Flash Showcase: Telescope by Joe Howsin

Eyes open, fists clenched; teeth grinding, limbs limp; a shape, a shift; a whimper, a cry; a scream. This is how I wake up each morning. With routine, the terror I feel towards the shadow in the corner has dulled. No longer sharp, it is merely an ache. Yet still, each morning, I scream.

These days I don’t know why I get up at all. There is no job to go to, no friends to see. Maybe it’s for the coffee, or to escape the shadow.

Have you ever sat completely still because to move would be to hurl yourself into a rage? My blood thickens, lapping in viscus waves against straining eardrums. Electricity arcs across my muscles and burns me from the inside out. I twitch and jitter, shaking the cupboards, rattling plates, smashing a mug. I sink to my knees and collect the shattered rabbits lying in pieces on the kitchen floor. Their blood is thin and watery: a light brown fluid smelling faintly of earth and milk. I cry in shuddering tides over ceramic wildlife as the electricity continues to burn.

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January 2, 2022 0

Flash: Colour Bleeds Out/Only Birds by C.R. Dudley

Colour bleeds out, sounds wind down. Muffled, blind. Straight lines, thick and thin, washed in white and grey. It is winter here. Gentle snowflakes fall, though they strike as something sinister. Am I the only one conscious, the only one not a golem made of meat? Playing pieces for cruel gods. This pawn has slipped through the gaps, into the liminal. I call out, and I see my words, my breath, in emanating waves. Mirrored in the puddle surface a boot hovers above, paralysed by my downcast thoughts. Happily it would have splashed, a small pleasure on the way to work. But now all of that is tainted, and we see, the boot and I, what really lies beneath.

Whole buildings erased, replaced by sea. Wave after wave of attempted communication washes away the humanity stored in my flesh, strips me to my cartilage and cleans it thoroughly. Now I match the snow, barely seen at all and becoming flatter all the time. A whisper on a slate of white noise. No pavement below me, no sky above. Only birds, angry that they are suddenly no more than ink blots on a damaged canvas, furious that the screeches they thought they owned have been supplanted in an instant by silence. In the absence of direction, of anything else at all, they gather to peck at my bones, and I am glad.

C.R. Dudley is author of metaphysical science fiction collections Fragments of Perception and Mind in the Gap. She is also a visual artist and mind explorer, fascinated by the human condition and the inner worlds we create. She considers every project to be part of one continuous artwork. You can follow her blog here.

She is also owner and editor here at Orchid’s Lantern press.

September 9, 2021 0

Moon to my Waves

I sit downstairs in a lonely, low-lit bar, nursing a double whisky on the rocks. A damp smell oozes from ageing posters of Frank Zappa and The Rolling Stones, and my feet are sticking to the floor. I’ve put Real Love by Swans on the jukebox. I don’t hear the lyrics, but its sombre tone is the moon to my waves. They rise up in my throat – salty lithium water – and the bartender looks concerned. Inside, there’s a trickster laughing at me, smothering me. See, I can’t even enjoy my last drink without being a bother to someone. I down the whisky, though it is but a homeopathic remedy in the sea that drowns me. I feel for the knife in my coat pocket and head for the bathroom. I’m ready.

***

It’s 3 am. The stereo is loud and my eyes are shining wildly in the moonlight. Real Love comes on at random and I pause at the top of my ladder. I have a paintbrush in one hand, a pot in the other, and a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. There’s a distant pang of recognition at the song, like the flinching of a deadwood puppet in my mind. I let it play through, not because it fits my mood but because it’s a fleeting pleasure to mimic my other self. I glance at the scar we share on our left wrist, and I think of him sitting in the dark, sinking into the ground. The poor shit couldn’t see colour for all the pity and spite. I should look after him better next time. Then again, it’s entertaining as a replay. I toss my head back in laughter, and a faint voice tells me I should be careful, I’m toppling. But then the track flips over to Super Charger Heaven and I go back to making the grey walls blue.

*****

For more of my flash fiction, check out my book Fragments of Perception: out now in paperback and e-book.

On 20th February I will be attending the Virtual Future ‘Near-Future Fictions’ event in London, where my brand new story Toxic Duck Inc will be read to a live audience. Tickets are available here.

February 19, 2018 3

Hiding Habit

I’ve always had a habit of hiding. Hiding from their stares, from their words; from their judgement. It’s like being suspended in a space outside time, as though he who is not observed does not exist. I’ve always been good at it, too. As I child, I would sometimes stay hidden for hours at a time – in the cupboard under the stairs, in a hole in the ground, or high up in a tree – long after the seekers had given up.

