rag out of the bag.

“We should tell Bobby to cut ties with that prat.” The man’s voice sounded strained. He was tightening the noose with all his might.

“We can’t pick his friends, Hun.” The woman started scrubbing the surfaces of the kitchen units and the table. “Unless we can handle the aftermath.”

The fat man’s face flushed blood-red. Veins swelled beneath his skin, and his massive stomach shuddered like jelly with every convulsion. He let out one last twitch. A wet spot appeared on his trousers in the groin area, growing larger and larger.

“You know, I’ve watched a few episodes of that ‘stand-up’ that Bobby is going to do after college.”

The woman set aside the spray bottle and began to carefully coat the edges of the duct tape with liquid from a small vial. It slid off the large man, leaving not even a trace of redness behind.

“So?” The man tossed one end of the rope over the chandelier.

“It feels like comedians' humour comes from lived trauma.”

“What on earth will Bobby be talking about then?”

The woman shrugged.

“Let him try.” Grabbing hold of the rope, the man began to lift the limp body.

“One day we’ll be sitting in the front row at his show, feeling proud of our boy.” The woman gave a little sob.

“You’re my soft-hearted soul...”

The couple slipped out of the house, leaving the fat man to sway peacefully on the rope.

# # #

Anastasiia Drahunova is a beginning writer, studying to improve her storytelling skills. Her fiction is currently entered in Inkspot Publishing's Flash Fiction competition. A native of Ukraine, she is currently living in Poland.

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the dancing

Working

An Appointment

Happily Ever After

Searching

Veg Out

I Picked

Brian's Laughter

The Low Spark

Anchor 1

The Domestic