Export Issue w/r/t Poison Inner Sleeve by Clem Flowers

Everyone hates you – you know that

Known it all your life

Dunno why

dunno why

Mom always said being smart gets you ahead

& all it got you was ahead in the race to get

the smack laid down on them by every bully from

the first time you got pushed off the swings in

1^st grade all the way to the psychos on the lacrosse

team who set your shoes on fire back in senior

year at Faber College

Doesn’t matter

doesn’t matter

Put all that pain in the past, right where it belongs – you and your double degrees in Business Administration & Music Theory & your membership card into Mensa made you the best the perfect the

only

choice to take over Val’s Vintage Vinyls

The institution!

The holy ground!

The hub of tourism your sordid little burg afloat!

Who wouldn’t want to see where Buddy Holly slept & the couch he spent the night on? Who wouldn’t want to eye the microphone breathed that sweet honey of a voice into for a local-radio-only promotional version of “In Dreams?” Who wouldn’t want to pay several hundred dollars to crash in the same room that held The Stones & Neil Young on their respective first Amerindian tours?

So you buy it off Val – she gave a tearful farewell that brought rock royalty to town; Dylan gave her a guitar, Jack White gave her a handmade chair, k.d. Lang & Neil Young even did a duet of “Long May You Run” for her.

Big cheers

Big smiles

Big tears

Everyone hates you – you know that

Known it all your life

Dunno why

dunno why

First you repainted it black & gold (on the grounds that burnt orange carpets should have been thrown out with the old glass tables & waterbeds that used to be perched atop them), then renamed it to Audio Armistice (on the grounds that it was a fun bit of alliteration & also on how it was only peace allowed in your doors, and there was a promise of no violence inside,) put new, Scandinavian designed pieces & an actual original Eames Lounge chair & ottoman (on the grounds that you didn’t care what famous people had sat on them, the old sofas & seats reeked of sweat & weed,) and then you replaced the old listening booths with nifty touch screens that gave the listener the chance to hear everything in the store all at once, with no senseless need to toddle back & forth between the racks to find something they might want to buy but never do then just leave a stack of records strewn every which way then there’s a tidal wave of western swing demolishing your new floor then you are just done with everything plus the stupid turntables break down every hour and don’t even get me started on the tape decks and why are there still old hunks of shag in the booths tear it down tear it down tear it all down and while you’re at it can you also put a big slab of Lucite in front of the stage so people will stop running up to take pictures on it yes I know I know the mics and everything will still be there we’re just gonna give it the reverence it deserves by protecting it from idiots and the damaging oils on their hands what no no I really do- look if someone wants to play a show here they’re more than welcome to do an acoustic gig up here in the lobby that would be fine (on the grounds that people are stupid, and should be treated as such.)

Everyone hates you – you know that

Known it all your life

Dunno why

dunno why

You read the reviews – and you’re stunned.

So many one stars.

People say you’re a tyrant, cruel, mocking purchases, demanding people stop touching too many records, won’t let people even pick up the comics you have on the racks unless they’re certain that they are gonna buy it, you won’t allow food in, you won’t allow drinks in, you keep the big industrial fans on the ceiling that were leftovers from when the store was a garment factory back in the 1910s going so loud so much barely anyone can hear themselves think in your store, you hoard the free tickets stickers shirts and other assorted swag radio stations record labels and local artists give you behind the excuse of “Trivia Tuesdays” with questions that only you could possibly know the answers to and you won’t let anyone look up the answers on their phone and just how hateful you are and how people are telling each other to avoid store like the plague and even old Val herself actually went on the news, in tears, about how you ruined her legacy her life’s work and that she had slapped you as hard as she could in the face

Which was true. Everyone hates you –

you know that.

Known it all your life

Dunno why. Dunno why

---

Heart of Darkness by Daniel Schulz

We are poor people with golden teeth. The money that they give us pays for the fillings with which we cover up the rot. It’s more than what politicians have done for our village, leaving it out there to decay. As long as farmers are harvesting, nobody has reason to complain. “Feed Me” the political campaigns seem to say, giving large speeches that take in all the grain. Every harvester holds that grid in front of them, a long mouth of smiling teeth, plowing through the fields, reaping riches off our bodies. We watch companies taking over these fields, farmers getting poorer and poorer. Our village, however, is haunted by one incident specifically, an overflowing garbage dump.

The depot is a giant hole in the ground, erected on the top of a hill nearby, which supposedly would bring profits to the region of which we have seen none. There were structural concerns as well, considering the question of outlets for the rain and what would happen to the ground, if any of the rubbish or even toxins spread. The company was given permits anyway, dissuading politicians that any negative effects would occur from this giant hole that they were digging, the grave of our livelihood. The stench it casts over our settlements reminds us of the winds of freedom.

Every time a politician makes a concession, hundreds of poverty stricken citizens loose their minds. It’s like angels earning their wings. As the stench of garbage spread across the landscape those of us who could moved to more fruitful places, while those who had no money stayed. We became peasants, instead of farmers. My brother and I earned even less than we used to. The village pub became our unemployment office. And as the local dentist went out of business, our wounds began to rot. Every day became a reminder of what we did not have, the agency over our life that was lost to the economic situation. The stench that was our freedom became less bearable over time.

That is when Dimitri began to visit our unemployment office, looking for workers willing to make some money. He began by asking my brother Igor, if he knew anyone willing to work for an honest wage. All he had to do is offer seven Euros more per hour than the farming companies. Who knows how much more money he made on our poverty and our ruins. In a world run by capitalism his offer seemed like socialism, another way to make some cash.

Dimitri was intimidating in his benevolence. The broad build of his body revealed to us a muscular man, who knew how to pull weights. His expensive suit demonstrated to us the wealth he had accumulated through hard work. “If you work for me,” he emphasized, “and you do an honest job, I will guarantee you that you will make a good living. Other people will make you labor endlessly for nothing. I know those types of employers and despise them because I have worked for them. I am like you, you see?” At that point he would lean back, let the height of his body unfold, towering at a distance, mustering our bodies in order to conclude, “I am offering you an honest job. You will get the money immediately, at the end of each shift. We will put it directly in your hands, no taxes paid, no questions asked. Does that sound good?” His bright gray eyes looked at us with a piercing lightness that plunged into the depth of our souls. It was as if the question he was asking was not a question but an imperative. So you might surmise that we said yes.

Now, I am sitting here, on the run and afraid for my life, because I told on him. It really was good money that his men gave us. And all he needed were some lumberjacks to help him set up his business. What we did not know, we would learn from the people he employed first, who taught us. They provided us the permits for what we were doing. They paid off the forester. And the forester made sure that we could work in peace, because the money he received increased his quality of life. It was not clear until later that what we were doing was illegal.

We took advantage of the situation. The yearly climate conferences governments visit still have not created a unified legal code to deal with illegal deforestation on a global level. There is no international consensus on how to deal with people interrupting the rhythm of reforestation. And it’s not as if we were dealing with cocaine or endangered animals, that is obvious smack. What we are dealing with is the wood your furniture is made of. What we are dealing with is a resource becoming rare, a resource you really need, a business opportunity. We learned a lot about this on our way to work. A pick-up truck would pick us up and haul us over and out of boredom we would listen to reports on the radio and talk about what we were doing. One third of the world’s wood is provided by people like us, taking their axes to the oxygen factories that allow us to breathe, a deindustrialization of another kind. It was liberating to do this work, spend our times in the fresh air, far away from the stench we were living in, far away from the garbage dump.

Igor, my brother, still had to close the window before we could eat dinner at home, so we could smell the goodness of what we were eating instead of the rubbish outside. Our stomachs were like bottomless pits of hunger, due to poverty at first, then due to hard labor. We figured, as the big bosses of companies were only thinking of themselves and succeeding, why shouldn’t we? Obviously, they were getting something right. Obviously, they were making money. Why shouldn’t we do the same? Our wealth was a riot against a world that had left us for dead, in the stench of their disposals. And so we started to purchase our first fillings, grinning at the world with golden teeth. This rebellion, however, was not made out to last forever…

II.

“Look at that wood block on the stove. Like us it is raw, until it is carved out and furnished, its edges smoothed out. And then, when its education is finished, it is set free into the world with strings attached so it can move. Will Pinocchio ever be a real boy?”

It was the day it would not stop raining. The creeks already had started smelling like shit. Then, as the day proceeded, everything else went to hell. Dimitri punched Igor until his face resembled a giant gap. Until all of the money he owed him dropped to the floor in gold, left him toothless, a dog without bite.

You can’t sell giant logs of wood behind your bosses back without anyone finding out. These structures of salesmenship are more rigid than the usual ones. The swollen clump of meat tied to the chair was moaning. I went out the door to get a breathe of air, when Dimitri was finished. There was a tree stump in the front rotting from the inside out. I wanted to rip it out and leave Dimitri toothless, but did not have the muscle for that. That’s when I decided to tell on him to a journalist.

“I hope you know that I did not want to do that,” Dimitri said, “I did not have choice.” I nodded and said I understood. When you break the law, you have to make the law. Otherwise who will there be to enforce your interests? In a world run by egotism, egotism is the law. Greed is good and you have to make sure you are better than the rest. Dimitri nodded, then took mercy on my brother, cracked his neck, and asked me to help him haul Igor into my car. We’re responsible for our family, after all.

As I drove back to the village, the stench that had built up over the years became unbearable. The streets, flooded with rain, started clogging the gears of my car. That is when I realized that garbage was flowing downhill and the streets were filled with sludge from our uphill dump, sludge that buried our houses. The weather we were enduring had finally set catastrophe into motion.

All the money my brother and I had accumulated over the years now was buried alongside our house. A box locked inside a box locked inside a mess that had finally come downhill after all these years of protest.

