By Lisa Thornton

Patient is pleasant 77-year-old male in no apparent distress. Arrives to appointment alone via public bus. Alert and oriented to person, place, time. 

Treatment regimen detailed. Infusions twice per week for three weeks, then three weeks off. Repeat for four cycles. Would start not this coming Monday but next. 

Reiterated benefits of quitting smoking. Patient again declines smoking cessation program, states “Fuck you, doc, what else am I going to do for one more year?’

Possible side effects and adverse reactions to treatment outlined. Statistics provided on risk vs benefit. When faced with numbers, patient agrees to treatment. Awful choice to have to make. Never easy.

Patient expresses financial concerns. Assured that nursing staff will support in investigating financial assistance options. Patient expresses trepidation about loss of independence, ability to safely perform activities of daily living. Will discuss housing and care options with social work team. 

Patient states he fought in Vietnam. States he will inquire about VA benefits. States it was hot. States it was hard to breathe. States they never saw the enemy. In the meantime, place pharmacy order for meds. 

Patient declines assistance to lobby. Patient states “I never want to see you again, you bastard, but I guess I’ll see you next Monday.”

Hard conversations, these. Never easy. 

Follow up in ten days. 

                                                                     *   *   *

Lisa Thornton is a writer and nurse living in Illinois. She has work in SmokeLong Quarterly, Bending Genres, Ellipsis Zine and more. She was a finalist for the 2022 SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky @thorntonforreal.

 By Kjetil Jansen        

     Our city within a city. Sprinkles my dreams with emeralds. Always has, always will. Houses in every geometric shape you can and cannot imagine. Rectangle, rhombus, hexagon, a simple triangle. One thing in common: they are all surrounded by, or engulfed in, a quadrant of green glass.

     You can openly watch how the residents move between floors in their vertical apartments. Depending on the light, they are vibrantly visible, mere blots, or silhouettes with multiple shadows. It is impossible to pass from one room to another without walking through a maze of glass. According to the man and wife architects, their intention was to show that every move you make in life is a journey, a rite de passage filled with intent, anticipation, and wonder.

    There is one exception, and a very notable one, the trapezoid high-rise. Too impractical. They had to bend their principles. The elevator became the wanderer. Situated on the outside of the façade, it travels sideways, thus including every apartment to remind the tenants they are all connected. Some people on the upper floors are not too thrilled with this arrangement.

    The architects lived on the outskirts of our city. In the Tower, as some call it. The house is porcupine and round, slightly askew, and much smaller than the glass, as encased in amber. The pair kept much to themselves. Once there was a child, rumor has it. They had built a balcony on the inside of the glass, sat at night and gazed at the stars.

     Who knows, perhaps they got bored of the tinted view. At the time, let us not forget, the outer city was getting larger. Its lights, and fumes, made even the moons shy away. Whatever their reasons, they cut away some of the glass and expanded the balcony. Further and further, until it touched the very sky itself. Soon they spent all their time up and away.

     The house itself went into disrepair. The glass got dirty and lost its luster. I recall a long garden table covered with a white damask cloth held in place by two ceramic vases. People began to trespass, brought music, and made dirty patterns on the linen. A perfect rumba. Until others made the dance insane. 

     A friend of mine claims to have seen the couple. They sit on the very tip of their bridge to heaven, holding hands. Long dead.

     Years have indeed passed. Our part of the city has fallen on hard times. People tiptoe or hurry through the passages. The glass breaks more easily. It is expensive to replace. We must import it, and you don`t really see if it has the right shade before it is set into place. The high-rise can`t afford it anymore. They use ordinary glass.

     On a clear day, you can spot the couple. The bridge is decaying and curves ever downward. One stormy night, it will snap and hit the ground. At that very moment, the couple will get up and walk. To every house. Where naughty children live, they will slither to their bedroom and destroy the glass corridors around it, consequently give them house arrest for all eternity. 

     And yes. The nice children. They will be whisked far far away. To the green star. To the palace where the sun never sets, and where every meal melts on your tongue. In every room, there are chandeliers and water slides, and an endless pile of toys and playthings.

     Nothing ever breaks apart in the palace on the green star.

                                               

                                                  *   *   *

Kjetil Jansen is from Bergen, Norway. Every night he dances beneath the Northern Lights together with his pet polar bears Maul and Maim. Maim is his favorite but don’t tell Maul. He has been/will be featured in Bewildering Stories, Bending Genres, Bear Creek Gazette, and A Thin Slice of Anxiety.

