Shadows and Pillows by Jeremy Maddux

I sit in the darkened bar, blending into the crisp shadows until I appear to be made of smoke like everyone else here. I build tiny monuments to oblivion with glass after glass of Cascadian dark ale, Tramadol and Hydrocodone. Sometimes Diazepam too, which I am directed to take by a presence higher than any earthly authority. I am free of my strings tonight, so I enjoy the light show. Fog machines and goth girls traipsing through the imagined ether like runaway construction paper cutouts.
 
You could go over there, my advisory shadow says. You could actually go over there and dance with them. It could be reality and not just a dream. You’d just have to move more than your hands and mouth for once, as grim a prospect as it might be.
           
I shake off the cerebral blitz of prescription meds and alcohol. Eyes are constantly tearing up on the stuff because they bring enlightenment and rapture I can share with no one else. But maybe I can. I ask my shadow to save my seat while I go mingle with the cute pinup pixie nobodies. I start with a bit of feet shuffling, trying to direct all of myself at the lithe one that is swishing her elbows and hips to Bauhaus. She doesn’t notice me at first, so I try to get her attention, hoping to skip the dance and return to my sedentary position by my shadow.
           
“How about a beer?”
           
Everything happens so fast I forget to blink. She gently taps me on the forehead and turns her back on me. That actually just happened!? My shadow laughs at me back at the table in the corner. He has company. My face has exploded in deep bursts of red distributed from my orbitals down to the scruff of my neck.
           
Defeated, I slouch back to the seat it didn’t save. It’s the Manager. Not of the bar, but of acquired taste. His face droops at the sight of me. That piteous gaze fills me with hope that I’m not wrong about my one sided convictions, that bold action leads to swift defeat. That inaction is truth, which is an honorable enough trait despite the boredom it brings.
           
You could have danced, my shadow says. Really danced. She was within your grasp.
           
No one is within anyone’s grasp, I rebut.
           
He’s right, though. Had I carried the action out and seen it to its logical end, we might have connected. We might have had something to celebrate a year from now.
           
“Everyone is within everyone’s grasp,” the Manager says.
           
I respectfully disagree, I say, respectfully disagreeing.
           
No need to punish yourself, my shadow says. That will come later.
           
I drop three crow’s feet on the table. Two for my tab and one for the Manager.
           
As my shadow trails me out of the Burgess Bar & Grill, the goth girl I failed to charm replaces me at the table we’d previously occupied. There is no doubt within my mind that they’ll have something to celebrate a year from now.
           
We pass through shelved barriers of night, stick figures directing traffic as I argue with the submerged entity of my immaterial leftovers.
           
It’s too late for any of that. The cards have been dealt. The die has been cast.
           
Bullshit. You never let anyone get the best of you, so they do it anyway. Loneliness is not set in stone. You are not a wandering archetype. Sadness and rejection do not the building blocks of a well-balanced human being make.
           
I should have ordered a slice back there. I haven’t eaten since the blackout.
           
Don’t mention that again.
           
Don’t mention what? The blackout?
           
Next thing I know, I’m six blocks ahead and a corner away from my stoop on Broadbelt Street.  The mailbox with the flamingo ornamentation darts out at me. It’s that or the booze and pills.  Mailboxes have no tolerance for drug use.
           
My shadow has left me alone due to the cutting word. I used it twice, so I shouldn’t have to deal with it for at least 48 hours. Make no mistake. Words have power. It’s simple really, just take a word that penetrates an enemy in such a way that they can’t help but acknowledge its power and you’re home free. I use the word blackout for my shadow, because it breaks up the ice in me and that psychopomp can’t afford to thaw. With any luck, it’ll be gone for 72 hours now.
           
I heave myself up the steps with what little energy remains and turn the knob. I just hope the bed linens have been changed and made. If not, it could be a long time before I sleep again.
           
The living room is covered in debris, as usual. My lemen (lemur/men hybrids) are splaid across couch cushions, flaking out on Monkey Bleach, which is slang for Hawaiian Baby Woodrose paste. Their life spans have never surpassed eight years, so I say let them enjoy their short duration highs before the inevitable euthanasia. I start to sit down beside Spry, the most chipper of the bunch but just as I crouch, there’s a knock at the door. Four rapid fire pecks, which could only belong to Codeine, a female grifter who can open bottles and pop corks with the muscles in her cooch. If you can’t roll with the punches in this society, you get left behind.  No one with such a talent as Codeine’s could ever get left behind.
           