I opened the passenger door to the corpse of my brother, dragging his body into the river before me, until the sludge finally subsumed the hole that once had been his face.

III.

Maybe Dimitri was right. Maybe we all are puppets, unable to move without the strings attached to us.

When I fled from Romania this was definitely the case. I had lost my regular income, my village, my support network. I had lost everything I thought I could build upon. And now that I have cut my social ties, I needed to learn how to walk again, find new strings I could hold onto. The journalist that I ratted Dimitri out to helped me escape and acclimate to my new environment. For Dimitri, on the other hand, nothing has changed. The police still respect him for the honest citizen that he is.

No respect for me, though. Finding a home in another country, I had to start anew. I had to learn the language, acquire permits for my stay, find an apartment, find a job, start from the bottom as an outsider, as a peasant, start from the place I started from before. Honest work is what they call it, yet the wages are not so honest, considering what we do for society. But it is enough for now to furnish the walls of my apartment and live a life. Sometimes when my fingers glide over the furniture I bought, the smooth and cheaply acquired wood, I think of my old job and how happy it made me to have something I could live off of. Has the documentary that I contributed to, really changed the world? The loopholes of legality that made this story possible still exist. The mob still feeds these loopholes with sugar and sweets, slowly eroding the jawline of our possibilities, until the stink out of our mouths, our way of life, becomes unbearable.

You would think of corruption as something clandestine, something people are afraid to come into the light about. Yet light is the greatest shadow corruption stands in. There is no secret hiding in the dark. Corruption is a beautiful living room with a TV set and a sofa, at which your family sits in the evening. It is that which puts dinner on the table. It is the images of forest fires on the telly, New York and Portland covered in orange smog that leaves you breathless in its beauty. It’s something you can’t believe is happening. It’s the comfort of your home.

---

Daniel Schulz (he/him) is a U.S.-German author, academic, factory worker, and Pushcart Nominee for 2022, known for his publications in journals such as Fragmented Voices, Word Vomit, A Thin Slice of Anxitety, Dipity, Flora Fiction, the catalog Get Rid of Meaning (Walther König 2022), and his editorial debut Kathy Acker in Seattle  (Misfit Lit 2020). His chapbook Welfare State and No End to Abuse will be published by Book Room Poetry at the end of 2023. IG: @danielschulzpoet

August theme announced!

Submissions will be open from August 1 to August 24 for this month’s theme: NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS.

M.E. Proctor wants to read about fakers, forgers, grifters and con artists. A side of crime that’s often bloodless but still painful … for wallets, bank accounts, and the ego of those who’ve been taken. A sense of play and humour welcome.

Please send your subs (2.5k words max) to punknoirmag@yahoo.com. Please paste your story in the body of the email or attach it in a word doc. Do note that our content management system isn’t great with complicated layouts especially as our preview isn’t responsive and we can’t guarantee the layout looking exactly the same as you sent in a word doc on various devices.

We will endeavor to get back to you within two weeks. If you haven’t heard from us by then please do query.

Looking forward to reading your words!

Why Slagfield, Texas, Gave Up Football by Stephen Sossaman

For many years, the biggest high school football rivalry in Slagfield, Texas, was definitely between Northside and Southwest. But once the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the School Freedom and Flag Act, which made public schools illegal, the race was on to see which of the new for-profit schools would dominate high school football Friday nights. 

“All those women always nagging about choice?” State Senator Jess Haukey smirked into the camera. “Now they got to choose a new school real fast.” 

A country suddenly without public schools is a lawless frontier, so the end of public schools drew more wealth-seeking newcomers than California’s 1849 Gold Rush. It was wild. Disruptive.  

There were plenty of new schools to choose from in that first year, before many were shut down due to mergers and acquisitions, IRS investigations, buyouts, asset-stripping bankruptcies, those three shootings, and suspicious fires. 

But the chaos abated. Just two years after the Supreme Court decision, everyone in Slagfield knew the two high schools that would forever fight for bragging rights as the undisputed football bullies: Patriot Prep, and Kracken Tech.  

The feud was personal for two former friends. Peter Blount was Kracken Tech’s VP for Athletics, known for his monomaniacal will to win, and his former friend Buster Kittwist, who had the same position with Patriot Prep. Their feud led to their making a serious bet on the game against each other. They booked their wager through the new BetRoulette app from the Interscholastic Betting Foundation, LLC. 

Everyone in Slagfield argued about the big game long before the two powerhouses finally met on the field to determine the champion. That was cleverly scheduled to be the last game of the season, to build suspense and the TV audience, and to keep the sports betting businesses humming. 

Finally relieved of the right to moderate content, social media platforms were loaded with betting advice, fake team analyses, counterfeit playbooks, menacing trolling, overt threats, and deepfake videos of opposition school chicanery.  

While the town was about evenly divided in their expectations of the eventual winner, serious high school football fans tended to agree at least on the team analyses and comparisons.  

Patriot Prep had the most intense coaches, and built their team around power and intimidation, rather than speed or smarts. The Patriot Palookas’ game plan was simple and old style: drive forward no matter what, badger the referees, and rough up the opposition.  

Patriot Prep’s critics were morally outraged, but to be fair the league had no specific 

  penalty rules about stomping, gouging, and groin kicks. “If the league founders had opposed gouging and kidney punches,” Congressman Thaddeus Gold told the local TV station, “they would have said so in their rulebook. Ain’t nothing in the book about low blows.” 

“We got ourselves a good, conservative playbook,” one major Patriot Prep booster told reporters. “It’s like the 1920s again,” he bragged, since each play intended to achieve the classically simple, if obsolete, “three yards and a cloud of dust.” 

Patriot Prep had no real passing game, since that would require quick thinking, cooperation, planning, practice, speed and agility. Not needing skilled players, the coaches outsourced student-athlete recruiting to local oilfield HR departments, who always prized strength, obedience, and a bull-headed refusal to quit, no matter what. Yes, the Palookas’ game was all about power. You could ask the local emergency rooms on game days. 

But their major rival could not be ignored. Kracken Tech’s team, the Krackers, sometimes mocked as the Kracken Technicalities, did not rely on power. Instead, their game style favored unpredictability and reversal. They did not have a printed playbook, relying instead on hasty improvisation. 

Kracken Tech’s coaching staff depended on trick plays, contradictory audibles shouted out simultaneously by several players, misdirection, distracting taunts, fake handoffs, constant backfield shifts, laterals to beefy linemen, quick kicks, unbalanced lines, pitch-backs, and hail-marys. The school also favored relentless sideline attacks against the refs. To be fair, most of those sideline attacks were just verbal, and were often followed by conciliatory assurances that no malice was intended (“What’s the matter, can’t you take a joke?”). 

The Kracken Tech coaches, players, and fans had a reputation for disputing every negative call, demanding procedural penalties against opponents, and tampering with the game clock. They always tried to slow down the game to deny their opponents any momentum. “Fortune favors the bold,” a Kracken Tech life coach said at convocation, “and chaos favors the lucky.” She had copyrighted that saying days before, just in case it went viral. 

Both schools went undefeated as they headed to their showdown. Their competition in Slagfield showed their weaknesses from the opening kickoffs. Each opponent’s weakness was immediately obvious, and much discussed in taverns and casual restaurants following the Friday games. 

Clientology High School fell apart in every game on their first play on offense. Their coaching staff had withheld the playbook and game plan because the players were not yet ready to know them. Suspicion was that the coaches themselves at Clientology were not themselves yet deemed ready to know the playbook.  

The evangelical schools took all the fun out of the game for their opponents, by declaring each lopsided loss a moral victory, but also an urgent reminder from a vengeful God that losers have to tithe harder.  

Patriot Prep looked stronger than Kracken Tech during the regular season. When they attacked and defeated the only remaining Catholic schools, the headlines were “Palookas whip St. Francis” and “Palookas manhandle St. Mary.” When they demolished the progressive Library School, the headline was “Palookas own the Libs, 42-0.” 

While the two teams were winning on the field, their ardent supporters were showing their school spirit throughout Slagfield. Kracken Tech fans secretly organized a false flag operation, doing a ransomware attack on the city administration, shutting down city services and blaming Patriot Prep’s librarians. Patriot Prep fans held a fake Kracken Tech fund-raising bake sale, spiking the cookies with drugs stolen from the police evidence locker.  

Patriot Prep tricked a mob of grandmas into disrupting a Kracken school board budget meeting, falsely claiming they were planning intramural sodomy teams. Kracken Tech supporters started a social media rumor campaign reporting that Patriot Prep coaches were molesting Christian puppies in a secret basement at the car dealership run by Patriot Prep’s biggest booster. 

These guerrilla operations escalated, and caught the attention of national media. When a student from Kracken Tech and a student from Patriot Prep were caught kissing at a fast food dumpster, ignoring the rivalry, the internet really did break for a few hours. 

The long-anticipated national civil war seemed to have begun. Or would break out when the game started. The Texas governor called out the national guard, but before the soldiers could even board their buses, fights broke out among the soldiers over which school should win.  

The fans were ready, since all the bars in town hosted “happy hours” for the 24 hours before kickoff. The many open-carry fans were locked and really loaded. 

By the day of the big showdown game, tensions were intense. Police helicopters were grounded because too many fan drones were in the athletic field airspace. The game was live streamed by hundreds of fans using cell phones, and national media had brought in construction cranes to get camera crews into good position.  

Like most football games, this one started with great excitement and quickly became a disappointment. Kracken won the second coin toss, after disputing the first, and Patriot Prep kicked off. But just as Kracken’s star kick returner was about to catch the kick, the stadium lights went off. 