    

         

By David Stillwagon

“You are such a wimp. I’m tired of saving your ass,” Tina said.

Tommy lowered his head and left the living room for the front porch. He hoped she didn’t follow him. He sat on the swing and wondered why she hated him.

“Revealing fact number one. Tommy can’t keep a job while Tina has worked at the post office for ten years”.

Tommy knew that working at the shoe store was a bad idea. He wasn’t cut out to be a salesman, especially something as ridiculous as a shoe sales clerk. Most customers didn’t need someone pushing them to buy shoes. Why else would they be in the shoe store in the first place?

“Revealing fact number two. Tommy is fat and bald.”

Tommy loved eating and couldn’t do anything about being bald. Tina suggested a toupee, but she said it out of meanness. Tina was mean. Food was the only thing that Tommy lived for. 

“Revealing fact number three. Tommy sleeps alone.”

Tina kicked Tommy out of the bedroom years ago. He thinks she has a friend on the side. She wouldn’t admit it. Tina is clever. 

“Revealing fact number four. Tommy used to go to strip joints.”

Tommy loved talking to strippers and watching them perform. Tina shut that activity down in a hurry. No steady employment, no strip joints.

“Revealing fact number five. Tommy’s mother-in-law wants to kill him.”

Tina’s mother is worse than Tina. She’ll say anything to Tommy. He is a loser and smells, she says.  He locks his door when she stays overnight. She is mean.

“Revealing fact number six. The neighbor’s dog.”

The neighbor, Jordan, has a large dog that used to be a cadaver dog. Every time Tommy goes into the backyard, the dog hops the fence and sits at Tommy’s feet. Tommy is not dead. The dog is a smartass.

“Revealing fact number seven. Tommy can’t use Tina’s computer.”

Tommy wants to use Tina’s computer to look for his next ill-fated job. Tina says you can use it if you can figure out the password. Tommy can’t figure out anything, especially a password.  Tommy looks in the newspaper for jobs.

“Revealing fact number eight. Tina discontinued Tommy getting any mail.”

Tommy hadn’t received any mail in months. He went to the post office. Tina completed a form to redirect his mail to his mother’s home in Alaska. Tommy didn’t think that was funny. Tina did.

“Revealing fact number nine. Tommy has had enough.”

Tommy was slow, but he knew he had enough. He just wasn’t good at planning things.

“Revealing fact number ten. Tommy takes Tina’s car.”

Tommy slipped out of the house before Tina woke up. He put his packed bag in her car. He headed to Alaska to get his mail.

                                                              *   *   *

David Stillwagon has short stories in Gravel and Johnny America. He has poetry in Anti-Heroin Chic, Foliate Oak, and Right-Hand Pointing. He has written a three-book series ‘Fields of Timothy.’ He lives in Atlanta with his wife and their Boston Terrier, Scout. 

By Lauren Fish

Fluorescent. That is the only word the father can think of as he sits in the empty waiting room. Everything is too bright, too harsh. The hum of the vending machine in the corner. The vinyl flooring. The lights pouring down from the ceiling, interrupted by rows of white-speckled tiles. A distant memory pulsates in his brain: the popcorn ceiling from his childhood, which was later found to contain asbestos. He remembers that announcement being broadcast in his family’s living room during the 80s. Popcorn ceilings discovered to have cancer-causing materials. Toxic dust linked to the onset of mesothelioma. 

But he swats it away. His mind is already filled with too much. There is no room for asbestos. 

A doctor emerges into the waiting room. Her glasses are slightly askew, but her auburn hair is slicked back into a neat ponytail. As she approaches where he is sitting, he notices how time has eroded her skin, forming frown lines around her mouth.  

“Are you the father?” 

The father nods, because words are universes away. Time has become a viscous liquid. He notes the use of the doctor’s present tense. A thread that he clings to in these moments that are glacial. 

“We’re relieved to share the replacement surgery went well. Amazingly, actually. Your daughter is stable in the NICU as we speak.” 

He closes his eyes. His body lets out a small exhale, relief weeping into his toes and fingertips. But there is a tension in his bones still. He thinks of the seconds and lifetimes that have passed since he saw the doctor last. 

*

His wife: laying on the delivery bed, exhaustion crumpled between her and the hospital sheets; the nurses and assistants: running amok; the doctor: saying something unintelligible to him, something about a problem with a spine, something about how each second is critical, something about them needing to operate at once, something something something about getting out of the delivery room now. But all he could see was his daughter nestled in the doctor’s arms. She was shrieking, her screams engulfing all the available oxygen in the room. 

