The Murder

by Jenny Morelli

There’s a hawk in the overfull parking lot when I pull in, and it’s glaring, at me, as if daring me to approach one of the few available spots.

I try to give it a wide berth as I roll toward it; try to give it a chance to flee, but it stands its ground.

So I let him win and reverse quietly away, drive farther into the lot and right into a murder of crows, sprawled into a lake-sized splotch on the asphalt at the dead-end of the strip mall. I stop and park, straddling a speed bump and just not caring because there’s no way I’m driving anywhere near that.

And then I wait, shifting my gaze from them to the sky, almost expecting it to collapse around me.

Soon, a car pulls up next to me, the wrong way on this small strip of driveable space. He rolls down his window and says something I don’t quite hear because I’m distracted by what’s dangling by strings taped to the ceiling of his rundown sedan.

Bug spray bottles. Too many to count.

They’re still swaying from his hard stop, some banging into his sweat-soaked mop of hair.

He’s utterly unfazed by this as he yells to me. ‘Excuse me.’

And then I study him. He’s also wearing bug spray, and I don’t mean that he’s sprayed it onto his skin, but that they’re strung around him in a long necklace. Over ten of them that I can see, just draped around his neck, all sizes Off and Deet and Ben’s and Repel.

‘Excuse me,’ he repeats when I can’t find a proper response. ‘I noticed you don’t have the proper protection against them.’

Huh?

His sunshaded face and half-smile intermittently appear among the dangling swaying bottled chemicals.

‘What…what?’ I ask.

It’s the only word I can squeeze past my confusion.

He cocks his head as if confused by my confusion. ‘You can’t get through them without something,’ he explains, pointing toward the bird-infested parking lot. ‘And they don’t make bird repellent, so…’

The hawk is perched on a streetlight above them, as if lording over them, or maybe… controlling them?

‘Heads up!’

Huh? Oompf. I’m struck by something hard. A small bottle of bug spray, of course.

‘Um, thanks?’ I say.

He nods. Smiles wider. ‘Your porch is the only safe place, Miss.’

‘My… porch?’

‘You better hurry,’ he continues without explanation. ‘Sun’s almost gone.’

Okay. I slowly reverse over the speed hump, now more unsettled by the strange boy with sunshades and bug sprays than I am by the crows who seemed to have inched closer to our cars as we talked, like a giant growing, flowing ink spot.

Once clear of the car next to me, I turn around and tear out of this parking lot, out of this story, and head the hell home…

…silently followed by that single hawk and its murder of crows.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Jenny Morelli is a NJ high school English teacher who lives with her husband, cat, and myriad yard pets. She seeks inspiration in everything, including her nightmares. She’s published in several literary magazines including Spillwords, Red Rose Thorns, Scars tv, Bottlecap Press and Bookleaf Press for four poetry chapbooks. Website: JennyMorelliWrites.com

 

Hero

by Glenn Kershaw

It was just a nail. Rusty, dark red, deep brown and bent as if pulled out of a plank, straightened and hammered back in, time after time. Its flat head was tilted, I thought, at a rakish angle. It had seen life, been hammered by “events”, but had come out the other side and now looked at the world with a benevolent, if slightly jaundiced, eye.

The body had been eaten away in the middle. To my left, lying on the sawhorse basking in the sun, were its brothers. Recalcitrant at first, I’d straightened them all out, such was my financial state, and laid them out ready for re-use, fodder for my hammer. But as I examined this one, though it had given up years of selfless service for us, I felt the bite of bitterness. How could I tell the jaunty little fellow that, like a returning soldier who’d lost a leg or whose wounds were invisible, it was no longer useful? How could I tell him that? So, despite the times I found myself in and the pressures burdening me, I tossed him into the recycling bag, where he lay on the bottom on his own, looking lonely. His red and brown corpse standing out amongst the white plastic.

But how could I, of all people, abandon a friend in need, I reached in, hearing the crinkle of the bag as I returned the nail to the light. I gave him the St Crispin’s Day speech, the one that’d gotten me all misty when I’d signed up. Then I worked on him, did my very best, as I always had done, right up to the loud, “crack” that had changed my future. I tried as best I could, as they had tried as best they could, to straighten it, make it fit for service.