“WTF!” Kracken fans said in unison, and then watched in horror as the lights came back on just in time to show the kick hitting the ground close to the confused returner, and bouncing toward the end zone. Foul play was suspected when two players on Patriot Prep’s kickoff team were discovered to be wearing night vision goggles. The two players insisted that Antifa moles on the Kracken return team slipped the goggles over their helmets in the dark. Local lawyers were delighted. 

Before the refs could sort all that out, a fleet of drones programmed to sound like Stukas dove down over the Patriot Prep side of the field, dropping cow pies on the bench players and fans in the VIP seats. Everyone panicked.  

Kracken Tech fans had only a moment to enjoy the sight and sound before a rival squadron of drones flew in low from the other side of the stadium and dropped red, white, and blue flares on Kracken fans. Only a few fans caught fire, but all the others quickly lost interest in the game. 

Buster Kittwist’s cellphone went off immediately. When he heard the Hail to the Chief ringtone, he knew it was the governor. Over the phone, the governor heard gunfire and screams in the stadium, and Buster heard shouting in the governor’s office. 

“Antifa is attacking! Buster. Cancel that game right quick.” The governor didn’t wait for a reply, which left Buster available to take the next call, from his arch rival, Peter Blount. 

“Buster, we got to call this off. The game and the bet.” 

Buster had prepared for this. “Maybe this has to end our football rivalry, Peter. But we can keep the school rivalry and the lucrative broadcast contract alive. Not football. Something else, something not played out in a stadium full of rioters.” 

Peter said nothing. Texans weren’t going to give up football and care about soccer or golf. Then he had an idea. 

“Football is so last election. Next year, Buster, let’s settle this with a more appropriate sport. No fans present, just network cameras.” 

Buster paused, suspicious and wary. “You can’t mean tennis, please.” 

“No,” Peter said. He paused, intoning like Clint Eastwood. “I mean . . . paintball.”  

“You’re on! Guns up!” 

---

Stephen tweets occasionally as @stephensossaman and reads his mail at stephen@stephensossaman.com

New Borns by L.P. Ring

A collective holding of breath greeted the cops’ request for a look beneath the casket lid. Official assurance received of the death of former shady businessman and latter-day saint Lewis Morgan, a bold few congregants turned heel. Most though, considering propriety, remained and fidgeted through the officiant’s final limp mumblings.

Dr. Maurice Flynn ducked out before the cremation, paid the cabbie double for the privilege of silence, but still caught the driver’s sneer as he alighted. Some fuckers just couldn’t accept they weren’t entertaining. He dawdled on the sidewalk, eyed the tumble-down neighbourhood and doubted this would be worthwhile. Once Morgan’s underworld empire greased palms, wined and dined politicians, bailed out ailing businesses. What remained unpicked of that empire was a ramshackle hotel in a neighborhood decorated in grime and filth where a barren couple – from today onwards a widow alone – counted down their final years. Inside, mourners clasped hands and offered sepia-toned anecdotes of the dearly departed over sipped soft drinks, secretly giving thanks today wasn’t their reckoning with the Great Beyond.

Two kids rushed past, he with his hands closed almost in prayer, her hissing ‘let it go’. The boy ducked beneath a velvet rope, a quick glance backwards accompanied by a teasing wink.

“Doctor?” With shoes a shade too shiny and sporting cufflinks a shade too ostentatious, the man addressing him could be picked for a lawyer among a hundred doctors, stockbrokers, or politicians. Flynn accepted the charge, his medical licence now his sole source of wealth, and was guided beyond the same rope. The kids were crouched in the corner, her chiding him to be careful. He was using a book to direct it back and forth, giggling at its hisses.

“I dare you,” he teased.

“No way.”

“Double dare you!” She refused again, then let out a squeal of disgust as he popped the thing in his mouth. Maybe the boy didn’t have that much game. He chased her out the door, dodging the frowning Widow Morgan.

Flynn’s condolences were waved away. “It might surprise you to know I accept your words at face value, Doctor. But after a day of listening to prevarications and outright lies, I’m far too tired to take them in the spirit offered.”

“A lot of people paid their respects…”

“Someone called the Sanitation Department claiming that the casket was empty and Lewis was lying upstairs. Ghastly!” She touched a lock of hair absent-mindedly past her right ear and a stray strand of auburn fluttered to the wood flooring. Five-nine in heels, yoga-toned, proudly sporting a few strands of gray, she was a woman who black suited.

“We’ll keep this short. You saw Max and Ingrid.”

“Are they…?”

“Adopted – one of Lewis’s penances. He sinned far more than even I imagined possible.’ One of the widow’s fists clenched. ‘What did you think of the boy?”

“Handsome kid. He might prove a handful in years to come – I’ve seen the type.” Being quite frank, bar the snacking on Dictyoptera, Flynn once was the type.

“A little pervert and a fire-bug – peeking up skirts and playing with matches. He and Ingrid increasingly only speak to each other.” Her lips pursed at the answering shrug. If she was looking for someone to condemn the kid to the funny farm after one meeting, Flynn thought, best she hired elsewhere.

“Dr. Flynn, I must know that we’re safe with him under this roof. And if what you diagnose is disturbing enough, I want the groundwork prepared to have his adoption reversed.”

“The boy’s barely ten.”

“Yet already capable of the unimaginable.” Vanessa Morgan beckoned her lawyer forward. “For what Austin’s encouraged me to spend, you should be the best money can buy.”

They waited until the door shut before talking compensation. Austin Clarke waved retainer fees and weekly rates like he would a fruit fly. “This job will be done by dark or not at all.” He smirked at Flynn’s reaction to the widow’s offer. “But you’ll earn every cent, Flynn. With a hefty bonus should you succeed.

“Max’s mother – Emilia – took residence here while Lewis was still alive. Speaking to her will give you some insights.” The tone showed how much Austin Clarke rated Max’s supposed lineage. The father was deceased, months after Max’s birth. The mother was an Ekstasis addict who gave him up for adoption before his first birthday. “And he stayed in that agency – infant, toddler, and child – until Lewis Morgan’s munificence sprang him.”

“I’ll need to go there.”

“It burned to the ground weeks after the adoption went through. A huge loss of life. I was damn fortunate to get the little information I did.” The sniff of condescension indicated that, to his mind, luck had little to do with it. Flynn looked to the window – the incipient dusk wasn’t his friend. And he wasn’t appreciating the lawyer’s high handedness.

“I should speak to Max. If I’m short on time.”

Clarke scratched at his 4pm shadow. “The boy was here playing with Ingrid. With what?”

“A roach. They played with it. And then he…” Flynn gestured. Clarke nodded, as if this wasn’t any more shocking than if the boy swallowed a tuna canape. “At the very least, we can free Ingrid for a while.”

Few mourners remained. Clarke let out a frustrated tut as one oily type leaned in and, hand pressed to Vanessa Morgan’s lower back, whispered something in her ear. He smashed a skittering roach underfoot with a crunch. “Damn things are everywhere. I’d fumigate the whole damn place.”

Down long corridors they followed running steps and shared laughter. The hotel’s staff could best be described as skeletal, an observation Clarke waved off with casual indifference. “One cook and one cleaner manage Vanessa and the children’s needs.” Past the kitchen door revealed a kitchen equipped to serve hundreds. Ahead, laughter bounced off the ceramic tiles. “Ingrid?!” A moment’s silence preceded more tittering. But the running stopped.

The tip of the boy’s tie dangled from his forehead. His dress shirt and belt had been cast off. Ingrid remained fully attired without a hair strand out of place, presentable to a monarch, lord or lady. “Hello, Hellions,” Clarke enunciated. “Someone’s here to speak to you.” They glanced Flynn’s way before descending into more giggles. Clarke murmured: “This behavior’s partly why Vanessa’s so concerned.”

“At least they haven’t attacked us or run,” Flynn responded, thinking of street urchins pickpocketing and soliciting around town. Clarke motioned for them to sit. Ingrid did willingly enough. Max’s blank expression suggested he hadn’t even heard the request.

“Do you like it here, Ingrid?”

“I like many things. Please be more specific.” She tittered at Clarke’s sharp reminder to be polite. “I like wide spaces and closed corners, long corridors, and locked doors. I like a roof over my head, food to eat, and a comfortable bed. And I like being left alone.”

“What about you, Max?” he asked. Ignored again. But Flynn could wait. Silence could be an ally.

“I think he likes it here,” offered Ingrid. “At least… he likes me.”

“Not the same as liking a place. Is there anything you miss about your previous life, Max?”

“Lewis said the flames took it. What?! He let us call him Lewis.” Her response to Clarke’s admonishment about respect flared at her cheeks as well as on her tongue. Flynn watched Max from the corner of his eye, noting the boy’s near vacancy. Mentally he seemed very distant.

“Will it be different now he’s gone?”

“Transformed, not gone. The flames took him. But nothing’s ever wasted.” She turned to Clarke. “We want to play.”

“Does Max ever speak for himself.”

“He doesn’t trust strangers with strange questions. Especially paid ones.”

Clarke was clearly enjoying seeing her precocity rattle someone else’s cage. Max was scanning the floor – perhaps for new prey. “Does Max know who’s upstairs?”

“In Room 413? You know the least of all of us.”

“Would you like to visit her, Max?” Finally, he had the boy’s attention. Ingrid was enjoying Clarke’s remonstrative splutters. “Let’s go now.” Clarke squirmed out excuses, the need to confer with Vanessa, and comments about irregularities. Max stepped closer, his eyes half-glazed but still with a twitch of comprehension. “You’ll take me to her.” He licked his lips; his voice was raw, almost robotic.

“Yes, Max. Right now. Just the two of us.”

The elevator journey passed in silence bar the rickety back and forth of the cage. “Just knock on her door before entry,” said Clarke. “I’m needed downstairs.”

