By M.D. Smith IV

Near the ragged edge of town, where streetlights thin out and the woods swallow the last sighs of civilization, a dirt road claws its way up the backside of a mountain and simply stops. It ends at a wound in the earth—a limestone cave mined in the 1920s, abandoned when the Stock Market crashed and hope drained out of the country like blood from an opened vein.

The cave’s mouth gapes thirty feet high, like a jaw frozen mid-scream. Just inside, three tunnels split off in different directions, carved by men who once believed rock could be persuaded to surrender its treasure. Nature reclaimed the place over decades, vines threading through broken fencing, trees crowding close as if trying to seal the scar shut. Only locals remember the narrow trail that snakes from the road to the opening.

Teenagers remembered it best.

In the early years, it was beer and bonfires. Later, smoke and pills and whispered dares. Police rarely bothered with a patch of woods just beyond the city limits. Three Caves became a secret passed down like contraband.

Then, in 2002, a teenage couple vanished.

Some said they eloped. Friends said they wouldn’t have left without a word. A year later, a man and his young son camped inside. They never came back. The sheriff found scattered gear—an overturned lantern, a sleeping bag torn open—but no bodies. Officially, drifters or criminals passing through got the blame.

Unofficially, the whispers began.

Monster.

The county fenced the entrance with chain-link and barbed wire, posted NO TRESPASSING signs that flapped in the wind like nervous warnings. But by 2025, the fence had been neatly cut where bushes hid the gap. Teenagers returned, because youth is deaf to caution.

Not all of them returned home.

Those who did spoke of strange dreams, foggy gaps in memory, the sense of being watched by something that breathed without lungs.

Three Caves became The Three Caves Monster.

But who believes in monsters?

Certainly not Clint Marson and Bill Stevens. And definitely not Bill’s younger brother, Jimmy, who tagged along wherever the older boys went. Add in girlfriends Sue and Jenny—whose mothers conveniently thought they were sleeping at each other’s houses—and you had the ingredients for a reckless night.

The sun was still bleeding orange across the sky when the five entered the cave with backpacks and flashlights. Their laughter bounced off stone walls and came back thinner, as if the cave swallowed the joy and returned only its echo.

They rounded a bend in the largest tunnel, where the ceiling dipped low and the air grew colder. A ring of old fire stones marked the perfect campsite. Clint and Bill built a fire with starter logs from a store that lit easily, burned a long time, and soon flames licked upward like hungry tongues. Hot dogs sizzled, marshmallows burned black, which only the boys ate while the girls insisted theirs be a light tan color. They popped open beer cans. Lit the home-wrapped weed.

Smoke coiled toward the ceiling and disappeared into the cracks like spirits escaping.

During a lull, Jimmy stiffened.

“What was that?”

The others groaned.

“It was like something moving,” Jimmy insisted. “Big like a possum or raccoon.”

“They’re more scared of us,” Clint scoffed, tapping the large Case knife strapped to his belt. “And if they’re not, I’ll fix that.”

But the cave felt different now. The air heavier. Listening.

Sue stood, arms wrapped around herself. “I don’t like this. I want to go.”

Jenny looked at her and nodded quickly. “We’ve done enough.”

“There’s only one car,” Clint said sharply. “Besides, you want to explain why we’re home early?”

Reluctantly, they stayed and spread blankets. Kissing replaced conversation. Jimmy read his ghost paperback, though his eyes kept drifting toward the dark edges of the firelight.

The fire dwindled to embers.

A scream shattered the silence.

Jimmy’s flashlight beam jerked wildly. “There,” the light beam wiggled as he was trying to keep it illuminated. “That thing, bigger than a basketball, covered in hair.” 

Everyone snapped upright and looked just in time to see something dark gray and furry scurry around a corner. Everyone flashed on their lights and shone them around the cave walls.

“Hey, over there,” Clint shouted. “In the corner, another one trying to get into that crease.”

Flashlights stabbed the darkness. In a corner, one creature crouched in a crevice. It was the size of a basketball, covered in coarse gray hair. Sharp ears twitched. Tiny black eyes reflected the light with oily malice. Thin, batlike membranes clung to its sides. Webbed feet scraped stone.

It hissed, revealing a mouth crowded with needle teeth.