It was after my first Valentine’s Day blunder that I learned how to step up my game. Shame expanded inside of me, making my skin puffy and red, yet strangely pliable. I wrung my hands together and squeezed water from my eyes, and in doing so I became smaller. I hid in my locker at school all day. Its darkness and cold metal edges held me tighter than anything I’d hid in before. I never wanted to leave.

I soon developed the ability to make neat little folds in my skin during such times. I’d practice pouring out the tears every evening until I was completely dry, which is necessary for the folding. It’s a bit like forcing the air out of an air bed to put it back in its box. I began hiding in smaller and smaller places, pushing myself further outside of time with each attempt. There was the cutlery drawer, I remember. Then the pencil case, and the teapot. Snuggly snuggly.

Now, several years later, I am in the midst of my most successful hide yet. I’m scrunched up in a Japanese puzzle box: one inch by two, 36 moves to solve. I’ve never felt so secure, which is probably why I’m able to write all of this down. But, although I feel secure, there is a tiny part of me – just one little fold somewhere near my heart – that hopes someone will come and find me. A puzzle-master in shining armor, perhaps. But no one ever does.

***

For more of my flash fiction, check out my book Fragments of Perception – out now as an e-book and paperback.

On 20th February I will be attending the fourth Virtual Futures ‘Near-Future Fictions’ Event in London, where my new story ‘Toxic Duck Inc’ will be read to a live audience. Tickets are available here.

February 14, 2018 24

State of the Heart

My heart beats hard inside its wet wrapping. Colours emerge; pink, red, and splashes of emerald green, but they are muted by those who behold them.

My heart sings in strange wave formations that would describe the nature of the quantum in no uncertain terms, could it only escape this plastic sheeting. Instead, these waves are refracted. They are thrust in all directions in dissonance, like the sound of an untuned piano key played over and over; a crude backing track to the stark wails of the human throat.

My heart rages. You may call it love, which is something akin to approaching a bear for a cute photo while it is growling out a warning. It wants to be free, not confined, and to love is to be attached.

My heart whimpers softly in the night, and I hear it in my dreams. But, instead of letting it loose to soar, I slay it anew each morning with my open eyelids and the offensive filter of ego that daylight brings. It makes distant, distorted cries as I bag it up, and I interpret it as the fluttering joy of life.

Words like ‘poor’ or thriving’ are not adequate in describing the state of the heart, for they suit only things a mind can judge. Still, whenever the question comes: how are you; how is your heart today? I use a word with even less importance, as though it were not even worth the effort of description: “OK,” I say. Because it is OK – isn’t it? Everything is surely OK.

*****

Have you ever wondered how future technology will affect the human psyche? What defines the line between imagination and reality? Whether it is possible to find spirituality in science? Check out my new book, Fragments of Perception, for 36 quirky, bite-sized stories to make you contemplate!

January 7, 2018 23

The Holly King’s Apprentice: First Frost

If you haven’t read them yet, you might like to catch up with The Holly King’s Apprentice Part 1 and Part 2.

For 6 whole days I practiced reaching the realm of Ain Soph without the Holly King’s aid. I was utterly preoccupied with the strange task that had been set for me; so much so that I did very little else. It was difficult at first, because I hadn’t a clue where to start, but with practice I found a method that worked.

The terrifying, foreboding doom that characterised my depression was like a shadow on the peripheries of my vision. I could never quite catch a glimpse of it, but if I approached with stillness of mind instead of chaotic thought and panic, it wasn’t nearly so elusive. So, I began to teach myself to shut down the offending thoughts at their root. It was as though some other part of me was persuading them to be discrete; convincing them it was a matter of life and death. It was like telling a child to stay quiet in the closet to hide from an intruder. Continue reading “The Holly King’s Apprentice: First Frost” →

December 8, 2017 8

The Holly King’s Apprentice: Ain Soph

This is part two of a story that began here.

The thoughts of sadness remained at bay for a couple of days. I did some shopping, painted some pictures, and saw my friend, Fred. I decided not to mention my strange new therapist to him, though the autumn leaf pendant he had gifted me tingled around my neck.