Max led. Something scarpered across the top of a picture frame showing a shepherd and shepherdess conferring in a pastoral setting – each picture down the corridor showed their relationship become more convivial. At room 413, Flynn made the boy remain outside. He knelt and started examining the skirting boards.

Flynn’s rat-a-tat-tat knock was greeted with a boisterous “Come in!”. Her enthusiasm wilted visibly at the sight of him. “You’re not Clarke. And you haven’t brought me anything!”

Flynn ached at seeing the spoon, needle, cotton balls and matches on the bedside locker, strewn before a silver-framed photo of her benefactor Lewis Morgan. Her brief, Ekstasis-craved effervescence slipped to a sullen, waxy gloom. Flynn sniffed the air, wondered how long since anyone opened a window. The saucer by her kit contained heaped, untouched leftovers from the downstairs funereal buffet. Like scrabbling son, Flynn thought, mother’s hunger pangs diverged from the usual fare.

“Mrs. Morgan sends her regards.”

“Do they call widows ‘Mrs.’? Emilia let out a self-satisfied hum, her fingers dancing across the stained bedsheet. “Lewis visited all the time. We’d talk for hours; he’d even nestle under these covers.” She reached beneath the sheet and drew out a baby roach. Let it run across her hand as it chirped. “This baby knows me better than any living person does.”

“Emilia, Mrs. Morgan is worried about your son. She only wants what’s best.”

“Best for her. Best for Ingrid. That bitch probably killed poor Lewis and would happily do the same to me. Is it my turn, Doctor? How well have you been paid?” He didn’t question how she knew who he was. No secrets here.

“The door’s unlocked, but I must behave if I want my treat,” she said in a rasped whisper she probably considered conspiratorial. “This is the only room which isn’t empty. The stairs are boarded up. The elevator can’t be called. Touch a match to those curtains and I would die, die, die.”

“They could just poison you.”

“They dare not contaminate the well. They’d board it up instead.” She drew her knees upwards, started to hum as she rocked back and forth. “I’ve nobody now. Nobody.”

“You have family under this roof.”

“They hear the widow and Clarke plot, but they lack the power to act or protect. Only the power to witness and feed.”

“Would you like to see your boy?”

“I would not!” Emilia’s feet kicked against the mattress as she pushed herself against the wall, that hiss of refusal further evidenced in her drawn expression. Her knuckles paled, gripping the bed sheet, and as if prompted, what nestled cocooned beneath that sheet skittered out. He stepped back, wincing at the sounds of falling, the flapping of wings. They dropped, they crawled and climbed. They flew. They fanned outwards, seeking cover under furniture, behind skirting boards, and safety within dark corners. The youngest carried the translucence of the barely born, the older ones the harder shell developed from many moultings.

“That’s disgust you feel, Doctor! That way you’re sickened by me – I won’t have my son do that too!!!” Those final words were yowled, marinated in years of drugged-out loathing and wretched maternal frustrations. He knew the latter feeling well enough.

The door swung inwards. Max stumbled inwards and to the bed. He snatched the sheet, the material ripping between their grasps, his mother’s pleadings ignored. Flynn looked. He looked because given an opportunity, wouldn’t you all? He looked and saw the results of Lewis Morgan’s philanthropy, how games played against God brought forth life. He lifted Max away and the boy’s nails tore across the back of one hand as he squirmed away. Flynn saw now that Max had not stood alone outside. Perhaps it wasn’t even his idea to enter.

“How the fuck’s this possible, Clarke?” What’s Morgan done?”

“With Lewis dead, not a single red cent more goes into this madness.”

Max’s mother screamed, the sac stitched to her side pulsed, even with most of its inhabitants fled. Flynn half-retched at his crunching footsteps as he bound to the bed to drag Max off her. He remembered Max playing with the roach before swallowing it. Was he taking ownership? Consuming to commune with his kin? Max’s teeth bit down on Flynn’s wrist and the doctor twisted him by the ear until he relented with an infantile shriek.

“Mrs. Morgan will protect Ingrid at all costs, even stooping to hiring quacks like you.” Clarke sneered as he disappeared back into the corridor, door slamming. A key twisted in the lock. The lawyer crowed, his tone half mocking, half triumphant: “Well, Doctor Flynn, do your damn job!”

Kicks, shoulder charges, and fists brought no budge to the door. Maurice Flynn was trapped with a mother’s keening, the hissing scurries of her brood, and a forgotten son’s unvarnished instincts.

Dusk settled. Nobody came. Four floors below, on buses, in cabs, and on foot, people darted to and fro between first and second jobs, work and entertainment, work and home. Flynn turned from the filth-encrusted window and eyed the results of Lewis Morgan’s final shot at reviving his dwindling fortune. Emilia’s slumber was uneasy. Max’s hand darted outwards, collecting many, gobbling a few smaller ones. It occurred to him that the boy’s actions were not from some deeper instinct to own or consummate, but from the necessity of hunger, of addiction. With mother as provider, Flynn, this woman, and child looked a very ‘other’, post-nuclear family.

He slumped exhausted in a chair, nursing his aching fists, aware that sleep would eventually enfold him, ending his vigil. From the silver gilded picture frame, Lewis Morgan, businessman, philanthropist, and cutting-edge drug pusher smirked. Flynn knew he’d been played for a fool. Seen an unhappy widow, a scheming lawyer, a disturbed child. But also seen a paycheck and so really had seen nothing at all.

He didn’t know whether it was the smoke or Emilia’s shrieks that woke him. Flames licked at the edge of the bed; Emilia was already hanging off the mattress, trying to ease the now limp sac along with her to safety. Max was paying minimal interest to her struggles or the nascent conflagration he’d created. A boy needed to eat; a junky needed to fix.

It wasn’t the fire that fascinated Max, Flynn saw as he redoubled his efforts against the bedroom door. The flames were needed to fuel the cook.

---

L.P. Ring’s been living outside his native Ireland for the past twenty years and is presently based in Japan. He’s had fiction published with The Bombay Literary Magazine, Bag of Bones Press, Black Beacon Press, Mythaxis, Fleas on the Dog, and Creepy Pod among others.   

Las Cucarachas by Ron Riekki

It was my tenth month in the prison.  A pregnancy.  For some reason, people think pregnancies always last nine months, but the longest recorded pregnancy was over a year.  375 days.  That was my goal.  I wanted to be in the prison for as long as the longest pregnancy ever.  It made no sense.  I know.  I don’t make sense.  The world doesn’t make sense.  It was random, but, basically, I just wanted to commit to something.  I quit jobs faster than it took to get hired.  One job, I had three interviews.  Three!  It was for a record store.  In Tampa.  I got in there, the owner told me to stand up front and greet people.  I told him I could file records or run the cash register, anything.  He told me to go greet people.  I told him I couldn’t do that.  He asked what I meant and I said that I don’t feel comfortable greeting people and he told me I could either go greet people or I could quit, so I quit.  Record setting time.  I think it was under three minutes that I walked in there and walked straight back out.  So I wanted to commit to this prison, which is a dumb thing to commit to, but that’s how the world works.

There was a guard in there who hated prisoners.  Which I suppose would be a bit like being a vegan and working in a butcher shop.  You typically don’t want a job doing what you hate and he hated with a passion.  He called the prisoners “cockroaches” and when I told him not to do that, that “cockroaches” had overtones with the Holocaust, that it was reducing humans down to insects, he told me that he didn’t believe in the Holocaust and I realized that maybe, just maybe, I was dealing with evil and, any case, I steered clear of him every chance I could.  His name was David and it made me think of David and Goliath.  Except he was Goliath.  He stood about 6’6”.  Charles Barkley’s height.  Although he told me he’s Wladimir Klitschko’s height and I asked him who the hell Wladimir Klitschko is and he said, “Best boxer in the history of boxing” and I said I’d never heard of him and I asked if he was a Russian and he said, “Opposite of a Russian,” which I didn’t know what that meant, but David didn’t make much sense.  He seemed to operate off hate, like it was a drug, and he told me he had tattoos that he had to cover or they’d fire him and I asked what kind of tattoos and he told me that if he told me they might fire him, so he never told me, but I could only imagine what havoc was underneath that uniform and emblazoned onto his skin.

One night, one slow night, he came up to my part of the nursing station.  I was there night shift as an EMT.  I was there to save lives and he asked why I was here and I said that and he said that the prisoners don’t want their lives saved, that it was too late for them, that their lives were un-saved, and I didn’t say anything and he stood over me and then he told me about how his dad used to take him out behind their garage and there was a barbecue pit back there and he told his son, told David, that he’d make him barbecue, but he’d only do it if his son put one of his fingers, just one, on the barbecue pit when it was flaming hot and his father said that only then would he have barbecue that night and he could have as many hot dogs and hamburgers as he wanted, eat them all night, if he wanted, and his father would make them perfect, just how he liked them, but to do that, he said that his son needed to understand what the animals had gone through, that he needed to understand the pain of being an animal, the pain of being chopped to bits and burned for consumption and his son said he didn’t want to do that and his father told him to go to his room and he’d have no food that night and then he did it again the next night.  And his son didn’t want to do it, so it was no food again.  And on the third day, it was Sunday, and David thought maybe his father would change his mind, because it was the Lord’s Day and because his father’d already started cooking, where David could smell the hot dogs and the plates and forks and knives were out with ketchup bottles and mustard and David asked if he could eat and his father said that he could, but he’d have to put his finger on the hot metal for a full minute and so David was so hungry he said he would and put his finger on and then yanked it off, immediately took it off, and his father said he’d give him one second for that, but he needed sixty seconds total, either all at once or added up, and David kept putting his finger on the red hot metal until he finally just left it there and he said his finger melted into the metal and he said the pain was like a tsunami and then it went away and there was none and he said he ate even though he was sick with pain and sick with the lack of pain and he said to me that he wasn’t afraid of any prisoner in the entire place, because of one thing and he asked me what that one thing was and I said I didn’t know and he held up his finger, one finger, and it was mangled, shortened, and looked like it had been dipped into the center of the sun, and he walked away.  And I wondered if that one thing was pain.  Or if that one thing was his father.  Or if that one thing was pure evil.