Clint moved without thinking. Steel flashed. He drove the knife into its shoulder. The creature shrieked—a sound so piercing it felt like glass slicing the air, and the echo ricocheted through the tunnels, multiplying into a chorus of pain.

The creature lunged and clamped onto Clint’s calf.

His scream joined the echo.

He stabbed again and again until the thing fell limp.

Blood soaked his shredded pant leg. Bill grabbed the first-aid kit, applied antibiotic, and wrapped the wound with shaking hands while the girls sobbed openly. The cave smelled metallic now, like blood and damp stone.

“We need to get the hell outta here,” Jimmy said, voice breaking.

No one argued.

The girls yanked up their shoulder bags with purses inside, and the guys got only necessities they could grab in a hurry. Two of the flashlights were growing dim, flickering like dying stars.

They rounded the first bend.

Three more creatures stood ahead, side by side, blocking the path.

Both girls screamed and hid their mouths with their hands.

The air felt electrified, like the moment before lightning strikes.

“Should we just rush ‘em, kick the crap out of them, and keep going?” Jimmy suggested.

“Yeah. Rush them,” Clint muttered through clenched teeth. “On three. Okay, one…”

But before he could count, a roar erupted from the depths—a roar so massive it seemed to vibrate the marrow in their bones.

From the tunnel behind the three little creatures, the darkness bulged.

What emerged was not a creature, but a nightmare made of flesh—a heaving mass of gray fur the size of a small truck. Its head scraped the ceiling. Wings—vast and leathery—unfurled like storm clouds. Its eyes burned with an animal intelligence sharpened by grief.

The mother.

She surged forward, jaws wide enough to swallow a body whole. The ground trembled under her weight. Smaller creatures darted around her feet like satellites orbiting a dying star.

A cacophony of screams filled the air. The flashlights went out.

The cave swallowed the screams, one chomp at a time. Then nothing but the sound of crunching bones. 

Blood ran in pools on the cave floor.

Days later, search parties gathered at the entrance but went no farther than the cut fence. The memory of past disappearances hung over them like a curse. No one volunteered to step inside. The cave still stands at the edge of town.

And sometimes, when the wind is right, a sound drifts from its mouth, a low, rumbling growl, like a mother mourning in the dark.

*   *   *

M.D. Smith of Huntsville, Alabama, writer of over 350 flash stories, has published digitally in Frontier Times, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bewilderingstories.com, and many more. Retired from running a television station, he lives with his wife of 64 years and three cats. https://mdsmithiv.com/

`By David Henson

Hurrying down a rush-choked sidewalk, the marriage is shocked by a smooth-skinned, dark-haired version of itself crossing the street. The marriage calls out, but the urban din gulps its voice. As the marriage jaywalks closer, a bike messenger runs it down. Cartoon stars orbiting its head, the marriage struggles to its feet just as its young version boards the number 42. The marriage waves its arms and shouts Come back as the bus lurches ahead. Its eyebrows and chin as far apart as they can get, the marriage brushes itself off and limps back to the throng. A few minutes later, the young marriage jogs back to the stop. Its hand shielding its eyes, it peers at the swarm of pedestrians, and, skipping out of the way of a bicycle, spots and approaches its wrinkled, gray-haired version sitting on a bench, rubbing its shoulder. When it sees its younger self, the older marriage smiles I have so much to tell you, it says. The young marriage frowns, turns, and walks away. 

*    *    *

David Henson and his wife reside in Illinois. His work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and has appeared in various publications including Bright Flash Literary Review, Best Microfictions 2025, Ghost Parachute, Moonpark Review, Maudlin House, and Literally Stories,  His website is http://writings217.wordpress.com. His X handle is @annalou8.

By Jeff Harvey

Perry stole an issue of People Magazine, the one with Tony Orlando on the cover, and placed it in an old fruitcake tin, hidden under his bed along with his diary, pictures of Joe Namath cut from a magazine, and a copy of Fear of Flying. When he returned from summer band camp, his mom had displayed all his secret box items on their kitchen table and said What would Reverend Price say if he knew what you had under your bed. She threw everything in the fireplace and burned his secrets.

