Buy me a Coffee

Air hitches in the child’s stomach. Breath pushed past bluish lips, blossoms of bruises along yellow flesh. I’m not a doctor, but I’ve bumped this broom down hospital halls long enough to recognize impending death.

Dog bite, they say. I see no punctures. The mother’s worry clogs the atmosphere, clings to the curtain. Father too looks worried, but his is furtive, self-aligned. I know his demeanor, spot his thick knuckles.

The police will come bearing fickle justice. I edge my broom close, plunging pills into his steaming coffee. My judgment, swift and sure, if only it could be sooner.

Share

Buy me a Coffee

She has wax on her fingers. Milky white cocoons that protect her touch. She likes the barrier, feels soiled when it’s stripped away.

Jeremy slumps on the couch beside her, gaze fixed to the flame of a weeping candle.. His eyes have the glazed look of one bong hit too many. His skin only a little less stained than the sofa beneath him. Alex hopes he has forgotten her. She keeps hers feet close to her body so she won’t have to touch him again. He coughs and she jumps at the sudden bark.

“Pack me another bowl?” she asks, voice floating in the haze of the room.

His brows pinch and he glares at the shrinking pile of green, haphazard on the table.

“You gotta cook dinner.” he says, moving nothing but his lips.

The two stare straight ahead, ponder the contracts signed in convenience, with sweat and spit and easy words.

Alex sighs, sits up, shucks the wax from her fingertips.

“Pork chops?”

“Yup.” He replies, hauling himself slowly forward to fix her another puff.

Share

Buy me a Coffee

The clock, from it’s spot on the wall had dutifully kept count for as long as the girl could remember. Then, without slowing, without warning, it stopped. A great tick, and where the tock should have followed, nothing…

The sound of her breath filled the quiet room. A ragged noise, unlike the former click of the clock. For a moment, she wondered if time itself had stopped. She watched her skin for signs of aging, pictured her grandmother caught mid-cough, forever neither living nor dying. A worm of feeling flipped in her belly. Panic or joy?

From somewhere, beyond the walls, a dog barked. The girl sighed. Time would march on whether she counted or not.

Share

Buy me a Coffee

Mom has her head full, or snootfull as she says. She brays like a goat with “Uncle” Tom clinging close.

She hasn’t made dinner. I stand in the glare of the refrigerator light. I should be in bed. Grade eight is an important year, but I won’t go tomorrow. I bypass cold pizza, sneak a beer, slip it up my shirt. Not that I need to. They are dancing, nuzzling each others necks.

I head outside into dimming orange light, set my beer in the grass, kick my soccer ball, yearning to be a kid for just one more night.

Share

Buy me a Coffee

She rolled butter onto pastry. Layer by layer. Floured sleeves pushed up to pillowy elbows. Face tight.

Fold and chill. Layer again. Rolling pin playing a rough cadence. She knew the steps, the temperatures, when to sprinkle sugar to get a crust.

My homework she waved away. Puffs of flour floating from her red-raw hands. She didn’t know graphs, or boys, or what to do with a dead dog. Croissants were simple, just follow the steps while daughters spread like weeds.

We hadn’t talked in years when she died. She left only a recipe and an apron two-sizes too big

Share

Buy me a Coffee

Cool water swirled around Lisa’s ankles. She felt alive, remembering Darren. For weeks, she had replayed that final fling. All day swimming, seaweed clinging to fevered bodies. Salt and sweetness by night. At dawn, he vanished, leaving only sickness. Tonight, the water draws her. She feels pain erupt as water envelops.

The horsehair worm is a curious creature. In stillness it appears innocent, lost hair, dropped noodle, but the truth is terrifying. Eggs swallowed in a stream burst forth when returned to water. Usually, carriers are small creatures, but some grow to a startling six feet long. They require a bigger host.

Share

Buy Me a Coffee

Myra stared at her phone. Not watching reels, or scrolling, just staring. Fingers like a talon, black screen reflecting her anxious expression.

Cancer, she was sure. The doctor would call and say sorry, young lady in that mocking tone reserved for almost-old ladies, that gripe in your belly is rot clear through.

She would quit work, finally. Brian would have to take care of himself. Maybe a maid, she would be too sick for housework.

Myra jumped when the phone rang. She listened, nodded, thank-youed and hung up. A tear slid down her cheek. No sickness, back to work tomorrow.

Share

Everything dips. Whoosh, tip, whirl, muffle.

I can feel the paramedics hands. Jab, grab, cold.

They tilt back my head, vapor in my nose. It won’t work this time. They think it’s drugs, but I can’t blame them. We have played this game before. I should carry insulin, or at the very least an alert bracelet. My consciousness blackens as they lift me into the ambulance.

Beeps, voices, astringent smells.

I float in between. The hospital bustles while I fade in and out. I hear voices, my name. I struggle to open my eyes.

“Jason Velstain, blood pressure low… Temperature…”

A skipping record, shutter, jump. I try to piece it together.

