Category: Haunted Passages

“Every Theatre Has a Ghost,” a poem for Haunted Passages by Heather Lang-Cassera

—for a former Siegfried & Roy stagehand You were the one to cut the illusionist himself in half with your followspot; to light him at low level; to hold the cable with perfect tension in the dark, before the shift in zenith, and then coil quickly hand over hand; to walk past mirrors, O, such…
Cindy Savett: Three Haunted Passages Poems

Rachel and Mother Speak Their Lines Clay Mother,drop down through me darkly, lash my winds toyour breast, swaddle my singed urge forendlessness, Blind Mother who stumbles over my ransomed pulse. Rachel, I stagger through trembling grades of your silence,weave torn time with your spent breath; stay etched, child, on my yellow-edge days. Sky Daughter, you…
Haunted Passages: “Booger Hill,” a short story by Christy Crutchfield

Tess is Eve under her coat. She made the costume last year, three felt leaves sewn strategically onto a tan bodysuit. She’s just come home from the grocery store, but I nudge her back into the car. “Where are we going?” she says. I put a bottle of wine in one cup holder, a bag…
“Static Pressure,” a flash fiction for Haunted Passages by Cooper Shrivastava

I am 612 feet below the surface, and I am furious. Eric is connected to my dive belt by an 8-foot rope. When I look in that direction, I feel myself getting angry again and I purposefully let it go. At these depths, an increase in heart rate and breathing means increasing my risk of…
“Leap of Faith,” an ekphrastic short fiction for Haunted Passages by Mark Blickley

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Leap of Faith I’m a dead frog and I don’t say this with any pity or understanding or shame, it’s just an observation that people seem to like us, like us a bit too much because they like to push hooks through our jaws and cast us…
“Cobweb Lake”: A Short Story for Haunted Passages by Hernán Ortiz

My friend and I were skipping stones near the bodies that floated on the surface. We imagined that if the ripples touched them a hundred times, the bodies would wake up. But if the stones touched them instead, they would stay asleep forever. Most were thin stones we collected among the undergrowth that surrounded the…
John-Michael Bloomquist: Four Father Nescio Poems for Haunted Passages

Father Nescio and the God Pill—after Carl Sagan When the machines grew all our foodand drink, there was no need to workor study. We lived like passengersin a self-driving car traveling without adestination. When Christ, grieved over ourrestlessness, came back into our lives,she gave us Theophorin, a gel capsule of slicknanotech-spiders that wove us into…
Su Nadeau: “Juniper,” a short story for Haunted Passages

The twelve-thirteen train derailed on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. It was the only one that passed through this way. This meant Lupon and Wren devoted their time to clearing the wreckage so each train had the opportunity to wreck on its own. A quarter after noon on Saturday the train was heard before it was…
Amanda Chiado: “A Pretty Girl’s Hair,” a short story for Haunted Passages

“Where’s mama?” Bobby asks. “She went to the moon,” Dad says. He sucks hard on a Marlboro. Most of the smoke escapes out the window. I think of Mom drifting in a silvery spacesuit toward the strange botched face of the white orb. We three stare out the windows. Journey is Believing on a half-static…