Though there is no air moving, I feel a cold wind stirring my fur and wonder what these splinters of glass used to be when they were whole, and who had done them this cruelty, this injury, this wounding.

I grieve; I falter.

It's obvious to me that this wa…

"03-21-17 I'm nothing but damaged goods. Shards of a person left scattered on the ground just waiting for some poor soul to come walking barefoot across the floor." [anonymous]

I walk slowly, nothing covering myself but down and a feeling of lack and lo…

I knew no matter how I dressed I would find a way to regret it, so I chose comfort, since that was the one thing which would be in short supply.

And right I was, after a quiet greeting, from the moment I was admitted into the foyer and we walked along the…

Jacqueline made a sour face. “You mean to keep an eye on me. I hate having someone watching over my shoulder.”

“We're both in the industry, spying is what we do.” Emily replied.

“I'd rather be the spy-er than the spy-ee.”

Emily cocked an eye at her phr…

"So, my intrepid friend. I think I'm quite ready for another adventure. Care to follow me once more down the rabbit hole?" Phoebe asked her friend across the table. She watched over the rim of her glass as Casey downed her fourth ale of the night.

Casey …

the kafka

the kafka

free trial today

And george and tom E(l)liot

know what to say

when dickens and dickinson

mix verse with prose

and JS and CPE

both decompose

we whittle

we whistle

we toil and we spin

it all gets so morbid

the deeper we’re in

so throw of…

This makes me glad that I’m alive,

Despite all fears that do connive

To change that fact. I still remain

With you. So join this glad refrain:

May God and Patrick bless our bond!

I pray and hope you’ll both respond

By blessing all I sing about,

And all tho…

Saint Patrick, dear, come rally round

This group of loved ones I have found:

The ones who’ve left, the ones embraced,

The ones that cannot be replaced;

The ones that life’s path will reveal.

If they can know the love I feel

For each and ev'ryone therein,

…

Grims reached the outer fence, a rickety wooden thing with a large gap in between the top and bottom beam, that kept in the dumbest of the livestock. The gate was clear on the other side of the property and he didn't feel like circling the house just to u…

It closed its eyes and roared.

"Sacrilege! Blasphemy! Desecration! The Aldergods will destroy you utterly for this. You will be fodder for their entertainment. Perhaps even the Gilder- and Bolgurgods will--"

"Enough," I replied mildly. Its mouth clamped…

? awakes to inky blackness and silence until a voice calls out from some indefinable distance.

-Welcome.

-Where am I? And who am I?

-You’ve only just been created. Right now you are little more than an idea. With luck you will soon begin to take sh…

Lightning flashed like teeth biting into the stone walls. Athel's sandals slapped ungraciously as he ran. His mouth muttered undiscernable phrases. His eyes snatched fearful glimpses of the stormy shore between narrow windows.

Father Osgar was at prayer.…

Quick hands. Moonlight flashing on a blade. Mooncat dying on a blade.

Grims dropped the knife and reached for his rifle, all senses searching for the remaining predator, but it had vanished into the night, courage overwhelmed by pack hunter instinct.

He…

The story first appeared in an issue of National Geographic. It chronicled a journey taken in the 1970s by a small band of backpackers. While travelling through the woods of southeast Alaska the group stumbled onto a ghost town.

The community appeare…

I held that piece of flesh up before me, bitter distaste filling my mouth. If what my father and I had done before had been blasphemy, this was surely something far worse, to desecrate the body of a god in such a way.

And yet it was necessary. This war b…

I carried my father's post on my left shoulder as I walked back to the front of the property. I took care to avoid the golden post, though I knew it would not harm me. It was merely an omen, a message from the gods, but it was better not to tempt fate. In…

Devra turned her attention away from the Big Ben lego model and glanced over her notes for the evening weather report, her faculties barely involved in the process.

Did this even count as "working on television"? Her path had not led to where her she had …

A child. Barely out of diapers. He stands stock still on the busy sidewalk as hundreds of grown-ups walk quickly past him.

The child stoops, plucking a key from a crack in the sidewalk, even though the crack isn't nearly large enough to accommodate such …

Grims dropped it with a single shot. The bullet entered through the cat's open maw and exited through the back of its skull, causing the creature's head to vaporize in a mist of blood, bone, and brains. The mooncat hit the ground barely two feet from wher…

You are adamant we are forever. That we're the tempest and the anchor. We're each other's sky and flame. And even though I don't want to believe you...

Could it be possible that you are the one that understands the inner squeaking cogs of my ticking hear…

I have suffered brutal betrayals these past months, betrayals no one should have to endure. I have wept and bled and fought and clung to life by any excuse I have been able to find.

I have endured betrayals of the mind and body. Depression. Anxiety. Para…

I don't know how I made it through what came next. The next days were a blur of pain, both physical and emotional, and fever dreams, in the rare moments when I slept.

My first task was to split the figure of my father in half, carefully using the tools o…

I grabbed our wagon, pushing it over to where my father stood, forever carven in wood. Carefully, I tipped him into the wagon, the bent steel post in his upraised fist clanging against the sides. Then I wheeled him to our workshop behind the house.

I had…

The world spun.

Images flashed through his head like a montage in a bad movie. He steadied himself against the fence as the pavement threatened to swallow him whole. What was supposed to be a tour of nostalgic sights had given way to a slew of repressed …

It would be quicker to go through town but Grims didn't want to carry the corpse through the streets of Eggtown South. He already had a reputation, hard and bitter, but there was a difference between being rumored as a child-killer and toting a dead one d…