33 works
Translated from the Persian by Nasser Pooyesh, with editorial consultation from Mojtaba Ahmadkhan “I fell.” She said it in a way that was at once a report, a complaint, and a request for help. Her nose was covered in blood....
Read More →I walked out of the publishing house into what felt like a robotic version of life. The vein on my forehead was still throbbing from what the publisher had said to me. I could not believe he had allowed himself...
Read More →The question came at the end, when the lights were already too hot and the microphone had begun to feel like an instrument of confession rather than a broadcast. What is it like to be a dependent woman? Diana held...
Read More →It sprawled there motionless, outstretched to the maximum length possible. The seagull, five minutes earlier, had been in possession of food, chewed down to almost every morsel. But the scraps of offal torn from its destined meal, for which it...
Read More →Tic. Tok. The clock monotoned. A weight of dissonance hung over the stale-grey, metal office. Its stained-white walls drained any enthusiasm for life. A drained, desiring breath escaped a young woman’s once-adventurous, now-chapped lips. Her lustreless eyes drifted around the...
Read More →This is a place of wondrous illusion, a vacuum unconscious of its own non-being. That is ridiculous. This existential dread thing is overdone, but there it is. A cliché that writes millions of benzodiazepine prescriptions every year. Bad benzos, but...
Read More →Dear reader,
Before I begin this story, I should mention that the events described here took place roughly a year ago—in 2094,…
The decades leading up to these events witnessed an extraordinary surge in information technology. Humanity had…
I am the tongue that falls from the open mouth. I am the devil at the dinner table. Peel back her skin and you will find me. – I didn’t think I’d end up here. Thirty-two. Overworked. Unmarried. A constant...
Read More →Felix Horace remembered the first time he received the offer letter. The Agency had insisted every recruit memorize five categories of anomalous phenomena: supernatural, biological, philosophical, theological, and phantasmagoric entities. But as long as it paid, he hadn’t cared. His...
Read More →The locals used to say that when you float down the north river, the sea spirits would judge your soul. That if you were a good lad, built a solid foundation, a life of marble and jewels, you’d get to...
Read More →She sat at the corner table in a bar called The Last Honest Place, which was neither honest nor last. It was the kind of establishment where the lighting forgave everything and the drinks were priced for people who needed...
Read More →It started as a Wednesday like any other, hanging like a new moon between weekends. I stood patiently at the bus stop waiting for the number forty-three. The shelter was made of sandstone with a wooden roof so that the...
Read More →May. Carnations on table. Mother brings soup. Looks. Fingers trace bowl rim twice. Dusk. Boy sleep. Night. Foot hurts. No wound. Grips sheet. Teeth shut. Morning. Hurts. Still. Walks to door. Step. Stops. Steps again. PE. Teacher says run. Runs....
Read More →16.03 22.08 ‘He’s just a harmless hobbyist…’ Amber turned away from her screen, a grainy security-cam image of an elderly man in a red anorak carrying a dented computer tower down a muddy garden path; and paused him in mid-stride...
Read More →First published in Nocturne Magazine, 2022 Mrs. Moon looked forward to watching church service on TV every Sunday morning. Not only because she was a faithful follower, but because the priest reminded her of her late husband. That, and the...
Read More →A slight haze blurred the skyline, and the expanse of lights faintly reflected in the wall-sized ceiling and bay windows that wrapped midtown Manhattan around the rooftop club. The buildings were dotted with lights like the chessboard’s light and dark...
Read More →“You’re here because you’re dead.” The clerk at the hotel desk, dressed in a red uniform with white-trimmed lapels, spoke in an abrasive, upper Midwest dialect, and said this like he was explaining something painfully obvious. He looked familiar, not...
Read More →The same sun scorched downtown Los Angeles that had seared the Iraq desert. Army Private First Class Samantha Cummings stood at attention holding a stack of boxes, her unwashed black hair slicked back in a ponytail and knotted military style....
Read More →The line of cars outside the entrance to the Mukoshima Outlet Park and Gardens complex, a short drive from downtown Osaka, stretched back a good 300 meters, and was steadily building in length. Only two hours after opening, the car...
Read More →“All rise!” the bailiff announced after he entered the rustic courtroom even though he was the only one there. Briefly he cleared his throat then repeated the command but not quite as loudly. Better, he thought to himself, much better....
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