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
Steal My Sunshine
Floyd Largent
When Lem Trapper reached his second set, he found a monster waiting. “Damn you! You humans ruined everything!” it howled.
Lem turned and ran. It chased after, screaming imprecations… right up until it fell into the pit. Then it started kvetching, like they all did.
Arvid Trader ran his fingers through the pelt. “Never seen the like. Some kinda bear?”
“Bigfoot. Talkers. Blame us for the moon fallin’ on the world back when.” Lem grinned. “This’un kept cryin’ 'bout missing ‘the warm.’ Claimed it used to be sunny here year-round.”
Arvid glanced at the thigh-deep Miami perma-snow and scoffed, “Hogwash.”
Floyd Largent
Chopping at the Uncarved Block
Jason Ryberg
The mist is moving
through the deep piney backwoods
like an army of
gray ghosts, while some strange figure
at the dark heart of
the forest is chopping at
the uncarved block of
human potentia with
Occam’s double-bladed axe.
Jason Ryberg
My Bus Driver Thinks He's A Medieval Knight
Hazel Pearson
He loyally and valiantly defends the honor of the transit system, steering his noble steed and carting a carriage of tittering passengers behind him. A young maiden mounts the vehicle, smiling as she flashes her plastic bus card. She scans it.
Insufficient funds.
He watches as the maiden, so fair before, turns into the most fell of beasts. Her nose elongates and transforms to a scaly snout, her fingers curling with claws. He can barely understand her next grating taunt through the reptilian voicebox.
“Can I get on?”
The dragon starts to cackle, and he shields his ears, realizing that she’s aiming for his carriage full of wealthy lairds. Clearly, the beast expects him to wave her through. But it won’t be that easy.
“You need money to get on this bus.”
The dragon roars, her gums withdrawing sickeningly to reveal sharp white fangs. Her fire is blocked by his shield. He put it up just in time.
“I know,” he hears the dragon say. “I forgot my card today.”
“This isn’t a school bus,” he says, eyes trained on the dragon, who starts to look downwards, shame in her eyes. The most powerful of magical forces, embarrassment shrinks her, and suddenly it’s only a little beast standing in front of him. The flame wouldn’t be strong enough to light a candle.
“You can go through this time, but don’t expect this type of lenience in the future.”
The dragon slinks towards the back of his bus. Another foe defeated.
Hazel Pearson
All Tied Up
Stuart Docherty
We’d been looking for Freddie for hours when we found him. He was still in the yoga studio, still on his mat. Something had gone wrong; he was all tied up in himself and couldn’t get free. His elbows had merged with his ankles, and his right foot had conjoined to his shoulder. His head was tucked under the crook of his knee, and he went wide eyed when we burst into the room.
“Freddie,” we said, “what’s happened to you?”
“Nothing,” Freddie said back. “The usual. You know.”
He wasn’t suffering. He was there, all mixed up, and smiling. When I stepped around the other side of him, there he was, still smiling.
“Quit looking at me like that, Fred,” someone on the other side of him said. “You’re freaking me out.”
When we tried to help him out of it, he started to weep then shout at us.
“I’m no different than you all,” he said. “Just leave me be.”
And so, we did.
Stuart is a British writer and poet based in Tokyo, where he writes, eats too much, and pretends to speak Japanese.
The Cutest Little Outlaw in the West
E.J. LeRoy
Wanted
One Eastern cottontail
Last seen destroying plants
In neighborhood yards
Also wanted: one stewpot
E.J. LeRoy is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer with a forthcoming mpreg novella. Curious? Visit http://ejleroy.weebly.com.