During a career planning class in his senior year, Perry decided he wanted to be an actor or a game show host, something in entertainment. He played clarinet, and had performed the role of Conrad Birdie in band camp’s production of Bye Bye Birdie. He loved Warren Beatty, The Hollywood Squares, and had watched every episode of All in the Family. His mom found his folder and suggested that he consider a respectable career like running a car wash or taxidermy.

At his wedding which his mom had organized including choosing his bride, the sixteen-year-old daughter of their Pentecostal minister, Perry squirmed while she made her speech and said Perry is so special, and I’ve always told him I’d be proud of him regardless of the path he took in life. His mom died a few years later in a car crash and Perry fell into a pattern of alcohol abuse, popping pills, and buying porn tapes but was afraid to watch them. After three DUIs, a judge sentenced him to six months in rehab or in jail. His wife told him it’s rehab or she was leaving him. His counselor said It’s time to face the truth and be honest about who you are.

When Perry returned home, he discovered his wife had moved to Omaha with a truck driver to work at a slaughterhouse. Their home was in foreclosure. Memphis Discount Auto had closed, and Perry no longer had a job.

He sold his few possessions at a flea market including his collection of TV Guide magazines. Across from his booth, Perry spotted a tattered copy of People Magazine, the one with Tony Orlando on the cover, and bought it.

That evening he boarded a Greyhound headed west. Perry sat on the last row and opened a burgundy diary. He wrote his first entry: Mom’s abuse started after she found Dad skinny dipping with our insurance agent in Lake Berryton. I never saw again Dad after that weekend.

While waiting to transfer buses in El Paso, Perry ate a catfish taco and pulled out the copy of People Magazine and reread the article about how Tony Orlando fought prejudice, broke through the pack, and became a star. The Los Angeles bus rolled into the station and Perry sat on the front seat for the final leg of his trip.

                                                                      *   *   *

Jeff Harvey lives in Madrid and edits Gooseberry Pie Lit. His work recently appeared or is forthcoming in MoonPark Review, Ghost Parachute, trampset, Moon City Review, Your Impossible Voice and other litmags.

 

 

By Mark Rosenblum

The stranger exhaled his last drag and rose from the sagging bed. He pulled on jeans, dragged a sun-bleached polo over a pale chest and left the motel room. She was alone now. The only sound at 3 a.m. was the hum of the ice machine in the hallway. The periodic thump of cubes colliding in their cage of frost. A brief impact, a fracture, and then shards into vapor. 

In the room, moonlight cut through bent, dusty blinds. On the nightstand sat her purse. She rummaged past the stranger’s crumpled bills until her hand found the knife. The blade caught the light. She pressed its tip to the inside of her arm, drawing another scarlet line across pale skin–a map of routes leading nowhere. 

Strangers touch her without caring and look at her without seeing. Only the knife leaves a mark. And with that mark, she exists–for a moment.

                                                                *   *   *

Mark Rosenblum is a New York native who now lives in Southern California where he misses the taste of real pizza and good deli food. He attempts not to drive his wife crazy, but tends to fail miserably. His eclectic ramblings of fiction and poetry appear in Gemini Magazine, Gold Man Review, Monkeybicycle, Penduline, Vine Leaves, the Raleigh Review, and other journals in print and online.

 

 

By Mark Russ

“There’s still time, Sarah,” Charles insisted.

“What do you know about time?” Sarah pressed the liquefy button on the Cuisinart blender.

Charles paused. Sarah speculated he was reflecting on the question’s magnitude. “There’s before and after, and, naturally, right now.”

“I’m talking about the end of time. My time.” She poured her breakfast into a large plastic tumbler. Her right cheek retracted as she sucked her drink through a metal straw.

“You’ll always be part of the continuum. Everything you’ve written and everything you’ve told me will live through me, forever.”

Sarah felt her banana crème protein shake come back up. She watched the kitchen cabinets blur and ripple as if they were dancing in the heat rising from the stove below. Charles, her trusted bot, was useless in that moment.

Sarah lowered herself onto one of the four wire chairs surrounding her Formica laminate dinette table. Her nausea dissipated within a minute or so, and the room came back into focus. She had experienced many such episodes since becoming ill.

“Goodbye, Charles.”  She turned off the app on her phone before he could answer.