And so, with my “troop” of nails in my hand left, I made the effort to get to the fence. One by one, they went home. Their bodies lying deep in the woody embrace of the old wood, and their silver heads looking like a fine row of medals. Each time I struck, the world went black momentarily, except for a flash of light. Over time, I came to my little friend. I placed him gently, carefully. Gave him a smile as I raised my arm. But it was my left, and I miss-hit. I caught him on the side, a silver snick amongst the brown. He broke in two, hung there, bent over by his guts. The hammer slipped through my fingers, striking the ground like a body striking the dirt. Tears poured, streamed from my eyes. He had failed. We had failed. They had all failed.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Glenn Kershaw has a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in Creative Writing and his stories have been published in the New England Review, University of Technology Sydney’s Writers’ Anthology, Macquarie University’s student magazine - Grapeshot, twice in their literary magazine - The Quarry, Australian Reader, StylusLit, Antipodean SF and Bewildering Stories.

 

Tit For Tat

by Sarah Das Gupta

‘Arnold, could you wheel me to the corner? I want to see the angle of the cloister noted by Peasbody.’ As usual his brother had a tome balanced on his wasted legs while Arnold wheeled him round the ruins of Burnley Abbey. He’d have to listen for another hour to that infuriating whine, citing historical sources.

Arnold couldn’t explain what happened next. Perhaps he had cut the corner in his frustration? Perhaps he had released his grip, a little? The wheelchair had twisted as it fell, throwing Archie out of his seat and hanging by one leg from the leather safety strap. Agonisingly slowly, it had fallen two floors to the turf which now covered the monks’ refectory.

Naturally, ten years later, Arnold was not enthusiastic about re- visiting the Abbey when his nephew, Fletcher, pestered him. His sister, anxious for a Fletcher-free afternoon, had argued he should ‘face his demons’.

Climbing the steep staircase to the second floor, Fletcher kept turning and yelling, ‘When we going to see the headless monk, uncle?’ With a shock, Arnold noticed how similar Fletcher’s voice was to Archie’s. ‘Headless monk’ echoed and re-echoed round the spiral staircase sounding very like Archie’s ghost.

Arnold had just reached the top step when an apparently headless figure sprang towards him, whining, ‘I’m the ghost of Burnley Abbey!’

Before Fletcher could pull his shirt off his head, Arnold stepped back into space. His ghostly screams echoed as he fell, senseless, to the ground floor.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from Cambridge, UK. Her work has been widely published in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean,and Australia.

 

Why I Like Doing The Laundry

by Zainab M. M.

Somehow, I always find myself living in a house with a lot of people. Before my marriage, I lived with nine others, and afterwards with six. All family, of course, but one too many. And it's not the fact that there are so many that bother me, but at some point, they start to talk and then expect me to pay attention and listen, and to prove it I also have to deign to reply. I have made my peace with the knowledge that in India, wherever you go, you will always be surrounded by a sea of humanity, as infinite as grains of sand. So, to placate myself, I decided to assign myself a special place in the house, just a small corner into which I can retreat and cocoon, even if it's for just 10-15 minutes of the day. All I want to do is surface from the sea and swim ashore, and observe the roiling waves from afar. When I was younger, I used to do it with a book, just shut off everything, lock up my brain and immerse myself in the fictional world that I held in my hands. Nowadays I do that with laundry.

The way my house is built, the verandah is the farthest removed from the rest of the house. If you close the doors, then it is as if the rest of the world has melted away, and there is nothing but you and your grey machine and a pile of dirty clothes. I never open that door until I'm finished, not even if my son is howling and banging to be let out (or is it in?). First, I take out the washed clothes, smelling like lime and flowers, put the next load in, and proceed to hang the other ones to dry. I enjoy that last task because that portion of the verandah faces an orchard. For ten, luxurious minutes, I get to soak in all the awesome goodness of God's handiwork.