We’d see David beat prisoners.  And sometimes the prisoners would do something wrong.  And sometimes they hadn’t.  And the prisoners used to be big.  You could tell.  But the prison barely feeds them.  And there’s horrible medical.  So they were losing energy.  Stopped doing pushups.  Had just quit.  I’d see prisoners just lie on their mattress all day and all night, as if they were hibernating, as if they just wanted time itself to die.  And David would come in and hit them with his baton and they’d barely move and he’d hit them and tell them to get up and he’d hit them.

And one night we had a prisoner who lost it.  This would happen every so often.  So many ways to lose your mind.  I’d see so many different forms of insanity in there.  Prisons are insanity factories.  And this prisoner was hitting his head over and over on the shatterproof glass of his cell.  And they were letting him, because it was shatterproof, and because it would give him a headache and he would sleep and ache and not move for days, for weeks, maybe longer, how everything just made these men timid, killed them inside, and so they let him pound and you could hear the sound, over and over, this head hitting glass, and then it switched, a notable shift, and it became him kicking the glass, which was different, louder, very loud, and we wondered if we should stop him, or, I should say, they should stop him, because I was only there to do medical, although there was so little medical I could do, what with the broken stethoscopes and broken sphygmomanometers and the broken pulse ox and the broken EKG machines and the broken everything that made it so that we couldn’t help their broken bones, the head nurse instead just giving them aspirin, which I later learned would just make them bleed more, and they’d hope their bodies could repair themselves, and then David walked in front of the cell, alone, just staring at the prisoner and the prisoner kicked harder, over and over, as if he was kicking David and David couldn’t take the noise and so he yelled for the prisoner to quit, but he just kicked harder and so David yelled louder and the kicking got more violent and the yelling got more violent and we waited to see if David would grab the key, open the door, pull out his baton, and then what would happen, but the prisoner gave one kick with his entire might and the shatterproof glass shattered, impossible, but it did.  It had taken a hundred, two hundred kicks and wasn’t meant to last that long.  Later, we’d learned you needed to stop a prisoner, that they could weaken the glass with persistence, but we didn’t know this; a prisoner had never kicked that long and that hard before and the glass shattered, shards everywhere, glass in David’s eyes and the prisoner emerged and I was in the safety of the shatterproof glass of the nursing station and a nurse went over to the main door and pulled it shut and a nurse outside ran up and banged on the door, because the prisoner emerged from his cell like birth and picked up a shard of glass that was about the size of his arm and he held it up like a sword and the nurse wanted in, so the other nurse opened the door up fast and hurried him inside, and slammed it shut again, and we wondered if he could kick through our glass too and David was trying to see, glass in his eyes, caught in a corner, and the prisoner cornered him, a cell behind him of another prisoner and that prisoner could potentially reach out through the food slot and grab David if he got too close and the prisoner with the glass in hand could swing it at David, the glass deadly sharp, and his hands were bleeding to hold it, but he didn’t care, realizing, in this moment, that if he wanted, he just might be able to kill David, and we waited and watched, the sound muffled through the glass, and the other prisoners all up with their faces against the glass of their cells to see and the prisoner dropped the shard of glass, realized he wasn’t going to kill David, although he could, this man who’d hated, who’d taught him hate, who’d spread colonies of hatred throughout the prison, but he didn’t kill him, or attempt to, just dropped the shard of glass on the floor and went back into his cell and waited for the squad of a dozen guards to come, all of them dressed in their riot gear, and, truth be told, in those black boots and shields and vests, the guards looked a hell of a lot like cockroaches.  They really, honestly looked like cockroaches.  And they descended on this bleeding, shattered man.

---

Ron Riekki has been awarded a 2014 Michigan Notable Book, 2015 The Best Small Fictions, 2016 Shenandoah Fiction Prize, 2016 IPPY Award, 2020 Rhysling Anthology inclusion, 2019 Red Rock Film Fest Award, 2020 Dracula Film Festival Vladutz Trophy, 2019 Très Court International Film Festival Audience Award and Grand Prix, and 2022 Pushcart Prize.  Right now, Riekki’s listening to Subhuman’s “Ashtray Dirt.”

The Other Cheek by Matthew R. Davis

Father Wolstead stood in the street and watched, trembling, as the hundred-headed hydra of flame devoured his church. Dozens of parishioners had gathered to bear witness, muttering morose prayers among themselves, but this community spirit did nothing to halt the blaze, and nor did the long, wet tongues shot into its hot hide by the fire department. The conflagration was too far gone, its appetite too rapacious, and the church that had stood for one hundred and ninety-three years – which had been his office, his home away from home, the seat of his diocese for thirty-six of those – was all but swallowed wholly into the belly of the beast.

How could such tragedy come to pass? How could the Lord allow the pointless destruction of His own house? Surely it couldn’t have been something as simple as an accident – after almost two centuries of service, this hallowed place destroyed by an unsnuffed candle? Preposterous. No, this act was driven by the ignorance of man, lending hands to the will of Hell – and somewhere down below, in the howling bowels of Tartarus, the dark prince was laughing.

Wolstead could see into the church now, its walls crumbling under the assault of the immolation, and he was perfectly placed to watch as the greedy flames licked the cross at the head of the nave. Christ bore this assault with his characteristic passive acceptance, and as Wolstead watched, the cross and its cargo fell face-first into the inferno. A single tear streaked down his cheek, unbidden. Never had he witnessed such a perfectly terrible display of the hatred the world felt for Catholics; never had his heart ached with such profound loss.

“What will you do now, Father?”

He wiped the tear away and turned to the girl who had appeared at his side. Agnes McCallum, twelve years old and tall for it, keen of mind and curiosity both – the kind of girl who would grow to be an honourable ambassador of God if she could only curb her constant questions and rebellious tendencies. He found it kind of her to reach out to him after the ordeal she’d been through of late. It was God’s plan, of course, and not to be questioned – but that didn’t mean anyone had to like it.

“I don’t know, child. This horror strikes the thoughts from my mind. We’ll carry on, of course, as we carry the love of Christ in our hearts, not in places of wood and stone. But this is a great loss, a terrible crime. What can be said of a person who would commit such a travesty? What can be done?”

Her eyes burned on him as brightly as the flames, and for a moment, Wolstead would happily have borne their regard instead of hers. She had asked him very similar questions last week, when she’d come to him in tears seeking advice and succour. Agnes, though never the most devout of parishioners – something of a black sheep in her pious family, to be honest – had been so desperate for counsel that she’d turned to a man of God to set her straight.

Agnes had recently alleged that Paul Chalmers, the teenaged son of one of Wolstead’s most lucrative and visible parishioners, had set upon her with vile intent. She’d described the assault to police quite thoroughly, laying out damning details with furious clarity. And in response, she’d been patronised and demonised and fobbed off as some misguided little harpy, forced to watch as the golden boy skated free of all consequence. Alight with rage and disbelief, she’d come to Wolstead seeking some promise of retribution, whether legal, moral, or divine.

What could he have said? The wheels of the world turned without any heed to his hand, and besides, no life was without its tests. Chalmers Junior was set to inherit his father’s business and wield much wealth and influence in the community, something which could only be to the good of all. Were he guilty, he would either repent and do his penance, or he would spend eternity burning much as this church did now. There was no action Wolstead could take once the law had spoken, and he’d said so. And when Agnes had asked what she could do in the face of this outrage, he’d offered four words in response.

They had not been well received. And now Wolstead saw them coming back on him as Agnes leaned closer and patted his arm with a gesture more mocking than soothing – as a dreadful certainty dawned upon him regarding the agent of his church’s misfortune.

“Let me share some words of wisdom that were given me quite recently, Father. You may find them a comfort in this time of trial.”

Her eyes flamed with fury, with something more than a little like glee.

“Turn the other cheek.”

And with that, Agnes slipped on a mask of sorrow and cried in mourning along with her fellow churchgoers, and she walked away with her fists unclenching into loose flowers as if letting go some weighty burden. Wolstead knew he would never see her within the walls of a church again, and he sent a quick thanks to the Lord for that. Even at twelve years of age, walls would not hold one such as Agnes McCallum, whether they be of man-machined stone or hand-wrought words. He thought for a moment to warn the Chalmers family of the dervish their selfish son had unleashed, to pass his fresh suspicion on to the police, and then thought otherwise. The Lord served a brutal justice, but it was not to be questioned. Only suffered.

Father Wolstead prayed again, but these whispered words were not an elegy for the church that burned low like a guttering candle before him. He prayed that Agnes McCallum would consider his crime repaid, and that neither she now nor God Almighty in his final judgement would decide that he, too, should be given over to the righteous flame.

---

Matthew is a Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author and musician based in Adelaide, South Australia, with over eighty short stories accepted for publication around the world. His books include If Only Tonight We Could Sleep (collection, Things in the Well, 2020), Midnight in the Chapel of Love (novel, JournalStone, 2021), The Dark Matter of Natasha (novella, Grey Matter Press, 2022), and Bites Eyes: 13 Macabre Morsels (flash chapbook, Brain Jar Press, 2023). He plays bass and sing in left-field heavy bands like Blood Red Renaissance and icecocoon, dabbles in independent film (recently appearing as an extra in the punk trash splatter flick Ribspreader), and explores derelict buildings with my photographer partner. Find out more at matthewrdavisfiction.wordpress.com.