I answer the door with the hopes that tonight something could happen that makes me feel alive instead of just coasting. As I open the door to let her in, she’s already smacking her lips against the smooth surface of her techpipe. Her eyes are phosphorescent orbs striking me down with icy intention. She holds up her phone so I can see the screen, which reads LOW BATTERY.
           
Finally exhaling a cloud of sizzling silver vapor, she cups the back of my neck with affection.
           
“Mind if I borrow your charger?”
           
I tell her I don’t mind her using me to charge her phone, but I insist on her using a plug in that is not above the belt, as those areas don’t get used as much. And, of course, if you don’t use it, you lose it, as they say.
           
Before I can even direct her phone down to my shaft, she slips the charger into my mouth. The port finds a connection and begins siphoning energy from my headspace.
           
“Thank you so much. In exchange, I’ll go make up the bed.”
           
So the night isn’t a total loss, I think out loud. Codeine makes eye contact, a million galaxies pinging off of each other in the stillness of her reflected sight. She’s the best medicine there is, I think, but I can’t get a prescription for her.
           
“You wouldn’t know what to do with me if you had me, honey,” she says from the other room.  “It’s better this way.”
           
She’s right. I probably wouldn’t. She leaves and returns after about an hour when the ambient sound of a fully charged phone summons her back to my side. I focus the arrow of my being at some innocuous corner of the room as she unplugs the port, taking a miniscule string of saliva with it. 
           
“You have this problem with drooling, don’t you?” Her comment is harmless, but she grabs both sides of my face to ensure that our eyes engage.

Something more is lost here than just a simple disconnect. After she leaves, I realize that a thankless job I just performed. And will perform again. And again, ad nauseum.
           
At least I can sit down now. I go to my bedroom to make sure she served her function, that she performed her thankless job as efficiently as I did mine. It appears she did.
           
Fresh, cool sheets under a warm plaid blanket, rolled back in that expert fashion usually met only by housekeeping standards. And the pillow…  Oh God, it’s so fluffed and welcoming that I barely notice its narrow concave slits for eyes.
           
I missed you, I say but it comes out in such a whimper that I briefly hide my face with the brim of my hat. I begin peeling off the many layers of clothing I’d adorned earlier in order to face the blasting winds of Coroner Town. No rest for the wicked, but I’d been an exemplary citizen for one day, at least.
           
I remove the final skin, that of the shorts I’d placed under my pants. No underwear to worry about, because fuck underwear confinement. My weary vessel collapses on the platform of sleep. I lay my head back to be absorbed by the pillow with kitten-like eyelids. Arms begin to form out of the muffling mass of fabric. They go up and down my upper body mass, starting at the temples and ending at my hands which are folded back behind my head.
           
I wish it could always be this way, I think out loud. The pillow opens its mouth to receive me as I backslide into the purgatorial melancholy to which I am already resigned.

“What would you like to dream tonight?” The pillow asks in the warmest female tone.
           
I know I can never have that one from Friday back, can I?
           
“You know that’s not up to me,” it says in a gilded gossamer voice of motherly intonation.

Then just give me something impossible, please.

Thanksgiving Brunch Mitzvah or, the End of the World for Women by Marleen S. Barr

I am a thirteen year old named Robbie who has always enjoyed Thanksgiving. This year, as ever, I happily joined my beloved immediate family: Daddy, Great Grandpa Izzy, Grandpa Lester, Uncle Arthur, and Cousins Mark, Richard, and Milton. All eyes were focused on the succulent roast festooned with stuffing, Brussels sprouts, and mashed potatoes. Everyone was salivating as Daddy used a carving knife to penetrate the crispy skin. As warm fat oozed out of the roast and the savory smell of fresh rosemary permeated the dining room, people announced their preferences.  

“I’m a breast man,” announced Grandpa Lester. 

 

“I prefer thighs myself,” interjected Cousin Milton. 

 

Wishing to participate in the macho portion request fest, I said that I would like to chomp on a wing.

“This chick did not have wings,” matter of factly muttered Uncle Arthur.

 

Daddy abruptly dropped the knife. The whole family turned as white as the mashed potatoes.

 

No one remained interested in reserving his particular carcass preference. All eyes were focused on Daddy.

 

“Robbie, we have to have The Talk,” said Daddy.

