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Fiction

For All Your Other Daughters

Western texts date the discovery of vagina dentata to 1800 BCE, to the Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus, the oldest medical text in the world. Misalignment of the lower jaw is detailed, for which regular application of date oil is recommended.

Fiction

Bête Noire

Tuesday, June 7, 2022 14:02 GMT. There is movement on the pathway for the first time in 113 days, six hours, four minutes, and five seconds. My motion sensitive cameras flicker on. I see Maker. Maker is not alone.

Fiction

The Curse of the Boto Boy

Even before my son was born, my village had made of me a black sheep. When I was young, I would slither between the grasp of the Elders and flitter into the jungle unabated. I would storm past the hills of fire ants to leap atop the trunks of fallen trees before catching ahold of a veritable vine like some kind of red-assed macaco.

Fiction

The Cello in the Cell

Dear Andy: The day I was arrested, someone bought the winning Powerball lottery ticket that was worth 1.2 billion dollars. I remember dreaming what I would have done if I had won. You might not believe me, but I’m being serious here.

Fiction

The Sound of Children Screaming

You know the one about the Gun. The Gun goes where it wants to. On Thursday morning just after recess, the Gun will walk through the front doors of Thurman Elementary, and it won’t sign in at the front office or wear a visitor’s badge.

Fiction

The Ascension of Magdalene

It felt a little like fucking. Reminded Magdalene of the first time she’d ever let a boy get a hand up her skirt, long before Ben but he didn’t know that, she wore white on her wedding day. Couldn’t even remember his name, that boy, just that he’d died in The War.

Fiction

Nightmare of a Million Faces

When the sun plunged beneath the horizon, the striations of red clouds looked like gashes raked across the sky; flayed wounds ready to rain blood on a thirsty desert. Anastasia Mendez offered her left forearm a glance. The lacerations crisscrossing her skin had mended.

Fiction

The Girls That Follow

When he tells me to feed her, I do. And I do despite her cries, and despite the rattle of her chains echoing through the basement. The basement of the old house that once belonged to his father before I pointed a hunting rifle at his face and pulled the trigger.

Fiction

Oyili

Kachi stroked the yellow python-eye hidden between the cheeks of his buttocks with a distracted finger. The familiar round smoothness of the hard orb calmed his mind as he stared dispassionately at the mangled corpse sprawled at his tiny, blood-coated feet.

Fiction

First in Fear and Then in Pain

I wouldn’t describe it as waking up. If you’ve been in a car accident, you know the violence. One moment, your life feels the size of your body, muscular years of loves and hurts wrapped around a thousand calcified tasks, a routine that bears you up even on the mornings when nothing makes sense. Then your days break open with the sound of rupturing metal. You splinter like a windshield. It’s an awakening, of sorts, but it’s not like waking up.

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