Tag: Fiction

“Widower,” a Haunted Passages Short Story by X. Luma

One spring afternoon, while Widower was gathering lettuce from the garden, his daughter Lew called out from her siblings nearby. “Dad, I’m tired of playing in the grass.” “Well?” “Couldn’t I play in the woods?” Widower eyed the woods. “You may. But take this head of lettuce.” “Lettuce?” “Lay the leaves as you go to…
Steve Gergely: “VanLife,” a flash fiction for Bad Survivalist

For the past two weeks I’ve been living out of my van. It’s not a lifestyle for everyone, but at this juncture of my life, it was the best move for me. I mean, I’m twenty-two, soon to be twenty-three, so I can’t be living with my parents anymore. With one kid in preschool and…
Flash Fiction for Haunted Passages: “Preserved From Decay and Endued with Immortality” by Andy Spain

We buried Uncle Charles way out back, beyond the orchard, a good two acres from the property line. We picked his bones clean and criss-crossed them end over end in a log cabin of sorts, like building a campfire. The leftover scraps of flesh and sinewy bits we burned in the center, praying that his…
Robert Scotellaro: “A Sky Full of Crickets,” flash fiction triptych for Bad Survivalist

Hatching They are strapped in their upside-down car for hours before the firemen, slicing through metal, free them. The deer comes out of nowhere and when Clyde swerves the car flips. The airbags release, with a moments harsh embrace, then deflate. When Arleen says: “Fuck!” in a tone familiar to him he is finally able to…
The Future: “Wellness in the Workplace: A Professional Development Series,” fiction by Dolan Morgan

Series Overview How can the organization best build capacity and develop tools to avoid burnout and respond with confidence to a variety of contemporary professional circumstances, especially repeated on-the-job stabbings? This four-part series of weekly 90-minute professional development sessions will answer this question and more. Together, we will introduce numerous instructive scenarios, explore and rehearse…
“Electrolysis,” a Bad Survivalist Short Short by Roger D’Agostin

The follicles didn’t know why they were slathered in foam, but 17 said, “Don’t complain, this is the longest we’ve been.” Follicle 1 goose bumped, then quickly regained her composure. “Let’s not discuss the past.” The others knew that Follicle 1, being the first, had suffered the most. Plucks. Wax. Bleaching. But this foam, it felt good. Still, Follicle 1 hoped…
Flash Fiction: “Going In” by Kim Farleigh

“I was able,” James said, “to ignore it until yesterday; but last night, it was just impossible.” Sitting on his bed’s edge, he shook his head. I was lying on another bed, my head on a pillow, his head slowly shaking. A ceiling light turned our room’s window black. A vehicle’s drone outside rose then…
A Story from The Future: Leland Cheuk’s “Frontliners”

I shuddered after Rebecca said she’d ordered takeout and toilet paper again. I was getting nowhere with my intramarital campaign for self-sufficiency during the global pandemics. No android dependency! I get why the Feds and L—, Inc. teamed up to deploy legions of androids to do deliveries and frontline tasks so we could all stay…
Saturday Morning Chapbook: Chase Burke’s Lecture (Paper Nautilus) reviewed by Nick Almeida

Chase Burke’s stunning chapbook Lecture (Paper Nautilus Press) is filled with tumbledown geniuses. Armor is a recurrent image, and penmanship hurts. These narrators are, as you perhaps guessed, vulnerable in the way a good teacher might be. Okay, good may be the wrong word. These are the swept-up sort of lecturers, their pockets filled with…