“Puhlease, I’m thirteen. We had The Talk years ago. And I have a boyfriend. I’m going to the junior prom with Avi Aronstein,” I insisted.

Not that Talk. I’m talking about a different Talk. Because you’re thirteen, this Thanksgiving is different from all other Thanksgivings. Today you will become a man. Today is your Thanksgiving Brunch Mitzvah.”

“Brunch Mitzvah? What’s that?” I asked.

“Oy, a Brunch Mitzvah is no easy celebration. Tradition dictates that on this occasion fathers tell sons the truth. Robbie, in order to become a man, you must know that women were once included in society,” explained Daddy.

“Women? What are women?”

“Yes, women. Women, before the world ended for them, were once defined as humans who do not have penises and who give birth through orifices called vaginas. Babies were born after men insert sperm into vaginas.”

“‘No shit. But what about the gestation machines? How can women be better than gestation machines? And what happened to the women? Where are all the women?”

“Gestation machines do not exist. They are right up there with tooth fairies and dragons.

Great Grandpa Izzy remembers when a new form of bird flu decimated humanity. Social institutions fell apart--including food production; all the farmed animals died.  Professor Wolfgang von Weisswurst--an eminent science fiction scholar who won the 2023 Science Fiction Research Association Pilgrim Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction scholarship-- formulated a plan which saved human civilization.  According to von Weisswurst, women are extraneous. He posited that people, that is to say men, would survive if a small percentage of women were concentrated and hidden in windowless factory farm buildings. Some would spend their lives in gestation crates; others would be slaughtered and used for food. I clearly remember when men adopted von Weisswurst’s plan to combine Harry Harrison and Suzy McKee Charnas’ science fiction visions with meta-Nazism. They rationalized their decision by reasoning that women who are relegated to animal husbandry would no longer have to bother with finding husbands. What a great way for men to at once to turn women into bacon and avoid being called male chauvinist pigs. Your mother is being treated like a sow. Robbie, soylent green is women.

Great Grandpa Izzy continued the Brunch Mitzvah proceedings with the ritual toast. “L’chaim--for men,” he intoned while raising his wine class. As he cut into the roast which had been stored in the family deep freeze since his youth--and used especially for my Brunch Mitzvah--his knife hit a metal kosher food designation tag imbedded in the cooked flesh. He removed the tag and stared at the surrounding skin. He saw a familiar heart shaped tattoo. “Robbie, it is time for you to “meat” Great Grandma Rosemary,” he said while nonchalantly sipping more wine. “Oy, who knew that when I married a shiksa she would end up being kosher?”  

BLORTHOX IN THE CLUTCHES OF LOVE by Jamie Grefe

Blorthox of Lir, slams his blood-drenched battle-axe into the skull of Selinda, Priestess of the Owldoom Temple. He splats into brain, sending clumps of grey globs from her opened face. Her white arms twist. She collapses.

His love, the object of his pursuit and heir to the throne of Blug, Vhonea, dangles by bound wrists over a vat where a black vampire squid thrashes in hunger. Her naked legs dangle.

Blorthox strides closer. He follows the rope to a lever, and he throws his battle-axe aside, wiping Selinda’s brain bits from his flowing locks. The resolve of victory steams his loins. Then, it happens.

Gardon, Protector of Arzagugoroth, smashes in the Temple door, sends it skidding and slipping into the abysmal Pit.

Another strand pops. Vhonea’s body inches down. She yelps.    

But why, thinks Blorthox, has Gardon chosen to appear here at the Owldoom Temple at this, the moment of my epic devotion to Vhonea?

And Gardon, bone sword unsheathed, stammers for words, grunts, readies himself for murder.

There is a silence deeper than the wisdom of Squalchor the Squandering Magus.

Vhonea jolts down another notch.

One thread remains.

Blorthox dashes to the wheel, wrenches at it with the strength of an undead battalion of pig witches.     

“You shouldn’t be here, Gardon,” he says.

“For the love and hand of Vhonea am I here, Blorthox. She has used the spell of love's cry, summoned me to—”

A Lir-taught laser-stream shoots from the electrified eyes of Blorthox to his axe. The stream hits, coating the weapon in sheer white. The battle-axe shoots off the floor, and sails straight into Gardon’s juicy guts. He grunts. Blood cascades. Final thoughts: Oblivion.

Blorthox howls. It obliterates Gardon’s body, raining down gouts of blood, bone, and gore, a summer rain, smothering the room in sloppy red chunks.