Then, on the third day, the freight train of shadows I’d been expecting hit me hard in the face. I became sure it didn’t matter if I was alive or dead, and since every little task suddenly required energy I no longer had, thoughts of the latter were never far from my mind.

I felt trapped by suffering because it was in everything. I longed for some peace: to be some place where my brain wasn’t revving in mud. This is temporary, I reminded myself, it’s the time of year. I did some activities that have helped in the past: I showered, took a walk, listened to some eighties synth pop. I called Fred but he didn’t answer, so I left him a silent voicemail. You can do all of these things though, and somehow every episode of depression still feels like an unprecedented depth. It becomes harder and harder to believe it will pass, despite experience being on your side.

Continue reading “The Holly King’s Apprentice: Ain Soph” →

December 1, 2017 6

The Holly King’s Apprentice: Therapy

Feeling depressed? Take a ticket for free therapy.

I’d been staring at the notice board outside the bus station for several minutes deciding whether or not to take one. October was always a difficult time for my mental health, and over the past few days I had begun to feel overwhelmed and beaten. I knew where I was headed, but did I need therapy? And was free therapy a little too good to be true? After all, there was no reference to the provider anywhere on the poster.

I felt the wind blow hard on my cheek, and it pushed me into making a decision. I tore off a ticket. I cursed under my breath though, when I saw what I thought was a phone number was actually just a set of symbols and of no use to me whatsoever.

Across the road was a row of trees on the edge of the park, and to my surprise as I looked around for the nearest waste paper bin, I witnessed the farthest changing from green to orange. The one beside it followed suit; then the next and the next as though something were moving through them. Their leaves began to fall right in front of my eyes, then dried out and turned to brown. A gust of wind nudged at them and made them rustle, and they were tossed right over to my feet, at which point they stopped dead. I shuddered.

“Come on then, follow me.” I spun around to see the owner of the deep voice and my eyes widened. There was a man standing seven feet tall, with long black hair, a fur trench coat and heavy biker boots. His jeans were ripped in several places and in one hand he carried a great sword. His presence made me feel as though my insides were turning as rotten as the leaves. I looked frantically around me but none of the passers by seemed to notice this otherworldly stranger towering above me. Running away seemed sensible but also not a realistic option, so I just stood there like a rabbit staring into headlights.

“Don’t look so shocked, you took one of my tickets didn’t you?”

Continue reading “The Holly King’s Apprentice: Therapy” →

October 23, 2017 19

Rock Bottom

I lay in the tub scrubbing away all meaning with a flannel and letting the warm water dissolve my worries. So many layers of unnecessary complication are hard on the soul. Surely there comes a time when we tire of it and simply let it all go?

There’s a knock at the bathroom door. I rise from my mountain of bubbles straight away, and open the lock before I’ve even thought of putting a towel around me.

It’s him! He looks different now, but then it has been twenty years. He still wears black but for the white scarf around his neck, and he still has dark shoulder length hair though now it is speckled with grey. With longing I look into his eyes – just two dark and endless craters, pulling me in and taking me beyond.

“I have made my decision,” he croaks. “I want to be with you always. Come with me and stay by my side?”

Hearing the words I have longed for all these years makes me instantly weak, as though I’m melting from the inside.

“That is all I ever wanted,” I say, falling into his arms. “I accept.”

He is cold and expressionless, but I don’t care. I know that he hasn’t reached his decision lightly, and I know that he really means it. I know this is how my myth ends. And so I let out all the water. I watch it swirling and glugging away down the plug hole. Then, with his hand to steady me, I climb back into the empty bathtub to lay down and close my eyes. The very next time I fall asleep must be the last.

October 16, 2017 12

Intercampus

Has a sound ever held you, that won’t let you go? A sound whose waves have become enmeshed with yours so that you are, for all intents and purposes, inseparable?

This broken old shed made such a sound available to me, and now I am part of it. It’s like a distant organ surrounded by static. It’s like the low growl that is the nature of man beneath all of his fancy delusions.

When people visit they become scared because they detect my presence. I make their hairs stand on end and their stomachs prepare for flight. They see the bones of rabbits and birds, and their eyes become glassy like my collection of shards. Although they look right at me, they see only the wall I lean against.

I suspect that my atoms have collapsed in on themselves with no one here to observe them; their charges disintegrating away from organic form and out into this place they say is haunted. I have become tiny orbs of light; I have become dust.

The string of events that follows is all that I remember of the day I came to this place.

Continue reading “Intercampus” →

September 22, 2017 11