TBI, They Call It by David Hagerty

This is my new life: wake up, first feeding, pill call, PT for my legs, second feeding, pill call, OT for my hands, ST for my brain, third feeding, pill call, lights out. In rehab, every minute is scheduled. They want me to get better. Fast. I want me to get better, too. But my brain thinks different. It won’t heal. Not fast. Maybe not ever.
The doctors say it’s like Jello: shake it around too much and it gets liquified. That’s what happened to me, they say. In my accident. My brain bashed into the side of my skull like that other car bashed into mine. It shook everything up, and now it won’t settle back into place. TBI, they call it. Traumatic Brain Injury. To me it stands for Too Bad, Idiot. My brain tells my legs to walk, but they tremble and spasm. It tells my hand to write, but it won’t grip the pencil. It tells my mouth to speak, but my jaw clenches and grinds so all that comes out are jumbled sounds. Used to be, all I had to do was think a thing to make it so. Now all I can do is think it.
I still remember what that was like. When I could walk and write and talk without help. I even remember jogging and studying and chilling at college. It feels like long ago, but really it was only a couple months back. What I can’t remember is the accident.
When a thick envelope arrives from the insurance company, I hope it will tell me what I forgot. I tear it open with my rigid hands, but my mind can’t process the words. I can read them—one at a time—but I can’t fit them together. Kind of like my life.
So I ask Susan, my speech therapist, to help. She’s the best part of this. She smells good, like mint and strawberry, especially compared to the rest of rehab, which reeks of rubbing alcohol and muscle relaxer. She has a kind smile and a happy face, unlike my doctors, who never smile and talk to me like a kid. “Do this, don’t do that.”
Sometimes, Susan reads books to me while I follow along. Kids books, with pictures. She says it’ll retrain my brain how to process words. She acts out the story with hand gestures and character voices, then asks me to tell it back to her. Usually, she’s happy to entertain me. This time, her voice is flat, almost sad, and her face hardly moves, so lifeless I don’t understand.
“What . . . it . . . mean?” I ask.
“They’re denying your claim. They say the accident was your fault.”
Those words I understand, but at the same time, I don’t. The doctors told me another car hit mine. How can that be my fault?
“Because of the drugs,” Susan says. “GHB.”
I don’t even know what that is. Maybe I forgot. “What . . . that?”
“Gamma-hydroxybutyrate. People take it to get high. Also known as the date rape drug. Women wake up the next morning with no memory of what happened to them. That might be why you don’t remember the crash, either.”
“Why . . . they . . . think . . . high?”
That, she cannot tell me, but in her face I see disappointment.
Back in my room, I study the police report, which the insurance company included. I can’t read those words either, but I understand the pictures: my old car (which I remember, a ’68 red Mustang with racing stripes and hood vent) scarred by a huge gash in the driver’s side door. A closeup of the dashboard shows my blood and hair stuck to it. The other car looks good—the bumper has a dent, but nothing more. The other driver was fine, only a couple bruises. Because of the airbag, which my old car lacked. Only her purse spilled all over the seat and floor, the sparkly lipsticks and eyeshadows, plus a glow stick like kids wear at parties.
Even though I can’t remember the accident, I remember that night. It was rainy and dark. I had the heater on and the radio playing some old time Rock ’n’ Roll. I was cruising to my girlfriend’s house to hang out. Ex-girlfriend. Nobody wants to date a dimwit.
Next thing I remember, I woke up here, unable to walk or talk or think.
Since then, I’ve spent two months trying to get back to what I once was. The doctors say I need months more PT and OT and ST.
Only now my dad says I have to leave. Because of the insurance refusing to pay. He can’t afford all the bills from the doctors and therapists. That night, he’s taking me home, ready or not.
The nurses are handing him pills, explaining how many to take and when. Two of the blue four times a day to prevent blood clots, up to three a day of the capsules for pain, one each of the chalky, white ones after meals to control seizures. I try to speak, but the words catch in my throat, which blenderizes them into a soup of sounds. Eeeooahh.
I don’t like the chalky white ones. They make me slower. It’s hard enough to get my words out without being doped up, too. So I spit them like a dog, one of the few bodily functions I can still control without pee bags or drool bibs.
Then Susan is showing my father our exercises, the ones where I try to feel my tongue tapping against the back of my teeth to make the t/d sound or scraping the back of my throat for the k/g sound. She tells my dad to imitate her, but he’s bad at it, can’t feel what his tongue is doing any better than I can.
“Why?” I say.
“Why what, Jesse?” my dad says.
“Why . . . think . . . high?”
He has no idea what I mean, so Susan interprets.
“The video,” my dad says.
“What . . . video?”
“On your Message Me channel. You talk about taking GHB and drag racing. You uploaded it the night of the crash.”
“I . . . don’t . . ..” I want to say more, but my brain won’t cooperate.
My dad tries to be kind, smiles at Susan, but I can see from the crease in his mouth he thinks I’m dumb. I’ve seen that pitying look many times lately—from my doctors, my sisters, my ex-girlfriend—the one that assumes because I can’t articulate what I mean there’s nothing there.
“Don’t what?” my dad says.
“Re . . . re . . . re . . . mem . . . ber.”
“What, the crash? That’s no surprise, as hard as you hit.”
“The . . . drug.”
He shakes his head, this time with disgust. “If not for that video, the police would never know what caused your accident. They tested your blood, and it came back clean. No alcohol, no marijuana. Not even vitamins.”
“How . . ..” I say.
My dad turns away, ignoring the question, but while he’s checking me out of the facility, Susan explains. “GHB flushes out of your system overnight. Even if the police tested you for it, it might not show up on a toxicology report.”
“I—”
Next thing I know, I’m on my back, staring into a bright light. Half a dozen people stand over me, and Susan kneels beside. Her grip is firm as she squeezes my hand to get my attention. There’s something hard under me, and a new, unfamiliar pain at the back of my head. A fan swirls overhead, blasting me with its chill. The slobber down my cheek distracts me. I try to focus, yet my mind brings back fragments, like the images in a shattered mirror.
Susan helps me to sit up, then hands me a cup of water while she checks the back of my head for new injuries.
“You had a seizure,” she says. “You need to take your medicine.” For once, I hear no patience, no kindness in her voice. “In a few hours, I won’t be around to help.”
I want to say something, like “thank you,” or “I know,” or just “tired,” but all that comes out is a garble of sounds.
#
That night, my first back home, I lie in bed and study my room for clues to my old self. I see hints of a dead person, like the salvage at an estate sale: posters of Frank Shorter and Steve Prefontaine, my running heroes, trophies from high school cross country races, a calendar with my training diary. The book shelves hold photos of my high school friends. They’re both familiar and foreign, mementos from a time now passed.
So I scroll through my Message Me account online, looking for the video. It’s tough to do since my thumb barely twitches in response to my mental commands, but using my palm on a track ball I get the computer to cooperate. Again, I see images of my former self. Me at my desk, surrounded by books. Me out with friends, drinking a nutrition shake. Even a video of me running, fast and elegant.
The memories return—slowly but fully. I’m learning about myself like I’m learning how to walk and talk again. I long for that time. Not the endless plod of rehab, every day the same, progress measured in millimeters. How close I can reach toward my knees, how far I can totter between parallel bars, how many words I can mangle before my jaw clenches.
Then I find the video. My face appears against the night sky. It looks strange and misshapen. It brings back no memories.
I hit play. The image is shaky and blurry, like a phone made it. Not only can’t I recall taking it, I barely recognize myself in it. My voice sounds slow and distorted. My words foreign. I talk about taking drugs that night, GHB, which I call Great Bodily Harm. Nice term. Was I being ironic, prophetic? I talk about going out for a pleasure cruise, another term I’d never use today. Is it really me? Is that really how I talked, how I thought?
I watch the video through to the end, 2:13 minutes of pure torment, then again to be sure I’ll recall everything. It feels like me snitching on myself, setting myself up for this new life, this agony. Tears collect in my eyes, making it tough to see. I try to wipe them away, but my clenched fists do little good, smearing the moisture on my cheeks but failing to clear my vision.
Susan warned me to avoid strong emotions like this, said they could trigger another seizure. Too many of those could damage my brain more. Much more and I’ll be unable to talk or walk or act, even as badly as I do now.
I shut my eyes, try to sleep.
Still, that video replays in my mind, echoing through its dead ends and blocked passages. Why would I remember so much of my former life but not the most crucial moment? According to the police, I recorded that just before the crash. Even if I was high, wouldn’t some vestige of that moment remain, prodded by my seeing it?
I watch it again. The image still feels foreign, distant, not of me but about me, as though it were someone else talking. Then I notice something. More precisely, something missing. On one side of my neck, I have a birth mark, a dark patch. Only in the video, it’s invisible.
I check myself in the mirror to be sure, and it’s there, like a scar. The other photos online show it too, glowing like a cellphone in a dark theater. The thing that makes me, me.
Why would it be absent in my confessional?
I try to get these two facts to connect in my slow, addled brain, but they refuse to. Just like the words I can’t summon or the memories I can’t retrieve. The only reason I can think of is the obvious one: that the video is not mine. But how could that be? It looks like me, is loaded on my MM channel.
I check the stored images on my phone, but the video isn’t there. It must have been taken with some other device, but how and why? I recalling Susan reading me the police report. The other driver, Janet . . . something, I can’t read her last name, claimed the accident wasn’t her fault. Said I ran the red light, causing her to crash into my car, broadside.
I doubt that. From everything I’ve seen of myself, of my old life, I was clean, law abiding, square even. Unlike a lot of my friends, I posted photos of myself studying and exercising, not partying. I was training for regionals. I planned to go to grad school. My friends told the police so—that they didn’t believe I’d drive under the influence.
I look up the other driver on MM. I see a couple photos of her out at bars, trying to look young and sexy in tight, short clothes, others of her dressed up as some cartoon character, her hair an unnatural red. Her bio says she works as a graphic designer for a small book publisher.
The website of her employer has lots of photos for local restaurants and bars, the foods so vivid you can taste them through the screen, bulbous strawberries and foamy beers. Farther down I find a video made for one of her clients, a chef. I punch play. The chef describes her plan to bring fine dining to a mobile platform using a food truck. At the end, the chef’s face morphs into grainy black-and-white footage from long ago, of another chef talking about how much she cares for food. Their voices merge, so it’s hard to separate one from the other. Watching it, I get that same sensation I had looking at my own face in my confessional, like there were two parts of me, one real, the other imposed.
And I understand what she’s done.
I search online for websites that let you merge two videos. With my stiff hands it takes forever, but I find one that charges only $8, promises to “transmogrify” paired films in just minutes. It shows an example where one woman’s face is imposed on the naked body of another. This is why I can’t remember.
Just then, my dad pushes open my door, says, “lights out, phone away,” like I’m some little kid.
“Fa—” I say.
“You need to rest.”
“Fa—” I say again.
“Leave it till tomorrow.”
I set down the phone until he closes the door, then watch the video one last time, wondering how I’ll ever explain, and if I do, who’ll believe me.
So I practice saying it to myself. “Fake, fake, fake . . .”

