QB
Staff of QB
The Gilded Curse
Cristina Cabrera
For Sale: Antique Mechanical Bird Cage
Wind-up singing bird in a gilded cage. Fully functional. Excellent condition, not cursed.
Provenance:
- Ida Strauss - Perished on the Titanic. Cage found floating on debris, bird singing.
- Julia Florence Cavendish - Purchased at auction, died in train crash still holding the cage.
- Ellen Mary Barber - Cavendish’s nanny, gifted the cage. Perished in house fire.
- Anna Parvati - Purchased from Barber’s husband. Died in bus accident. Cage found near the bus.
- Paulina Teodora - Inherited from Aunt Anna. Murdered in her home by her husband. Cage found beside body, bird still singing.
Must sell before it’s too late.
Cristina Cabrera
Urgent
Mackie P. Notte
What do I do if I believe
And I believe I haven’t received
The thing I know I ought to need
The thing I don’t believe I need
But I know I need to believe
That I need to receive this thing?
Mackie P. Notte
Wondering
Kat Hausler
oh, you
thin white plastic
furnished-apartment shower curtain
did you cling
with such fervent tenacity
to your last tenant?
Kat Hausler is a translator and author of the novels What I Know About July and Retrograde, as well as many shorter pieces.
wanderlush
Kelley Tai
after Ray Bradbury
Either way, if all summer were over in a day, I’d like to think that the drowning skies, the wildflowers, and the golden forest would be the only spring I need, where rain turns this planet into a garden, and Venus blesses me as your goddess.
Kelley Tai is a speculative fiction writer and a 2024 CSFFA Aurora Award-nominated poet.
Depressed
Michael T. Smith
A very brief canticle on depression by the unconscious mind, possibly speaking to itself in romantic strains
Stay with me, love;
don’t listen to them.
You never looked more beautiful
than in my REM.
Michael T. Smith is an Associate Professor of English who teaches both writing and film courses. He has published roughly 300 pieces (poetry and prose) in over 100 different journals.
For Want of a Single Heart
Andrew Loria
At night, when the aquarium is empty, the Giant Pacific Octopus is lonely. There are no people to look for her, no faces to marvel at her. In her loneliness, she makes a wish; to be human, so that she can be among them, even just once.
Something listens; one night, her wish comes true.
Bony limbs unspool, naked eyes squeeze shut against salt’s sting. Jointed fingers fumble at the lock that pliable tentacles would solve easily, until she emerges into the oxygen atmosphere, new lungs heaving. She stands on two wobbling legs, adjusting to this new gravity.
She greets the world in clothes swiped from the gift shop; clashing, bright, oversized. Into the city lights she wanders, where humans gather, where she is nothing to marvel at. It is a joyous experience, this new camouflage.
Outside of a nightclub, lights spill onto the pavement. Music pounds in her singular heart. She moves, compelled, as the music wraps itself around her brain. She dances, gangly limbs flailing wildly. Other humans, drawn by infectious exhilaration, join her. Strangers dance together, laughing, drunk on the joy of living.
Hours later she returns to the aquarium, with warm-blood-flushed cheeks and sweat staining her clothes. The morning sun paints the sky pink, and so paints her back into an octopus. Tentacles open her tank with ease, and she slips contently into her water.
When the people gather to watch her this morning, she dances for them, music thumping in all three of her hearts.
Andrew Loria is an author who dabbles in everything, but prefers the extraterrestrial, the romantic, the horrific, and the absurd.
An Unexpected Ambush
Barb DeMoney
Owen had spent most of his adult life slipping silencers into hidden compartments and taking out thugs. Now retired, he’d traded pistols for pastries and covert ops for crosswords.
Munching on toast, he heard a clang across the hallway. His eyes narrowed. “Moscow, Madrid… and now… the suburbs?” he muttered.
Grabbing a butter knife, he whispered, “Who’s there? Show yourself!”
He readied the knife, heart thudding.
His assassin’s instincts kicked in. A shadow shifted near the potted fern. Target acquired. He calculated the angle. In one fluid motion, he lunged
✱
He slipped on a rogue Lego, lurched forward, and landed onto the couch with a thud.
Mikey, his five-year-old grandson, squealed, “You’re dead, Grandpa!” and unleashed a torrent of water from his tiny water pistol.
“Oh, there you are, Dad,” Katie said, stepping over scattered Legos. “Sorry we showed up unannounced. Looks like Mikey made himself at home.”
Luckily, the only witness to his failed “assassination attempt” had been a pint‑sized mastermind armed with a water gun.
Owen grinned. “You’re trying to kill me, huh? Next time you should call ahead and I’ll bring some reinforcements,” he said, scooping up his grandson.
Mikey grinned, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Sure, Grandpa. But can we make some chocolate chip cookies before we go on another secret mission?”
Owen nodded solemnly, surveying the chaos. He had faced mafia bosses and foreign spies… but today he’d been defeated by a water pistol wielding toddler who had Grandpa wrapped around his little finger.
Barb DeMoney is a flash fiction writer whose work blends drama, comedy and horror.
Hold me to Time
Tamara Brereton-Karabetsos
Time slips.
Quiet.
Soft.
Like it’s trying not to wake the parts of me I keep pretending are asleep.
But if I’m honest—
it’s me.
It’s always been me.
Turning the glass.
Stopping the clock.
Walking away before anything
has the chance to break me.
Maybe the hourglass isn’t a countdown.
Maybe it’s a mirror.
Showing me how often I choose escape
and call it “ending”.
How often I choose silence
and call it “strength.”
Time doesn’t force anything.
It just reveals what I’m running from.
And maybe—just maybe—
it’s time I stopped flipping the glass
and finally let something
reach me.
Tamara Brereton-Karabetsos