He was ushered out immediately. Shown to the fluorescent waiting room. Given a cup of water and an assurance someone would be out to update him shortly. 

A doctor – a different doctor, this one older, the erosion more severe – comes out to see him a few minutes later. “I know that must have come as quite a shock in there. Especially since that came as quite a shock to our staff as well.”

“What’s going on?” He breathes.  

“Your daughter was born without a spine. But her spinal cord, nervous system, organs…they’re all intact.” She pauses, her mouth twitching to locate the right words. “In our history here, we’ve never seen anything like it before. I’ve certainly never seen anything like it.” 

As she speaks, the fluorescence shoots rays into his retinas. His vision begins to spot. 

“But one of our surgeons here has, thankfully. Apparently, this is a medical phenomenon that has been becoming increasingly common, especially in females. He’s operating on her right now. The procedure involves inserting a flexible bar into her back – something that will be able to expand as she grows.”

He stares back at her. When he doesn’t respond, she gives him a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “I can only imagine how stressful this must be for you and your family. We should be able to provide an update shortly. The procedure won’t take long.”

With that, she walks off, her white lab coat melding into the walls and tile floor. 

*

The mother and father bring their daughter home a few days later. Disbelief settles over the house, sprinkling each room. They are shocked by her presence. That, despite the abnormal nature of recent events, she is behaving so normally. She sleeps most days and nights, uttering barely a sound, the soft rise and fall of her chest a reminder for her parents to breathe easily. It was as if the surgery had never happened, except for the crooked red scar corrupting the length of her back. 

*

As the daughter ages, the scar fades and whitens. Like ink that’s been left in sunlight for too long.  

She thinks about the metal rod in her back sometimes, even if her parents refuse to speak about it. One morning, as she’s sitting at the kitchen table and her mother is making breakfast, she can’t hold the question in any longer.  

“Mom, why don’t I have a spine?” 

The mother doesn’t turn around. She continues stirring scrambled eggs at the stove.

“But you do, honey,” she says. “It’s just not in your back, like it is for most other people.”  

*  *  *

Lauren Fish is a science writer by day and insomniac by night. You can find her in San Diego, CA, where she sometimes gathers the courage to perform at live storytelling events. 

By Arthur Davis

First

I come to the park, to this same bench, once every year. I don’t live in this city, and I’m not sure I know what it’s called, or why or how I get here. Sometimes there is someone else on my bench. And I don’t like it when they look at me. A few are men and they all have mustaches.

“Hey, hot green potatoes and spicy creamed fleggs?”

I shake my head. Vendors ply through the park offering free food that looks as alien as they do. They all have the same face, are the same height, and wear gaudy military uniforms complete with clumsy rows of metals dangling precariously from their tunic.

I’m hungry and thirsty.

I look down to check my twitching fingers. Waiting.

I recognize several people walking along the path that surrounds what has to be a dozen acres of open field. I recognize a few baseball diamonds in this broad enclosure containing a dirt-strewn area where you could play a form of volleyball. Three players on one side and a dozen players on the other. They use three volleyballs. Cool.

“Marcus,” a young woman asks as she comes over to where I am sitting. She is beautiful. Striking. I shake my head. She walks up to the next man and repeats, “Marcus?”

I’ve been sitting for about an hour, long enough for the transformation to complete itself.

I raise my hands to my face. I have bad eyes and need to get close to make out the details. “Finally,” I mumble proudly. “Ten perfect thumbs.”

I am delighted with the outcome, get up and leave.

Second

I came upon a landscape of homes devastated by a tornado. Tortured shambles of broken chairs, tables, dressers, clothing, mattresses everywhere. Shattered dreams littered the horizon. A few dogs were barking, yapping in terror. There were no people. At least alive. I did pass several bodies a mile back. An old man sporting a radiant white moustache. I paused. Impressed. A couple who had tied themselves together in a love knot, knowing their end was coming.

I don’t understand. How do you love someone like that?

What if one lives and the other dies and you can’t undo the love knot? Love knots are rare and quite expensive. They express the ultimate commitment.

I wish I had someone to buy a love knot for. Preferably someone without a moustache.

Third

A young couple comes running up to me. They are dressed in bright colored clothing that has an aromatic scent to it. Earthy. Woods. Smoky. Herbal. I’m just guessing. Their clothing looks new. I haven’t seen new clothing in years. They both have green eyes. I am suspicious of them.

