QB
Staff of QB
on the motorway
one of the streetlights
has flipped up its topcap.
it looks like a hawk
perched in silhouette, watching
the slow moving traffic
of commuters in the evening
as they wind into dublin
from warehouses in business
estates. the light's never on. I guess
rain has got at the filament.
it's been months. it would probably
be expensive to fix. there are plenty of lights
and the traffic that moves
goes slow as spilled honey
under bridges, past the hard-
shoulder exits. long-stemmed wild flowers
waggle from cracks
in the median central
divider. I look at the mirror
of the car right ahead of me –
see a man's eyes, like a hawk
on a lamppost, looking back and directly
at mine.
DS Maolalai's most recent collection is "Noble Rot" (Turas Press, 2019)
“Is it even worth it?” Dorothy stared ahead at the supermarket shelf, thinking hard.
The shelves here shuffled the stuff you were likely to buy right in front of your face according to the height on your biometric tag. She’d been about to grab her usual choice when this high end goodie was shoved in front of her nose instead.
Max leaned on the shopping cart, drumming her fingers along the handle. Advertisements scrolled in holograms under her hands. “I mean it’s not a necessity but—“
“So we shouldn’t get it.” Dorothy looked down at the price tag again. It flashed happily, not understanding she couldn’t afford what it offered.
Max sighed. “You know what? I’ll get some extra hours at work. Put it in the cart.”
Dorothy perked up. “Really?”
“Sure. It’s my apartment too.”
Dorothy mentally promised to cover takeout the next three times her and Max ordered in. She hefted the container into the cart, careful not to squish the grapes.
‘Quality air! Ultra filtered’, the label promised. The company said this stuff came from actual living trees, but Dorothy knew that was probably just a marketing gimmick.
“It’s nice to have a little luxury,” she sighed, and adjusted the straps on her respirator.
Adrienne Rex is a writer, a Texan, and a weirdo. Find her here: https://adrienne-rex-writes.carrd.co/
The first sign there was something wrong was in the eyes. They were unblinking, vacant, hollow. Then came the violence.
Typically, when individuals are deep in the memospheres, they remain active and alert. Merely an augmented, augmented reality simulator existing entirely in the public domain.
No one had considered a virus embedded in the highest directory files of the Memory Library.
It began with historical data of popular files being ominously missing, seemingly deleted. But when they came back online, no one identified the corruption until it was too late.
We didn’t know it was possible to hack a human brain.
—Meghan Murphy
“Damm it, Kitty, stop sniffing.” Chuck pulled on the leash, turned to Hank who was patiently waiting two steps ahead, “Dumb dog wants to smell everything. No wonder we’re both getting fat. Can’t call our start/stop battle exercise.”
Hank came back and extended his arm. “Want me to take her? You can power walk ahead and back and meet us at the corner. It’ll give you and the dog a break.”
“Thanks, it’s not necessary. You’re the go-ahead-guy. You’ll end up choking the mutt. Me, I understand her. Guess I’m impatient with myself too, always looking back, thinking what if…
“Damm it, Kitty, you’ve already marked that tree; we’re not going back!”
He tugged on the leash, appealing to his friend, “What did I just say. Now she thinks she’s missed something and wants to go back!”
Hank smiled and reached out once again for the leash. “Chuck, why don’t you let me try. At least to the corner. At this rate, we'll miss Happy Hour—even tomorrow's.”
“Yeh, OK. Good luck. Still, it’s funny, me and my pooch always looking back. Why do you think that is?”
“Can’t answer for you, Chuck. But for Kitty I’d guess she’s just looking for where she took her last dump.”
“Yeh, maybe life’s like that too!”
Kenneth M. Kapp lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, writing late at night in his man-cave. www.kmkbooks.com
“Who the Hell are you to judge me? Bunch of judgmental judges, that’s what you are!” Josiah snapped.
“Come now, Josiah. I’m sure we all can come to a reasonable agreement,” said Nicholas.
“Here’s an agreement: You can all kiss my ass!”
“There’s no need to be crude.”
“Whatever. My outfit was basically regulation. It was only SLIGHTLY modified. I really don’t see why everyone’s so bent out of shape about it.”
Robert cleared his throat. Maggie audibly sighed. Sarah covered her mouth in an attempt to hide her smile. This whole thing was just so patently absurd.
Nicholas resented that he was the only one—besides Josiah—who was speaking. He rubbed his temples.
“Josiah, while it’s true that the Batman cape you were wearing blended in relatively well with your robes, the Batman mask was highly inappropriate.”
“Ugh. Fine, you win. If I’d known being a judge was gonna be so boring, I never would have joined your ranks. You guys are lame.” Josiah jumped on his skateboard and exited in disgust.
Claudine articulated what the rest of them were thinking. “I’m beginning to think he never should have been appointed to the Supreme Court.”
—Alaina Hammond
Waiting for the chrysalis to open offered its own form of madness, an insanity which inspired William to go further and further into his worst nightmares.
Time seemed to conspire with the prison cell, slowly torturing William with its strange shadows and distant sounds, causing his thoughts to completely consume him.
A telepathic shiver reached Williams’s mind, as the cell compartment opened and a large creature slid into the room.
A huge tentacle slowly reached the chrysalis, piercing the mucus membrane, allowing a hand to become free, then slowly breaking the exterior of the pod, enabling William to push his way out of the chrysalis.
There had been a time when the creature lived in memory, a psychic torment that allowed it to feed off its prey, it knew the power and the terror of the mind held in judgement.
The creature suddenly gave a violent scream, retreating to the edge of the chamber, its death sentence had finally been revealed, justice by the tormented thoughts of a mad man.
Chris was raised in Sydney Australia, devoting his spare time to writing and illustration.
I walk toward the place where we first stepped when we had no homes, no reason to stop for relics. The air was swollen with laughter then, loud with its own wealth before cameras swallowed me whole and you kept the moon on a leash.
Today it is different. She runs into you now, frantic with her need to be everything to you. She holds herself out like an offering, and you take her in. I move slowly. I will not rearrange my body for you. I will not fracture into your shape. Time chisels us into acceptance. There is no winning. Only waiting. She believes you two can be one. I believe it too. Belief is nothing but surrender.
The wind is humid. It brushes past like the breath of something already buried in these backyard echoes of childhood. Play collapses into schedule. Love collapses into habit and I walk toward the place where we first stepped when we had no homes, no reason to stop. I carry the silence that comes after.
—Betty Stanton
“Man,” Detective Garnish said, looking at the encrusted cheese covered face of shady real estate tycoon Monte Rayjac. “All he needs is some marinara.”
“Add bread and salad,” Detective Galangal, Garnish’s new partner said, “and you’ve got a full meal.”
Both men chuckled.
“So, Doc,” Garnish said. “What happened?”
“Well,” Dr. Humphrey Dowdy, medical examiner exemplar said. “He was restrained and the melted cheese concoction was poured over his face, filling his mouth and nostrils, cutting off his breathing. He died of suffocation.”
“He couldn’t just spit it out and blow his nose?” Garnish asked.
“No,” Humphrey said. “Fried mozzarella sticks.”
Lee Hammerschmidt is a Visual Artist/Writer/Troubadour. He’s authored 10 collections of short stories and illustrations.