Miasma…

Marion pushed the word out of her mouth and into the cold air in her kitchen. 

Mmmiasmaaaa… 

She savored the m’s, stretched them like taffy between her lips and felt them vibrate and then stick to her teeth like peanut butter. 

Bitsy the broken doll watched from a shelf behind a pane of glass as Marion sipped cherry pepsi, sitting on top of the counter. 

The game is that if I keep talking, you can’t hurt me. 

The rules were simple and infinite. 

When you were home alone, she could get you. But she couldn’t get you if someone else was watching. 

If one of the cats was purring near you, she couldn’t get you. 

If the tv was playing wheel of fortune, if you made it into the trash can with your trash from across the room, if a grown up was laughing… 

Mmminimum…

If you held your m’s for as long as you could while practicing your vocabulary words. 

There were crickets outside and the forest preserve seemed like it was yelling at her. In August it sounded like singing, but in September Marion felt like she was being scolded by the noise. 

Mmmmalaise…

She held the M for extra long as she jumped down off the counter and went to the fridge. White Bread, Kraft Cheese, Butter- she lined them up on the counter and went to get a knife. 

Mmmacabre…

Bitsy’s glass eyes stared evenly out at the kitchen as Marion carved through butter and mashed it onto white bread. The rules are wonder bread with butter and baloney after school. 

Mmmmmaelstrom… 

Marion pushed the sandwich through the doggy door and onto the back porch. She turned on wheel of fortune, turned up the volume and hugged a velvet pillow close to her chest. 

Reflected in Bitsy’s eyes, a tendril of fog made its way onto the porch and covered the plate. 

Mmmmagnitude…

Pat Sajak yelled letters into the empty house while Marion waited. 

Magnanimous. 

The oven clock showed 5:30 and Marion took an empty plate back through the doggy door. She turned on all the lights, in the house and put a stack of books in front of the doggy door, and triple checked Bitsy’s cabinet. 

Night, Mom. 

Marion looked out at the forest and the void between the trees seemed to soften. She saw a firefly wink at her from the darkness. 

Grace Walters

This short story was the winner of Alloy‘s October Flash Fiction Contest; writers were challenged to write a flash fiction piece that was reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft’s eldritch horrors.

Carolina Jaime Chinchilla

Ruth Nelson

red lights 

                       run–through foggy nights dripping

                a million pieces cut 

                                          supercuts superglued hot breaths   

      can’t remember can only feel seatheaters and 

deep blue 

                                arctic wind crawling down 

                my neck raised skin sending chills into fingertips 

                                        my fingers in his frosted tips the frost 

                     on the tips of his headlights beaming across chapped lips 

yellow 

      hair. blonde boys thick strands 

                            stranded in a fraction of golden memory

                and how much he actually cared lost 

                                   in the quotient of curled chest hairs questioning how much was taken 

in those green 

                     eyes I can’t see but can never quite unsee 

       an empty field so wide I still can’t find him unless 

                                                I look less and remember the radio playing

                            me when I looked into those emerald studded eyes pupils polished stones swirling black 

                how I long for him 

                            to still text me tells me that he 

     feels it too when lying still in the darkness enshrouded 

                                        by me by him by reminiscence still next to me 

                when my eyes close and I can’t see–that 

                            it was always 

                                          us

Matthew Buxton

Priyam Mazumdar

Shell-born,

Every chick is a raptor Venus

Hatched, blind and bleeding

From a whirlpool of straw and feather,

Interweaving.

 

The salty sea of the amniotic sac

Glazes our shell-pink, alien limbs

As we crack, trembling and radiant,

Into life, to rest upon eggshell carnage,

Spent, our panting like so many hymns

To the oak in whose arms we lie —

The oak, true husband of the mother-bird.

 

She, in graceful homage

Will weave through His branches.

The whisper of her wing-wind spells worship.

The tremors of her feathered throat —

Tap your smallest finger —

Such is her frail movement

As she croons crying in the night.

(We forgive you, Mother.)

 

Soon,

Like angry petals,

We fall wings flapping,

Parched with an open-air thirst

Born of egg-shell claustrophobia.

We tumble into the sky

To the rustling of sapling clapping

And sweet autumn stink.

Their leaves blush too, with pride.

 

Anne Clark

To: jkroger@IT.rhodes.com

From: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

Subj: Urgent Printer Issue

 

Dear Jeff,

I’ve been trying to print my weekly report all day but every time I try to my computer reads >>ERROR PRINTER JAM. Mr. Boisey has been bugging me to get this report in so I’d really appreciate it if you could check the issue out soon. He says I can’t leave for the day until they’re in his mailbox.

Thanks,

Chris Davis

Sales Operative

Rhodes Electronics

---

To: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

From: jkroger@IT.rhodes.com

Subj: Re: Urgent Printer Issue

 

Hey Chris,

That’s a no-can-do unfortunately. Anwesha already asked me to check out the printer this morning. Turns out, somebody left a hand in there! Can you believe it, a whole ass hand in the paper tray! There’s irresponsible and then there’s just damn reckless. Anyways that makes this an HR issue, so I’d take it up with Linda.

You wanna grab a drink after work?