“How many times have I told you?” he says, “you will never leave me, Vhonea. Not for an army of undead leeches, a horde of bloodthirsty Arghs, and especially not for an unworthy son-of-a-corpse like Gardon the Saboteur, here.”

With that, he wrenches the wheel, sending Vhonea flying out of the pit. Her body flops limp in the corner.

 “Our love has miles to go.” 

SEVEN VARIATIONS ON THE RAPTURE by Nigel Anthony Sellars

The Rapture first occurred on a Monday. On Tuesday, people noticed all the Jews—reform, conservative, and orthodox alike—had vanished.

The Rapture re-occurred on a Tuesday.  Wednesday, all the world’s Muslims had disappeared.

The Rapture occurred a third time on a Wednesday.  By Thursday no one could locate the freethinkers and atheists.

The Rapture occurred again on Thursday.  By Friday, not a single dog remained on Earth.

On Friday, the Rapture took all the non-human primates.  Saturday the dolphins were nowhere to be found.

Sunday, the faithful fearfully gathered in their places of worship.  A massive solar flare took eight minutes to reach the earth.  No one was saved. 

The aliens knew the earth would be uninhabitable for several centuries.  It would take that long to find a new home for those they had collected.  They remained confident, however, that they had preserved the only other intelligent beings in the universe.  Was it worth the effort?  Only time would tell, and it wasn’t talking.

HEAT WAVE by Nigel Anthony Sellars

The fat man struggled.  The desert air rippled.  His dogs barked when at last he pitched forward and died.  They licked their black lips.  At least they would not starve.

SPLASH FICTION by John H. Dromey

“How was your date with the mermaid?”

“It was a full-scale disaster from beginning to end. She had anchovy breath, her dishpan hands went clear up to her shoulders, she had to be carried everywhere we went, and her dorsal fin was downright dangerous.”

Henry held up a bandaged finger.

Burt shook his head. “Rosalie works in an aquatic show on the Vegas strip and that’s a long, long way from the ocean. You know she’s not a real mermaid, don’t you?”

“Try telling her that. She showed up in full costume and stayed in character all night long.”

“So?”

“So, the only place we could get into was a topless bar. She drank like a fish, ran up a huge bar bill, and then she wouldn’t go back to my hotel room with me.”

“Why not? Did she say you weren’t her type?”

“No, she claimed to have a headache of Titanic proportions, but I didn’t believe her.”

“Why not?”

“She may have had a headache, but not for the reason she gave me.”

“Which was?”

“She told me she was doing a front crawl without paying attention to where she was going and accidentally collided with an iceberg.”

RESPECT YOUR ELDERS Linda M. Crate

The house creaked with annoyance. No one had lived in him for several years. His floorboards were almost rotten straight through, and teenagers always wanted to spend nights in him for they seemed under the false impression that he was haunted or there were some vampire locked in one of his closets. This wasn’t too bad, the teenagers he really hated were the ones that threw rocks through his windows or the ones that thought it was necessary to rip siding off of him.

He didn’t think they would like it if someone tore their precious flesh from their limbs!

There were vines growing through some of his floorboards, their were frogs in the kitchen sink, and raccoons in the bathtub. The kitchen table was full of half-empty tea cups littered with dandelion embryos and tadpoles.

His gardens were overgrown with thistles and thorns. He really wished that Mrs. Handiskill hadn’t died. She had been the only one that cared for him, truly. She had always trimmed the shrubs, replaced his siding, and painted the house. She had been a very kind woman, but she was an elderly lady that had passed on in her sleep.

After her death no one bothered coming inside — as if he held some curse.

Now he was just the laughing stock of the village. A relic of times past that no one would rip down for they enjoyed the memories, but none of them wanted to take in his musty smell. Even the teenagers that dwelled in his chambers for a night complained that he stank of something awful. It wasn’t as if he could give himself a bath or shower like they could!

One night when the owls were unmercifully loud and the humans were incessantly nagging, he found himself losing his temper completely.

A human had thrown several stones breaking four of his eyes. He hadn’t appreciated the ribbons of glass that obliterated his oak epicenter. The boy proceeded to be unruly, shattering more glass in other rooms. It was then that the house made his move.

The boy didn’t even see the wooden tongue that shot out until it was too late. He jerked and struggled, but the old house was stronger than he looked. He burped, ignoring the boy’s screams. Yes, this was the only way to deal with irreverent hooligans.