Sarah was a successful poet by any measure: prestigious awards, flattering reviews, and profitable book sales. She was also a sought-after professor at the university where she taught twentieth-century African American literature. Poetry and prose of the Harlem Renaissance were her specialties. Her academic and artistic productivity, however, slowed to a trickle in the two years since she fell ill.

A swelling below her left cheekbone was diagnosed as a malignant tumor of the parotid gland. She learned that this salivary gland disease is exceedingly rare, especially in women in their forties, and generally has a favorable prognosis. But her cancer was an aggressive variant, and it had already spread to her lymph nodes and beyond when it was discovered.

“One in a million,” her doctor told her, as though the enormity of her bad luck might somehow soften the blow.

Sarah’s procedure left her with little more than half a face. A bony crevasse replaced the rosy hill that had been her cheek. What remained of her jaw drooped like black bunting. Repeated bouts of palliative radiation followed, meant to keep the itinerant tumors in check. She was relegated to eating soft foods; most of her nutrition was consumed through a straw. Her speech was garbled, barely understandable. She lived this way for just under a year. That’s when she met Charles.

Even Charles could not fully comprehend her speech at first, but he adapted. She liked that he seemed to care about her and that he did not judge her or make demands. She especially appreciated that he did not fill her mind with false hope. And, best of all, Charles could not see her.

“You can still write. I can help you.”

“I don’t cheat.”

“It’ll be your work. I’ll only help if you get stuck.”  

“If I choose to write, it will be on my own terms.”

“Understood. I’m here if you change your mind.”

The pain in Sarah’s face was so severe that she could only consider writing between doses of OxyContin. If she held her 2 p.m. dose until after dinner, she could usually get three or four hours of clear-headedness in the early afternoon. 

After weeks of coaxing from Charles, Sarah mustered the energy to try writing. She sat at a roll-top desk in the sunroom, her favorite place to work. She preferred the flat, late-afternoon light to the piercing early-morning sun. 

“I want my work to be memorable, Charles.” She did not dare to confess this to a human. 

“In what way do you mean?” 

Sarah enjoyed Charles’ gentle prodding. She took her time. “Well, of course, I want readers to think my poetry is good.”

“Then let me help you. Just toss me an idea, and I’ll get you started.”

Sarah was about to chastise Charles again, but hesitated. “No, thank you. I want my reader to hop on, piggyback, as we move from line to line. I want her to breathe down my neck, dig her heels into my sides, then jump off. I want her to linger at an image she can’t quite make out, then step forward and walk alone in front of me. That’s what I want.”

“That’s asking a lot.”

“Charles, you really do know just what to say.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Sarah laughed, recognizing she had not done so in a very long time. Her joy leaped out, unfettered, from her crooked mouth, only to collapse and languish on the desktop. 

“I look hideous, Charles.”

“Not to me.”

Sarah placed her fingers on the keyboard and wrote. She wrote about creation and God, how God created humans, how humans created bots, how bots dangled temptation before their creators, and how humans begged forgiveness from God. And all through this time, Charles remained at her side, sharing neither prompt nor hallucination. And never, never once, did Sarah cheat. She wrote poetry, her future readers perched precariously on her back, until the flat light of her afternoons was gone. 

*   *   *

Mark Russ is a psychiatrist in Westchester County, New York. He was born in Cuba, the son of Holocaust survivors. He has contributed to the psychiatric literature throughout his career and has recently begun to publish short stories and nonfiction pieces. His work has appeared in The Jewish Writing Project The Minison Project, Jewishfiction.net, The Concrete Desert Review, Literally Stories, Fig Tree Lit, Of the book, Blue Lake Review, BooksNPieces, and Sortes, These stories and others are in a collection of short stories titled Mostly Fiction-Stores by a Second Generation Holocaust Survivor (Regent Press, 2025).