Jeff

 

---

To: lherring@HR.rhodes.com

From: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

Subj: Fw: Re: Urgent Printer Issue

 

Dear Linda,

Per my correspondence with Jeff, I’m searching for a solution to this printer issue. Can’t you just take the hand out of the paper tray?

Thank you,

Chris Davis

Sales Operative

Rhodes Electronics

---

To: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

From: lherring@HR.rhodes.com

Subj: Re: Fw: Re: Urgent Printer Issue

 

Hello Christopher!

This is coming directly from corporate: only the owner of the hand is allowed to unjam the printer.  The employee handbook clearly states “employees should not remove the personal property of other employees from the break room.”

A couple people have come in to claim the hand so far.  Anwesha from accounting did the best job.  She kept her left hand in her back pocket the whole time so I couldn’t tell if she was really missing a hand or not.  I offered her a double high five though and she fell for it.

If you can prove the hand is yours then I’ll let you remove it, but until the real owner steps forward I can’t move it in good conscience.

Best,

Linda Herring

---

To: hboisey@management.rhodes.com

From: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

Subj: Fw: Re: Fw: Re: Urgent Printer Issue

 

Dear Mr. Boisey,

As you can see from this email chain, the printer has been nonfunctional all day. Is it alright if I print my weekly report on Monday instead? As I told you last week, today is my daughter’s birthday and I’d like to be home before she goes to bed.

Thank you,

Chris Davis

Sales Operative

Rhodes Electronics

---

To: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

From: hboisey@management.rhodes.com

Subj: Re: Fw: Re: Fw: Re: Urgent Printer Issue

 

Chris,

It’s not my fault if the printer isn’t working. You should have anticipated this issue and printed the report yesterday. I don’t want to see you leave your desk unless it’s to put your report in my mailbox. You can celebrate your daughter’s birthday next week.

Get to work,

Harold Boisey

Regional Manager

Rhodes Electronics

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” – Harold Boisey

 

---

To:asabri@accounting.rhodes.com

From: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

Subj: Paper Cutter

 

Dear Anwesha,

I haven’t been down to accounting in awhile, do you still keep that big paper cutter on your desk?

Thanks,

Chris Davis

Sales Operative

Rhodes Electronics

---

To: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

From:asabri@accounting.rhodes.com

Subj: Re: Paper Cutter

 

Hey Chris,

Yeah I still have it! You can come by and use it if you need to.

See you then,

 

Anwesha

 

---

To: lherring@HR.rhodes.com

From: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

Subj: Fw: Re: Fw: Re: Fw: Re: Urgent Printer Issue

 

Linda,

Please pardon any mistkes in my spellng. I’d like to collect the hand that was in t paper tray earlier today. I can prove that it is mine as i am cllearly missing my right hand.

Chris Davis

Sales Operative

Rhodes Electronics

---

To: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

From: lherring@HR.rhodes.com

Subj: Re: Fw: Re: Fw: Re: Fw: Re: Urgent Printer Issue

 

Hi Christopher,

Nice try but the hand in the printer is a left not a right.

Best,

Linda

---

To: lherring@HR.rhodes.com

From: cdavis@sales.rhodes.com

Subj: Re: Re: Fw: Re: Fw: Re: Fw: Re: Urgent Printer Issue

 

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Calen MacDonald

 

Sedona Epstein

Hercules’ first feat was to slay the Nemean Lion. To lure warriors into its cave, it took the form of a woman in distress. As a warrior would approach to aid the woman, it would transform back into a lion and attempt to devour him.

 

I.

 

The callus of his foot grazes the crest

of stalagmite, knobbles of mottled sandstone

jutting from oblivion. Knuckles bleached

with dread encircle the wooden bludgeon,

each tread punctuated by the palpitation

 

of shrieks. The faint outline of tawny tresses

materializes from the pitch, a shattered torso

draped across the nape of a boulder. Irises

doused in indigo entreat him to approach,

the spigot of her pleas caulked by curling lips.

 

By the next flit of her lash, ripples of feral

muscle protrude from the arch of her vertebra,

rust-tinged mane swelling with a Nemean lust for flesh.

An ink-dipped tassel sways between her hind limbs.

 

Shards of bones taper into sickles of iron,

forepaws slinging toward the flesh of his neck.

He stiffens into an upright cadaver,

conscience awash in a deluge of panic.

 

II.

 

Arching the basin of his wrist,

the bludgeon thrashes towards her

in a visceral retort, splintering

across the crest of her matted brow.

 

Spasms of the blow puncture her

skull. The beast submerges in a state

of rabid stupor, rivulets of blood

pooling near the calluses of his feet.

 

A laurel is wreathed across his brow,

leaves crested like the ellipses of dragonfly

wings, embossed in tints of lustrous gold.

 

Amidst the furor of the crowd,

a sensation of reward remains

as palpable as the panting of the beast.

 

Grace Xu

Will you write for me?

If I say your words can save me

if I say your art can heal me

will you try?

Will you draw for me?

If I pull my arm apart for you

trim my fingernails, hand a brush to you

should I try?

Where’s your masterpiece?

Empty canvas, left my chest open to you

plunged a needle inside, drained my blood for you

is it dry?

Where’s the life in me?

Did you paint a couple hearts in red

or was it pink? Perhaps the colors bled

did I die?

Niharika Shah