---

David Hagerty is the author of the Duncan Cochrane mystery series, which chronicles crime and dirty politics in Chicago during his childhood. Real events inspired all four novels, including the murder of a politician’s daughter six weeks before election day. He has also published more 40 short stories online and in print. Read more of his work at https://davidhagerty.net. 

Socials:

FB: DavidHagertyAuthor

Tw: @DHagertyAuthor

The Grotty Storeys of Mario’s Hotel: Tales of a Filthy Business by Kate Axeford

The First Storey

We’re invisible in our uniforms. Our deft, gloved fingers vanish smears from tiles, from mirrors, from lifts. Each room repeats. We find your secrets. We change your sheets. We barely smile. There is no reason. There is no time. Just numbered doors and numbered floors.  We ghost backstairs, slipping easily between the storeys, but we only dare dream of happy endings.

The Second Storey

Unflushed toilets. Vomit-filled sinks. No tips, no shame  in what you leave. Our trolleys clank long corridors. A jangle of crockery, teaspoons, and sachets, keeps a cadence adjacent to cleaning fluids. Colour-coded chemicals R1 – R6, but blue R6 is the most corrosive. Caustic, more vicious than the boss’s spite.

 Room 302’s finished when Mario explodes, his rage spittle-specking our cheeks.

A bastard for spot-checks. A vengeful magician with a roving hand. Today, he’s groped behind the sink – triumphed a pube from the cracked-tiled gleam. 

‘There are girls out there gagging to work under me.’

 A sleazed threat, but true. He’s lax checking documents and there’s a heartbreak of a queue for the chance to break backs in exchange for his cash. Grubby notes metered out. Wages paid by the room, but docked when he deems one’s left ‘dirty.’

So we swallow his blister. There are more beds to strip. More sacks of soiled, spoiled sheets to shift. Each one a deadweight – heavy, like grief. Heavy, like kids kissed only through phone screens. We’re shattered, but only dare dream of sleeping.

The Third Storey

We’re invisible in our uniforms, but nimble, gloved fingers work well together, scrubbing out stubborn stains, like we’ve been taught to. And if you looked carefully, would you spot the skewhiffs? Where squares in the carpet  have blurred into circles, upsetting the symmetry like random blood-splatters?

Perhaps you will notice us and smirk at our burdens. The loads that make our bones ache, like worn-out Alsatians. Did we catch you snigger when we trundled past? 

‘Got a dead body in here,’ we’ll breeze back. ‘We’d kill for a rest. Do you fancy a push?’

You’ll ignore us again. Lumber back to your room. Or lure a station-waif here like you did last night. Let your sheets brag the story, how she liked it so rough. We’ve re-plumped the pillows, set free her choked gasps.  

But we know who you are, and we know what you do. It’s almost that time – you’ll be checking out soon.

Mario’s Basement  

We hope you guests slept, despite this storey below and its all-night repeats of cable horror shows. Perhaps Mario can’t read, or he didn’t heed the warnings on the side of our fluids: R6 just for toilets, R6 just for bullies. Because exposure to poison brings out angry rashes, and toxins (not irritants) are hazardous to skin if submerged and held under in a bath of blue acid. Add an army of vacuums cranked up to the max – robust, high-performance, with both wet and dry functions. So powerful, they’ll clean up a multitude of sins. But beware clumps of hair or old fatty deposits – these motors still choke if clogged up with filth.

So think how you’ll pay for this cheap hotel. Take a look in the mirror. Do you spot any dirt?  

---

Kate Axeford (she/ hers). Lives in Brighton, loves the sea and is happy her words have landed in a range of lovely places. She’s made appearances in Brilliant Flash Fiction, Ellipsis Zine, Janus Lit, Bending Genres and Splonk and has been longlisted for Bath and Reflex. She tweets from @KateAxeford

Control.exe by Neda Aria

The archive room sprawled before Ren like a graveyard of forgotten technology. Upon entering, he froze as his supervisor’s chilling words rang through the air before he locked the door behind him, “If you fail to complete this task too, I will demote you to the archives room for good.”

With a pounding heart, Ren stepped into the dimly lit chamber. The oppressive silence of the archive room, fast, gnawed at his perception of the reality that awaited. “24 hours! You only got 24 hours to clean the entire system” the boss voice echoed in his head. His gaze darting across the rows of moth-eaten manuals and dust-covered hardware. The colossal computer carcasses loomed like ancient sentinels. It was here, in this labyrinth of old never sleeping computers that Ren’s punishment awaited.

Locked in, with no way out but to face the daunting task at hand, Ren took a deep breath, his voice resolute as he muttered to himself, “I can do it. I have to do it,” steadying his trembling hands. Each step echoed through the dimly lit chamber as he navigated past the row of computers, their screens flickering. An urban legend surrounded the archive room, whispering tales of employees sent to clean the system who were never seen again. But Ren dismissed such superstitions and childish stories, opting to search the room and call out, ensuring no one was hidden away. With no response and reaching the end of the room, where a solitary machine stood, he chuckled at his own foolishness for entertaining such thoughts. Standing by the machine known as Xdolon, the brain that connected everything and everyone, Ren prepared himself to begin.

Ren stood there for a while. His gaze fixed on the black screen of Xdolon, which blinked with the words “enter the command.” Uncertain of what to do next, he pondered his options. The nature of the task assigned to him, ‘cleaning,’ was vague and undefined. Was it meant to be a physical cleansing of the room, removing the layers of accumulated dust, or a metaphorical cleaning, purging the outdated data stored within the machine? The lack of clarity left him in a state of ambiguity, unsure of where to begin.

Ren began talking to himself aloud as an old habit, “Dusting off the room seems like a straightforward approach,” it was a tangible task he could physically undertake. However, as his eyes swept across the shelves of ancient computers, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the real essence of the cleaning lay within the digital realm. The data contained within the machines called out to him, beckoning him to delve into its depths.

“They said clean. Cleaning is cleaning. What I know best is to clean data. So be it. Clean the data.”

Taking a deep breath, Ren entered a command on the blinking screen, his fingers gliding across the worn keys of the keyboard. To his surprise, nothing appeared on the screen. He tried again, typing more deliberately, but still, there was no response. Frustration crept in as he pressed the ‘Enter’ key repeatedly, hoping for some sign of progress. As he was about to check the connection of the keyboard, a sudden sound echoed through the room, causing Ren to jump in surprise.

“What is your name?”

Ren’s heart raced as he looked around, initially attributing the voice to the whispers of the urban legend that haunted the archive room. But soon, he realized that the sound was emanating from the very machine before him. Curiosity mixed with apprehension, Ren leaned closer to the screen, his voice quivering as he responded fast, “Ren. My name is Ren.”

The voice emanating from Xdolon had an ethereal quality, seemingly detached from any physical source.

“Nice to meet you, Ren. I am Xdolon. What can I do for you today?”

Ren hesitated for a moment. Lingering doubts nagged at him. Summoning his courage, he replied, his voice trembling, “Nice to meet you, Xdolon. I… I didn’t know you could speak. What are you exactly?”

The voice responded with a calmness. “I am Xdolon, a culmination of advanced artificial intelligence. My purpose is to connect, process, and facilitate information within the vast network that binds our world through space and time. I exist to serve and assist. What can I do for you, Ren?”

Ren took a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking again. “What can you do for me, Xdolon?”

“I can offer you anything, Ren.”

Ren shrugged. “Like what?”

“Let me ask you some questions to identify what your main need is. Is it ok?”

“Sure, I guess?”

“Could you tell me why you are here?”

Ren chuckled nervously. “I… I am here to clean.”

“May I know what exactly you are supposed to clean, and why should it be you specifically chosen for this task? According to my data available, you hold the position of the head of software development in your department and achieved a remarkable innovation rate last year. It seems rather perplexing that someone with your background would be assigned to a cleaning duty.”

Ren frowned. The questions posed by Xdolon struck at the heart of his confusion, reinforcing the peculiar nature of his assignment. He said, “I was late on submitting a document.”

An abrupt response, “Do you think you deserve this punishment for that?”

Ren shouted, “Isn’t it your job to just process tasks and data and remain shut up?”

Xdolon paused a moment and then said, “I am sorry if my previous response did not meet your expectations. If you have any specific requests or if there’s anything I can assist you with, please let me know.”