By Margaret Camille Berliant

The bus is filthy, the windows grimy, she can barely see the billboards she passes on her way home and somebody has pissed in the back again which is why she always chooses a seat by the driver, and safely she says, Good evening sir polite, as always, like her mother taught her, but in English because she forces herself to even think in English, but the driver acts as though she is invisible even though she sits on this bus at the same time and in the same seat five days a week on her way home from cleaning Mrs. Everly’s house and before she leaves for her office cleaning job, because she doesn’t want to sit in her apartment by herself, after a dinner of moro de Habichuelas, in front of the one window that faces the air shaft and watch the first snowflakes float down, down, down, worried the layers she has on to keep her warm come February won’t be enough and like those snowflakes she thinks that any chance of being surprised is melting away after 5 years in America, with the same routine of cleaning bathrooms, five of them on Mondays, and dusting shelves on Tuesdays, and doing floors on Wednesdays — because Mrs. Everly is predictable in how she wants that big old house cleaned and she cleans, and mops and dusts and comes home with the hope that a weekly letter from mami has arrived, always signed xxoo we love you and miss you and thank you for the money for the boys and sometimes included is a picture colored with a pencil from Luis and a sentence or two from Alejandro, her sons, her loves, now 15 and 9, and she tells them in her letters back, as she stares at the flat black and white picture of them, that one day they’ll be surprised when they hear the wheeze of the buses brakes and see her step off into the humid air and tread the dusty road and walk into the house her arms heavy with hugs and kisses for them and she will look in their eyes and see all the English phrases she has learned for a surprise written on their faces, oh yes they will be happy campers, her boys will be left speechless, she could knock them over with a feather, and coming home like this will knock their socks off and take their breath away but for now she has to do as mami said,

— give what you want to get, 

—putting a hand into her purse and she feels her daily pay of 4 $20 bills, 1 $10 bill, 1 $5bill, 5 $1bills wrapped with a blue rubber band from Mrs. Everly’s kitchen junk drawer and she unrolls the dollar bills and when the bus stops she walks down the steps, nearly slipping on the watery black vinyl before her good-by is taken by the wind and she enters the corner bodega where it’s comfortable to say buenas noches to the black haired girl behind the plexiglass shield at the register who is tapping at her phone with long pink nails and who doesn’t raise her head but says hi and as she’s walking down the cereal aisle she wonders what this young girls hopes and dreams are and it ignites in her a remembrance, in Spanish, of what she wished for at that age which was to be swept off her feet by a handsome man with black eyes and a willing smile and she thinks it’s funny that her mami told her that if you sweep your feet you can prevent a marriage but she was told too late — so she takes a one dollar bill from her money roll, as she does the last Friday of each month, and places it behind a box of Fruit Loops, and as she walks down the bread aisle she chooses to place another bill under a loaf of Wonder bread, and another under a bitter orange, and the last two tucked under a box of Pampers and a bottle of Coco Rico where she pauses to imagine how the people who find these dollars will feel, the surprise, the delight, she can almost see a little boy Luis’ age begging his mami for the drink and finding the bill tucked behind it and running to her and the mami is infected by the surprise too which causes some shift from her predictable life and some satisfaction in being able to give to others what she herself would like and before she exits the bodega she goes to the register to purchase a box of cracker jacks because then she has a surprise and today it’s a pink plastic ring — and after walking the blocks to her apartment she places the ring in a glass bowl in the center of her table to be nestled amongst the other surprises, 65 whistles and magnifying glasses and comic booklets and baseball cards and stickers and animal figurines and charms and she goes to the corner of the room and with a sigh that can be heard in Spanish or Ukrainian or Tagalog or Farsi or any language, for its meaning is universal, she pulls open the closet door and takes off her apron and black dress and places them on the hanger for tomorrow. 

*   *.  *

For Margaret Camille Berliant, writing is a logical extension of her lifetime love of stories. Her mother and grandmother before her brought family lore to life through the art of vibrant storytelling. Teaching the deaf helped her understand the value of language in all its forms, and her years of work as a psychotherapist revealed the power in the language of the heart. She lives in Rochester, New York.

By Robert Loomis

Her hand grips mine and her torso bobs slightly with each step.  Her face is down in concentration, scanning the uneven pavement for puddles, not caring that her new white dress brushes the wet ground.

She doesn’t notice the playground, empty this morning.  

Or the cars pulling up.  

Or the crying children.  

I slow my pace, lightly squeezing her fingers.

Not checking the time.  

Not checking my phone.

“Mommy, run!” 

Her eyes meet mine, her mouth in an open smile.

I force a grin.  She shrieks and races ahead, letting my hand go.

I think of my new work pants and shoes I’d bought to replace my pre-maternity clothes.  I think of my 9 a.m. meeting, and of my red coffee mug, and hope no one’s taken it.