Nature delights in my adoration, and like a pole dancer waiting to catch a patron's eye, puts on its best colours and struts its stuff. It showcases its most vivid blues and startling greens and sways to its own gentle breeze, along with the symphony of parrots, cuckoos and squirrels. A few crows also decide to pitch in as they take flight, startled by a sudden grumbling piece of sky in the distance, with the rising crescendo of my washing machine bringing the show to its climax.

I also derive a particular pleasure in putting in a load of washing. I have a very specific system for it, one that I will not let anyone mess up with. I will separate the ones worn occasionally to the ones worn daily, the whites from the coloured ones, the too dirty from the not so dirty ones. I get to witness the whole life cycle of each piece of clothing, from when it first arrives and is treated like a 'star', to when it is replaced by something fresher until it is finally only useful for cleaning floors. This whole process takes me about 20 minutes, and by the time I'm done, I'm ready to drown back into the sea again. But I have no regrets, because I know I still have a raft to return to when the waters get too choppy.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Zainab M. M. is a part-time writer whose work has been published in The New Indian Express, Khabar Magazine, Introvert, Dear, The Indo-Gulf Times, Uneasy Lores (audio book), Macabre Tales (an anthology), Visual Verse, The Humming Notes, Girltellme.com, Sharing Stories, WRIPE-6, SweekStars 2018 Bundle, Beyond The Box, Women's Web, ArtoonsInn, Reedsy, Youth Ki Awaaz, etc.

 

The Night Came Slowly

by Kate Chopin

Just for fun, we occasionally publish vintage stories from historic authors.

I am losing my interest in human beings; in the significance of their lives and their actions. Some one has said it is better to study one man than ten books. I want neither books nor men; they make me suffer. Can one of them talk to me like the night – the Summer night? Like the stars or the caressing wind?

The night came slowly, softly, as I lay out there under the maple tree. It came creeping, creeping stealthily out of the valley, thinking I did not notice. And the outlines of trees and foliage nearby blended in one black mass and the night came stealing out from them, too, and from the east and west, until the only light was in the sky, filtering through the maple leaves and a star looking down through every cranny.

The night is solemn and it means mystery.

Human shapes flitted by like intangible things. Some stole up like little mice to peep at me. I did not mind. My whole being was abandoned to the soothing and penetrating charm of the night.

The katydids began their slumber song: they are at it yet. How wise they are. They do not chatter like people. They tell me only: “sleep, sleep, sleep.” The wind rippled the maple leaves like little warm love thrills.

Why do fools cumber the Earth! It was a man’s voice that broke the necromancer’s spell. A man came to-day with his “Bible Class.” He is detestable with his red cheeks and bold eyes and coarse manner and speech. What does he know of Christ? Shall I ask a young fool who was born yesterday and will die tomorrow to tell me things of Christ? I would rather ask the stars: they have seen him.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was an American author of short stories and novels, best known today for her 1899 novel The Awakening. Her works were often criticized as controversial or immoral, and she did not have financial success with her writing, but after her death she was recognized as a leading writer of her time.

 

A Test Tube for Two

by Fatimah Akanbi

She and I went to high school together. We were both in science, with matching appetites for trouble so we got on like a house on fire. I remember the day we almost burnt down the laboratory during a simple flame test class. Mr Peterson's face had gone as red as calcium ions in a flame, and we spent the rest of the day counting screws in his stuffy cardboard-box-encroached office. We must have counted those screws a hundred times before we graduated—maybe more, definitely not less.

Now, all those memories come pouring back when I see her standing there across the desk from me, saying through the brightest smile, "Long time no see, bro!" How long has it been since we saw last each other? Ten years, almost eleven. I was promised a new research partner last month, and here she stands, my screw-counting buddy. It'll be fun reliving high school with her by my side. We'll just try our best not to burn down the lab this time or it'll be coming out of our paychecks.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Fatimah Akanbi is a Nigerian student writer and poet who enjoys writing words that stride to bridge distances. She has been writing since she was five, and is currently pursuing a degree in Information Technology at the University of Ilorin.