The Dark Arts

If I look different, taller or fitter, it may be because a kind of prisoner swap has taken place. Somehow I’ve wriggled out from under the extreme judgments of a cold, tyrannical god. I’m still me but not the same. My failures suddenly seem less painful, viewable in retrospect as a series of valiant gestures against the authority of received narratives. Indigenous names for places have been restored, our pale winter bodies renourished. And so we lie down together, she and I, consumers of dreams, while angels dabble in the dark arts and the sniper kneels at the corner window.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is author of the poetry book, The Dark, available from Sacred Parasite, which will also publish his book, Akimbo, in 2025.

Calypso: Bright-Eyed Goddess

Unknown amongst them,she sits; awe and wonder.Blazing eyes searching,surrounded, glorious banquet,wondering of the occasion.‘Where is your father?’Calypso forbidden his return!Wanting the strong man herself,locked away, a vaulted cave;awaiting his love.

Prisoner of the Nymph’s love.‘I actually heard he was home!’The gods, it seemed, had sinister plans.Not returned from battle,vanished, Never to be seen again.

‘What is the meaning of this banquet?’Men of Troy had heard of the banishment,their behavior animalistic.Seeking the love of the ‘widow,’leaving the son belittled,doomed to an inglorious future.

From Guest Contributor Melissa Land

I Cannot Agree

It's been a difficult trial.

The jury presents a guilty verdict.

I cannot agree with this jury. So, I tell them, “Members of the jury, in light of my 20 years of judicial experience, I find there is no evidence the defendant was near the crime scene, nor even knew the victim. Therefore, I declare the evidence insufficient to convict and hereby overturn the guilty verdict. Bailiff, release the prisoner.”

The courtroom is aghast.

I sit back down.

The judge says, “Well, Mr. Kaufman, now I'm sorry I asked if the defendant had anything to say. Bailiff, remove the prisoner.”

From Guest Contributor Kent V. Anderson

When Kent isn't writing stories, he is building robots.

An Ending, A Beginning

Dr. Philippa Marsden awoke with a start, the hard cold wood of her desk on her forehead. She clasped her hands to either side of her head, as if she was trying to hold her splitting headache prisoner. Her breath wheezed through her pursed mouth, but the fever was gone.

"Jonathan?" He lay on the floor, white coat stained with blood, stethoscope laying beside him like a dead snake. Pulse? None.

Philippa ran from ward to ward, the cacophony of the previous night replaced by silence. Pulse? None. Repeat. She ran outside to the street..

"HELLO! ANYONE?" Nothing but silence.

From Guest Contributor Ross Clement

The Messiah Complex

They had him taped to the floor. When they were holding him down and placing one piece of tape after the other, he'd smiled. Faintly so as not to be noticed, but a smile nevertheless. They didn't have enough tape to hold a person flat to the ground.

But when they'd left him there, try as he might, he couldn't move.

Now the water was drop-by-drop filling the small room. In a few more hours, the water would reach his nose and mouth and he'd eventually drown.

This would certainly be one of the worst ways he'd ever been killed.

The Acersecomic

Her hair had never been cut. In a way that was totally dissimilar to Rapunzel, she was a prisoner, trapped by whatever strange mixture of fate and circumstance that determined what we are to become in this life.

If she had been born a Buddha, perhaps she'd have lived many lives and enjoyed all manner of fashionable hairstyles. Instead, she was stillborn with a full head of hair. She was buried with that same tussock, tied together with a bright pink ribbon her mother had tried to purchase from the local notions shop only to find her money was refused.