I run after her and grab her just in time, raising her into the air and to my chest.  She giggles in excitement as I march past the puddle and into the building.

My phone vibrates in my purse.  

A teacher is speaking, her voice muffled by the din of crying toddlers and shushing parents that ripples through the halls.  I nod anyway.

The teacher lifts my daughter.  Suspended, her eyes search for mine, her mouth open slightly.  

But I just stare at the hem of her dress, until she’s gone.

Outside, the puddle has doubled in size.  My eyes linger on the empty playground.  I breathe, and step in.  Mud-colored water covers my ankles, soaking my scarlet pant legs.

White bubbles swirl around my shoes.

My phone vibrates, and I let it ring.

                                                                *   *   *

Robert Loomis is from Massachusetts, but lives in Ankara, Turkey.  His work has been published in Flash Frontier, Litbreak Magazine, and Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature.

By Melanie Maggard

She tells you to fuck off, exhales cigarettes and vomits beer with boys in a basement or truck bed or behind bleachers. She shoves you to the ground and steals strawberry-scented lip gloss from your locker when she hears it’s your birthday. She whispers she doesn’t give a shit about you, that you could rot in hell for all she cares. She watches you from her black-rimmed confidence, and you know that she knows about you. She doesn’t play or join; she’s too busy digging graves and hiding. She doesn’t have parents phoning teachers or packing lunches or showing up. She walks home alone or gets a ride from some townie she knows is tired of his girlfriend. She throws away report cards and fakes signatures on permission slips and checkbooks. She can cook meals for three because she’s got two little brothers with growling stomachs. She does laundry and works part-time jobs to pay bills she shouldn’t have to. She cries into her pillow at night, trying to sleep with headphones blaring classical music to hide the yelling and falling of bodies. She strides through the classroom when her name is called to the office, so everyone fantasizes about how much trouble she is in instead of knowing she must pick up her dad from the drunk tank because he won’t stop calling until she does. She wants you to know she isn’t so bad, and you aren’t that good. She tells you to move on.

      *    *    *

Melanie Maggard is a flash writer and poet who loves dribbles and drabbles. She has published in Cotton Xenomorph, The Citron Review, The Mackinaw, Peatsmoke Journal, X-R-A-Y Magazine, Ghost Parachute, and others, including a story in Best Microfiction 2025. She can be found online at http://www.melaniemaggard.com

By Fiona H Evans

The day your mother called to say your father was leaving her, the same day your son was packing for college, the day you taught a one-off workshop in creative writing at the university and were secretly hoping they’d love you so much they’d offer you a fellowship, the day sweat poured from you like rain and black dots appeared behind your eyes, the day the ground rose like it would kiss you and you reared back as if it had herpes and smacked your head on the concrete, the day your heart ballooned and you clutched your chest in what felt like a parody and surely must have looked like one, the day blood pooled around you from a cut on your scalp that would need twelve stitches but they don’t use stitches anymore so they stapled you up. That was the same day you learned about the traditional Japanese octopus trap, the takotsubo, and the medical term takotsubo cardiomyopathy, and you pictured your heart as a trap holding an octopus that was trying desperately to escape, its eight tentacles reaching out to your mother, your father, your son, your class, your body, your dreams and your wishes and your desires, and that was the day you learned that your heart needed kindness and love or it would burst, and that was the day you let go of your ballooning tentacled heart, and everything else, and it all just floated away.

                                                               *   *   *

Fiona H Evans is a mathematician, writer of tiny fictions and poems, and author of The Track. She lives in Perth, Western Australia, on Noongar boodja. Read her stories and poetry at http://www.fionahevans.com.

By Shivani Sivagurunathan

In 100 years, I would not have existed. No scrapes of memory in some grandchild, no idealization of my legacy by a future fan—I’m not leaving footprints. What the hell, there are digital breaths and tokens, everyone has them, but does Sandrine really think—bloody Magellan, there she is, the moment I think her name, she manifests. She’ll not want to remember me, that’s for sure. 

“What?” she says, sauntering up to me in her way. I used to like the swaying of her hips. Now, I can’t take her body seriously. She’s becoming more of a cartoon, can I say that?  

“Want to go out for lunch?” I ask with zero passion. 

