The sky is a deep, brooding red, as if the heavens themselves had been scorched by the flames that raged below. Smoke billows in thick, acrid plumes, curling around the remains of once-proud buildings reduced to skeletal shells by the relentless bombardment. The air is thick with the scent of burning fuel, melting metal, and […]
It’s the first Tuesday of September, so here I am at your doorstep with this month’s supplies—mostly food and books, as usual. When you open the door, it’s like I’m looking at an old photo, you and the hallway tinged a sentimental amber by the redshift of the decades between us. “Thanks for bringing all […]
The man’s nails dig into my skin, leaving angry red crescents alongside the needle marks in my arms. My feet are folded under me, scraping against the floor as he drags me forward. The man is over six feet tall with a shaved head and stubble on his face, and he reeks of cigarettes. He […]
Right after his bath, she dries him and then gets a Q-tip so there’s wax in his ear canal to stop her, Sophie, a brown recluse spider, as she climbs down his left ear because he sleeps on his right. Sophie finds his ear canal much warmer than the cardboard in the basement, and it’s […]