Edition 2 - April 2023

Nov 05, 2023

green and purple abstract painting — Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

The April 2023 edition is the first one to feature stories from our open call for submissions. The theme was Vision and we were delighted to read so many different takes on this. The stories we have selected are ones that touched us, delighted us with strong and unique imagery and ideas, had characters we felt a connection with, and ones that felt like they had a strong heartbeat running through them, a soul.

We live in complicated times where division is rife and what shines through in these stories is that, despite what may be going on around us, human hearts will always find a way to connect with each other. That love in some form will always find a way. There’s humour and heartbreak, magic and motherhood, rainbows and clouds. And we are delighted to be able to bring you these eleven fantastic stories.

Amanda Saint

Editor

Uncle Dave Fell Through a Rainbow

November 5, 2023

He tells me this from his hospital bed. ‘How?’ I ask. ‘Jumped,’ he rasps. ‘Climbed up onto the roof and went for it.’ He lives in a four-storey block of grey flats. I suppose he’d have to jump from somewhere high to reach a rainbow. He describes the hot hit of red with its sharp, metallic tang; the zestiness of orange; the …

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Baggage

November 5, 2023

They take the bag lady to the ER. Clipped by a Honda while pushing her shopping cart across the street. The EMS guys grimaced at the smell as they cut through layer after layer of clothing, like she was a strong onion. A last layer of thermals seeming attached to her skin, brown as her.

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Marie Curie can still see right through you

November 5, 2023

The airport security guard pokes my tub of hair wax with the tip of his fingernail. “This needs to be in a bag.” ‘It’s not a liquid.’ I square my shoulders. ‘All liquids in a bag, Ma’am.’ He’s twenty-something, jaw rough with bristles. Name tag says Darren Jackson.

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The Scent of Stifled Colour

November 5, 2023

Naida slipped out through the night’s anonymous solace. She wore black to stifle the sensation of colour, loose clothing that deflected attention and hung off her slight frame. By night, boisterous reds and jangling oranges could not rise to overwhelm her. No sunlight could glance off metal to strike her eyes, and the sea could not dazzle like a glaring…

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The Prince and the Leprechaun

November 5, 2023

In my pursuit of the perfect tree, I met a leprechaun who was kind enough to disabuse me of the faulty notion that the colours of the rainbow were arranged by some physical law that divides white light by its hidden seams. ‘The divisions, your highness,’ he explained, his tiny bronze pipe clicking in his teeth, ‘are emotional: Red, the color of love and …

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Three Visitors on Their Way to a Visitation

November 5, 2023

After they were summoned they met around a firepit, as was Custom, four figures in boots, overcoats and scarfs, robed and wrapped in layers of fabric, though the fire was roaring and of course they had no fear of cold or need for warmth. It was unclear yet who had summoned them, or for what purpose—for whom. They began with the stories of their deaths. G…

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Did You See?

November 5, 2023

Did you see the lad who lost his job then his flat and started sleeping under Mason’s Bridge, nice bloke they said, people would stop by, pass a word or two, leave a coin; then a lass crept into the other corner, purple eyes low, downturned corners of a split lip, scared of the shadows and the light – he gave her his only blanket one night to stop the c…

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Take What You Love Inside

November 5, 2023

It’s becoming harder to breathe. So many times in her life she’s felt this body to be a prison, but none more than now. It holds her tight and closed, pinned to the rough grey cotton of the bedsheets, far from her daughter and her grandson, and she both curses it for failing her and loves it for all it has given her. How can she leave? How can she bear …

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Yarn Theory

November 5, 2023

It was like a glitch in the wotsit. Matrix. I thought my eyes were going. I was in a foul mood that day. I’d asked Kate if she wanted me with her for the birth, and she’d said No. I’d hung up in a huff. Again. The booties I was knitting looked like tea-cosies for dildos. And the girls at work had been cooing “Grandma soon!” till my grin-lines set like ce…

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All My Life I’ve Had to Borrow Eyes

November 5, 2023

Nobody noticed at first. A newborn is always held, or asleep. Even a toddler is rarely not touching somebody. And how was I to know that everybody else got their own view of the world, one where they were at the centre, looking out? I started life mainly looking at myself, as I explored and discovered my surroundi…

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In the Shadow of Cloud Nine

November 5, 2023

Lying in the grass, love-sated and pollen-doped, she shades her eyes against the morning sun and points to a towering white cumulus. ‘I would like to live with you in that castle,’ she says. ‘It’s a fortress. There’s no way in,’ he says. ‘You could make one,’ she replies.

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