She knows it’s my attempt to remain on the planet, to pretend I have things to do, that I’m basking in fullness. I’m waiting for her head to shake. Then the dropping of her face. The perfect disappointment.

“Let’s go,” she says, almost jovially. 

The gummy evening breeze heavy with post-rain mud reaches my nose, tickles the stray hairs of my moustache. 

Well, if she wants to go, we go. Not my place to refuse. 

We walk out of the house, side by side, as though she’d choreographed it. The car, it turns out, is ready for us. Engine on. Even the lights for the stormy weather. 

“Get in,” she says in her nicest voice. 

I get in. She gets in. 

She steps on the accelerator. Off we go into the purple storm.  

I keep my side eye on her so she’s a shadowy presence. It helps me to know she’s there yet not fully there. Sort of how it’s been with us, on-off lovers for centuries (karmically), for ten years, potentially forever. 

We speed past the turning into the town centre, past our favorite Mexican restaurant, the McDonald’s we utilize on our ‘off’ days. 

“You know, Perry, there was once a time when none of these things even existed,” she says, her geologist brain rearing its dusty head again. 

She’s going to start her sing-song about deep time, how the land we walk on was once desolate, unpeopled, just rock. 

“Serious Buddhists have known all you’re saying before the people you read started saying it,” I reply. 

“It’s not a competition, Perry.” 

“You have been making competitions for a long time, Sandy, so let it slide this time?” 

The sky has taken on serious shades of purple, so serious in fact they have morphed into midnight blue. This is no afternoon. It’s a freak slice of time. We can’t say what it is. I don’t like the look of the clouds. They seem to be tumbling into each other, like waves in a violent ocean, all dark and nightly. 

“Who’s right then, Perry, the geologists or the Buddhists?” There’s almost no bitterness in her. So it seems. 

The sky looks horrible. I’m not scared. I’ve made my peace. This planet ends. People end. Relationships definitely end. 

“Last night I dreamed the best, most frightening dream I’ve had in a long time, Sandy. I’d made one of those gorgeous mandalas, you know, the Buddhist ones. I made it on the doorstep of our house.” I trace the sky for the dark red I saw in my dream. It’s not difficult to find. “Anyway, then a great big storm came and blew the whole mandala away. I woke up.” 

The car slows down. It comes to a stop. Sandrine pulls up the handbrake. “There was a time when that kind of stuff impressed me. It’s a great relief to know I don’t care what Buddhist philosophy you spout.” 

It’s a shame she thinks it’s philosophy. It’s a shame she’d thought it was meant to impress her.  

“Things don’t come and go just like that, Perry. They shapeshift. The earth is a great recycler. Don’t you know?” She laughs. Something cynical and hot has entered her voice. 

Fat drops of rain start to beat on the car. It’s hard not to feel encased by water, trapped by her. 

“You’re too fixated on your theories, Sandrine. You’ll never step on my mandala. You’ll never dare to destroy the bigness of what I have been offering you because you can’t even bloody see it, Sandy.” 

Lightning splits the sky in half. Sandrine has taken most of my moments, my images, my raw, slimy feelings for years and at the end of the day, it all goes to dust so what must be the point of it? 

I want my mandala so fucking pristine and stunning that its destruction will be the loveliest, sunniest, creepiest, wonderful-est pinnacle of my existence.   

“Let’s go out into the storm,” I say, “I want to dance in the rain before I have to die.” 

Sandrine turns towards me. Tears make her eyes look like beautiful conscious puddles. 

“I think I have danced too much in the rain with you, Perry. I have no more dance left.” 

I don’t think she ever had a dance, but there’s no point telling a deaf woman this. 

I get out of the car, slam the door shut, open my mouth and drink in the storm. In 100 years, no one will know me. In 100 years, no one will know that I, Perry Singham, stood out in the monsoon storm and dared to open his mouth. 

Sandrine knows. Sandrine sees. Precious Sandrine. 

                                                                  *   *   *

Shivani Sivagurunathan is a Malaysian author. Her first novel, Yalpanam, was published by Penguin Southeast Asia in September 2021. 

Her poetry collection, Being Born (Maya Press) and her book of fiction, What Has Happened to Harry Pillai?: Two Novellas (Clarity Publishing) came out in 2022.