Ripped To Bits By Ghosts

I moved into my workshop, with a gas-ring and pair of chickens in a cage. I needed no assistants. I watched the sky from a hilltop laboratory, harnessing the lightning.

In reality I sleep under the stairs in my friends’ flat. He’s a motorcycle courier, she’s a receptionist. I work where I can, wherever the agency sends me, seven days a week. If I’m ill I rely on her noticing and bringing me soup or something. I have a notebook to record my dreams. Huge flights of geese turn furrows through the red November skies. Worlds can barely contain me.

From Guest Contributor Geoff Sawers

Sirens

He’d risen early this morning to plan the house his wife had dreamed of, but the hilltop’s stark beauty had rooted him to the spot.

His tea got cold.

It suddenly seemed a travesty to spoil the land’s personality.

Don’t seek to dominate, Mother Nature whispered, explore me as you would a lover.

He felt his pulse race at the imagery. There were enticing little copses in his eye line.He wondered if Elaine was up for–

“GRAHAM!” Her voice scattered the erotic thoughts.

He sighed and slouched towards the mobile home.

“Coming.”

He reflected on the nature of sirens.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

End Of The Line

Grace ran her finger over the word.

TERMINATED

She over-pronounced each syllable. The word crashed off her computer’s screen. The “t” chipped the floor with its hook. The “e” cracked the tile, and the rest of the letters tumbled into the void.

“Didn’t tell me in person.” The night beacon, bedroom clock blinked 11:15.

In her unkempt kitchen, she knelt beside the sink. Ants crawled, a living chain of perfect order. They bypassed her bait. Scouts explored on. Workers followed trails through the cracks. But in the hive, the queen risked nothing.

Life balanced on the pinhole of a hilltop.

From Guest Contributor Embe Charpentier