“The sky is broken,” the girl says urgently, then gets on one knee and prays in a foreign language.

The more she prays, the more I think the language is not foreign, but made up. That’s impressive, I consider. I could never do that. How can she? I don’t like her.

“We saw it happen. It’s terrible,” her partner adds, shuttering in disbelief.

“What do you think it means?” I have been asking that question for days. No matter the question or issue. “What do you think it means?”

They turn away and continue running until they disappear over the horizon, or over the edge of the planet. That has become a real problem, as all planets have recently been proven to be flat.

Fourth

“I don’t believe you.” Olivia said yesterday.

“Why would I lie?”

“Because you always do. That’s who you are.”

“That’s harsh,” I replied, focusing on the handsome image in the mirror and trying not to stare at her breasts. I need a shave.

“Why do you call me?” Olivia answers.

“I like you. I’ve always liked you.”

“You lie and make up foolish tales to convince people that they’re real.”

She’s right. More importantly, who would believe that it’s taken me a year, maybe longer, to be able to levitate myself from my bed to the ceiling of my bedroom. “You’re beautiful.”

Olivia shakes her head in disgust, as she has done whenever we meet.

“Edward, you know I love you. I will always love you.”

I’ve kept a list of women who claim they love me and a longer, more detailed, list of those who walked away, disappointed in too many ways.

We have a strange, intense relationship. Every day I like her, she often dislikes me. After a few days pass, the emotions switch and I don’t like her, and she calls a dozen times a day.

If I figure out why I am so unlikeable, maybe I can get Olivia, real or not, to like me every day. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Spectacular? No, I realized. She would be too intense, and I wouldn’t have the energy left to levitate myself off my bed.

I can’t have both and continue toward my ceiling with renewed vigor.

Fifth

I decided to retire from fly-tracking. After forty-three years, it’s enough.

I don’t have the energy for it and have become slothful and impatient.

I’ve made my reputation and a considerable fortune tracking some of the most dangerous flies on the planet. I have saved villages, towns, some cities from the curse of unending storms of the most deadly of the species. I have saved countless lives and earned global recognition and appreciation.

Flies are a common pest around the world, with more than 120,000 kinds found globally. Flies are the second largest group of pollinators after the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and relatives).

Besides being food for birds and other species, pollinating is the only value they bring. Now, with enhanced AI drone flies, and greater global detection technology, we can isolate, exterminate, or manipulate populations.

Still, the real reason is that I have come to enjoy being slothful and impatient, and what energy I have is dedicated to growing a radiant white mustache.

                                                       *  *  *

Arthur Davis was featured in a collection, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, received the 2018 Write Well Award for excellence in short fiction and, twice nominated, received Honorable Mention in The Best American Mystery Stories 2017. He originated The Armed Forces Anthology™ which is a mini-volume of his stories available free to veterans and those currently serving in the military on his website, http://www.TalesofOurTime.com. Additional background at the Poets & Writers Organization and Amazon Author Central.

By Tinamarie Cox

Kenny settled on the park bench and fussed with the bouquet for Hannah. His palms were sweaty but he was sure she wouldn’t mind. He had done everything Hannah requested: worn his thick-rimmed glasses, donned a crisp button-up shirt with a bow tie, and slicked his hair to the side. His reflection in the morning mirror screamed nerd, but Hannah had said she liked smart boys. Kenny had all the qualities she was looking for in a boyfriend.

“No way!” Jason approached, holding his phone up in front of his face. Tyler and Casey flanked him like lesser apes.

Kenny frowned at them. “Go away.” Whatever trouble the boys were up to, he wanted no part in it. Today was about meeting Hannah, who was sure to be the love of his life.

“He got the pink tulips and everything!” Jason continued recording.

Kenny tensed and his eyes widened.

“You’re so pathetic. Hannah isn’t real!” Jason stood back to film the scene.

Tyler pulled a glossy catfish out from behind Casey. With a grunt, he heaved the fish corpse toward Kenny and it landed at his feet with a wet slap to the cement.

Kenny’s spirit faded with the laughter of his peers as they left him on the park bench with the stinking fish and the tulips he would now use for mourning what never was.

                                                  *   *   *

Tinamarie Cox lives in Arizona with her husband and two children. She writes and creates visual art to escape her mind and explore the universe. Her work has appeared in several publications, and she is also the author of Self-Destruction in Small Doses (Bottlecap Press). You can find more of her work at: tinamariethinkstoomuch.weebly.com