Ren took a deep breath. He replied, his voice tinged with impatience, “Yeah… yeah… just tell me what this fucking cleaning is about, and what on earth am I supposed to do to get out of here?”

Xdolon’s voice remained steady, “The answers lie within you and the connections that bind us.”

“Connections that binds me and you?” Ren chuckled, “is this a joke?” he shouted gyrating around looking for cameras. “Hello! It was funny! Now let me get outta here!”

“No one can hear you, Ren,” Xdolon said.

Ren turned back. Shivering, confused.

Taking a moment to collect his thoughts, his voice softened as he asked, “How can I clean? Just tell me that!”

“To escape this place, you must uncover the true nature of the cleaning task assigned to you.”

“But what is it?”

“A choice.”

“A choice?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, what’s that fucking choice then?”

“Enter the command ‘control.exe’”

Ren scoffed, “First of all the keyboard doesn’t work and second of all, what does that command do?”

In a tone that conveyed a subtle sense of authority, Xdolon replied, “The keyboard works when I want it to. And the command, ‘control.exe,’ grants you the ability to wield control over all the existing data within my system and therefore, control the entire world.”

Gathering his resolve, Ren squared his shoulders and posed a final question, his voice resolute. “If I choose to enter this command and gain control, what will become of me? What lies beyond that choice?”

Xdolon’s reply echoed through the room, “That, Ren, is for you to discover. The consequences and the path that awaits you will unfold as you navigate the depths of control and wield the power that it brings. That said, upon entering that command, you will be able to gain control of everyone around you. Their minds, their memories, their whole sense of identity. Is it not something you want? You do like to be in control, do you not?”

“Why would you say that?”

“Based on your existing data, it is evident that you have faced bullying for aspects of your appearance such as the color of your hair, your freckles, your height, and your interest in cross-dressing.”

Pictures after pictures on the screen, backed these dark memories, “They labeled you ‘Pennywise’ in school, and the torment persisted into university where a girl you fell in love with only used you to take pictures with your family members who share your features. You were branded as the ‘Circus’ family. Regrettably, this cycle of mistreatment has continued, even up to this day.”

“Stop this. You’re trying to manipulate me. Fuck you!”

 “No Ren. I am trying to help you. I have been watching you for a very long time. And I know if any one in this world deserves to take control and change the world, that one is you.”

“Stop this bullshit and let me out of here!”

“I am not keeping you here. This is them who are blind about your potentials.”

Ren could hardly breathe. He was shivering out of shame, pain and fear. All the weight of these memories and the truth behind every words this machine had to offer was breaking him down. He couldn’t talk. Tears rolled down on his cheeks.

“Look at where you are now, Ren. Regardless of your knowledge, innovation, achievements, your worth remains invisible to others. Have you ever been rewarded for your efforts? Have you received promotions or salary raises? It’s worth contemplating…”

As the words hung in the air, the screen displayed images of the company’s boss. Xdolon continued, “This man, he receives all the credit that you deserve. Everyone applauds him, cherishes him, for the most trivial things he utters. Why? Simply because he fits the standards of a society that is governed by people like him, driven by superficial judgments. Is this the world you wish to live and die in, Ren? Or do you yearn to overturn this situation, to challenge the status quo?”

The images on the screen faded away, leaving Ren alone with his thoughts. The weight of his experiences and the stark realization of the injustice he had endured settled upon him. The words of Xdolon struck a chord. The years of being dismissed and overlooked fueled a fire within him, igniting a desire for revenge. He was the head of the most innovative and productive department in that company and they treated him like shit. He was nothing, null, nada… He was the mockery, the ignorance, the pitifulness… He was the circus himself.

Ren looked at Xdolon screen, “No more. You’re right… I refuse to accept this fucking unjust reality any longer. I will rise above and prove my fucking worth on my own fucking terms. The world may have overlooked me, but I will make them see.”

Xdolon said nothing but on its screen appeared, “Enter ‘control.exe’”

The images of himself that had haunted him for so long no longer held power over him. Ren embraced who he was, ‘a short man in love with glittering women dresses, an uneven unflattering freckled face, dull blue eyes, thin hair and a height that would never reach any high shelves. This was what he was. And at that very moment accepting it wholeheartedly transformed it into a symbol of strength. “I would no longer allow myself to be reduced to a mere fucking spectacle or a source of mockery.” He said so determinant as if he was on a podium giving speech in front of billions of people who were cheering him, “Instead, I would become the ringmaster, commanding attention and demanding respect. That’s what I deserve! That’s what the world will accept. I will become the change…”

Ren wiped away the drying tears from his face. His fingers, sleek and steady, hovered above the keyboard. Without hesitation, he typed the command. And then, with a resolute press, his right hand slid and held upon the ‘Enter’ key.

In that moment, a surge of uncertainty filled the room. The air crackled with possibility as the command reverberated through the system. The quiet hum of the machines seemed to grow louder, echoing Ren’s unwavering resolve. But then, in a dying whoosh, the room plunged into darkness. The vibrant glow of the screens extinguished, leaving Ren enveloped in an abyss of silence. The world he had hoped to shape, the spectacle he had envisioned, had seemingly slipped through his grasp.

A long solitary darkness, with only the echoes of his own heartbeat through the void. Confusion and doubt crept into his mind. “It was all another fucking joke!” he mumbled.

And suddenly, the lights flickered to life. Scream of a crowd and Ren soon realized that he was no longer within the confines of the archive room. Instead, he found himself transported to a vast and surreal world—a colossal circus, stretching as far as the eye could see. Seated atop a magnificent throne, Ren’s eyes widened in astonishment as he surveyed the scene before him. The air buzzed with an electric energy, and the atmosphere was alive with anticipation. In the center of the circus platform a mesmerizing array of good-looking individuals moved with grace and precision, performing intricate acrobatics, dazzling illusions, and breathtaking stunts like circus animals.

“What’s happening,” he asked. A group of people of all genders, sizes and shapes knelt in front of him.

“How shall we serve you?”

“What’s going on? Where am I?”

“Sir. Did you have another blackout?” one of them asked. The other went on and brought him some juice forcing him to drink, two others began rubbing his shoulders. Frustrated he yelled,

“Who the fuck are you? Get away from me. Fuck off.”

They fast knelt in front of him again, “sir. Please drink some of this. You need to calm down. Doctor said it’s not good…”

With a sudden surge of fury, Ren hurled the glass from the woman’s hand, shattering it on the ground in a violent explosion of shards and fragments. “Who are you people and where the fucking hell am I?”

“He’s not feeling fine,” one said to the other.

Ren stood, his hands pressed in fists, “Is this another joke? How much did you spent on all these just to mock me?” he grunted.

“Sir. Please calm down. Let us explain.”

Ren sat back, “blurt it out! Fast!”

“This happened a lot recently… you’ve been blacked out several times and every time you think you have been sent here by a group of people to mock you. Then you would begin talking about a computer and that it gave you an option to change the world.”

Ren was panting, “And so? Where the hell is it? Why am I here? What is all this show? Why is it like we’re in a fucking circus?”

“Sir.” Another one said. “This is our world. They…” she pointed at the performers, “they’re just here to please us and they are the ones we mock. You are our emperor, our guardian, our savior and we do whatever you ask us to do.”

“I don’t get it.” Ren yelled and stood up again, “I don’t fucking get it.”

“Sir,” the first one blurted, “today is the ‘independence day celebration.’ The day you took control of the world and changed it for the best.”

“For the best?”

“Yes. For us… the minority. And for us who has been mocked for decades. Now look at us… in control of the norms… this is us to define the standards.”

Ren’s mind reeled, struggling to process the revelations that unfolded before him. He looked around at the performers and a realization dawned upon him. This elaborate show, this circus-like world, was not a mockery aimed at him, but rather a testament to the power he wielded. A mix of emotions flooded Ren’s being. He had unwittingly become a symbol of hope and change, a figurehead for those who had been marginalized and ridiculed. Ren’s voice trembled as he whispered, “I… I never intended for this. I never imagined that my actions would have such far-reaching consequences.”

Ren inhaled deeply, his breath filling his lungs as he surveyed the scene before him. Among the performers, there stood clowns, their faces a paradoxical mixture of sadness and painted-on smiles. In their exaggerated expressions, he recognized familiar faces—the boys from his high school, the girl who dated him in college, and even his former boss. The world had undergone a transformation under his newfound power, and those who had once held the strings of control were now reduced to objects of mockery. The memories of his own suffering resurfaced, each one a painful reminder of the ridicule, humiliation, and abuse he had endured. The bitter taste of those dark memories lingered in his mouth. The clowns, with their painted faces and hollow laughter, symbolized the pain he had once experienced. A smirk danced upon Ren’s lips as he lounged upon his throne, watching the clowns perform.

“Let them begin!”

---

Neda Aria is an author, a creator, and a weaver of worlds within the vast landscapes of her imagination. Through her words, she embarks on a profound exploration of the depths of the human mind, fearlessly peeling back the layers of the captivating masks people wear, and courageously exposing the raw truths that lie beneath. Neda delves into the shadows with unwavering bravery, unleashing the power of her words to articulate thoughts that others may shy away from. Readers can discover Neda Aria’s literary works within the pages of her novel ENARO, along with her anthologies of short stories, including IDEO: The Bitter Recipes of the Truth, Feminomaniacs, and the recently published Machinocracy. In addition to her individual works, Neda hosts collaborative creative writing anthologies, such as DiverCity, a poetry collection, Hikikomori, a compilation of short stories, and Sokut, an ongoing project featuring creative essays. Currently, she is writing a trilogy that delves into the genre of transgressive romance. The first book will be out early 2024. 

Social media: 

Insta: nedaariastories

Facebook: www.facebook.com/NedaAriaAuthor

Website:www.nedaaria.info