“Multiple drug overdoses… yeah narcan.. Blood sugar”

Blood sugar, yes. Hands cold and rough jostle me. I want to tell them I’m awake but the world is too heavy.

“Organ donor..”

“These addicts… others would appreciate..”

“We couldn’t…”

“Happens all the time.”

Wait! I try to move. Did I moan? They don’t seem to listen, and the words I catch can’t be real. I have hallucinated before. Wake up, wake up, move, scream, please.

“Just walk away.”

The lights go out. I hear the whoosh of the door, a breeze on my sweaty, clammy skin. The voices fade.

I can’t move.

Fear, panic, followed by final darkness…

Share

Buy me a Coffee

Dad says I’m too old for a nightlight, but mom packs it anyway. She knows my bi-weekly forays are scary, new sounds, and little sleep. I plug it in after he says goodnight and hide it before he wakes.

Tonight it’s missing. Tears bite my eyes as I unpack. Dad is watching. He’ll call me a baby if he sees. I say nothing.

Tucked in bed, I toss and fret. Fear like bubbles, shame like cement. His steps pause outside my door. For the first time, the hall light comes on and stays on. I fall asleep, safe and warm

Share

.

Buy me a Coffee

He wondered through the house tasting it’s silence. The hum of the fan, the buzz of the refrigerator, quiet things he typically ignored. He stared at her chair. The imprint of her ass, lumpy and faded, threads wore bare.

He scrubbed a hand through his thinning, graying hair. Inside he felt a great yawning, an opening. He could cook his own dinner. He hadn’t done that in what? 30 years. Liver, nice and greasy with bacon. Eat in his underwear.

He heard the front door open.

“Henry?”

His shoulders slumped forward.

“In here, when are you cooking dinner?” he called.

Share

Buy me a Coffee

She watched him over the top of her coffee cup. His profile still sharp, threads of gray trickling from his ageing thoughts. He was paunchier than last she had looked, with a spider web springing from his eyes to tangle his lips into a frown. She wondered if she shook him, the dust would slough off and they could dance again like the days long fallen.

She reached for him, brushed the fur of his arms, he kept walking, She longed for feeling of growing but shrank a little instead. She sighed and thought of another today, another tomorrow, instead.

Subscribe now

Buy me a Coffee

The fleas settle close to my skin, black bellies distended from gorging my blood. I’ve grown too tired to prod parasites, besides my beak has left oozing wounds.

The wind is bitter. My feathers don’t shield like they used to, mangy and brittle. My stomach turns. I falter and tip on unsteady legs. Other birds have fallen and not risen since the fleas came.

I hear a creature approach. I would fly, but weakness grounds me. The interloper bends and peers. I wonder if it bears cruelty or kindness. Savvy fleas leap, land on human flesh. The sickness slowly spreads.

Share

Buy me a Coffee

Fuck it.

Janie dropped her head in her hands, unwashed strings of hair dipping to hide her face. The thought of school felt like a stone, swallowed and stuck. In the background her mother lit a smoke, clouds of poison drifting through the air.

“I don’t want to go” Janie said.

“So don’t, won’t help you anyway.” Her mother replied.

Janie peeped from the confines of her hair shroud. Saw the dark circles, the track marks, the bruise on her mothers leg, like an oyster gaping. Grade eight education but smart in her way.

“I’ll go, it can’t hurt either.”

Share

Buy me a Coffee

There is a closeness in a doctor’s offices that lend to over sharing.

The woman with the dye-box black hair leaned forward conspiratorially. The lines around her eyes turned downwards. She wasn’t old, but pushing into the realm of sixty. She tapped the knee of the girl across from her, barely twenty, with a birthmark poking from her strawberry hair.

“I hate this. They’re going to give me the pap. Don’t know why, nothing’s worked down there in years,”

The younger woman shrugged, kept her eyes on her knees where the older woman’s fingers lay. She fumbled for something to say, found nothing, relaxed only when a third woman spoke up,

“For cancer. They check for cancer.”

The interloper was older still. Wrinkled like a peach pit, a wig sitting slightly askew. Her mouth dropped open to say more but closed when the receptionist called her name. She struggled to rise from her chair. Grunted as her spine unwrapped and gathered her too-big purse.

The other two watched her shuffle by, sagging frame disappearing into the rooms beyond. The black-haired woman chuckled when the door shut with a click. She tilted closer yet.

“Imagine having to look at that wrinkly old thing. Gross. The poor doctor.”

Her laughter came hard, and she sat up to catch her breath. The younger woman flushed, crimson stain on cheeks and fingers. She burrowed deeper into her sweater, purposefully chosen two sizes too big, and suddenly wished it was even bigger yet.

Share

Buy me a Coffee

I wake up with a crink in my back. A dragon gnawing my spine that probing fingers can’t reach. The room is too hot and I leave sweaty footprints as I walk. I stand at the counter, eye-bags, gnarled hair, my skin a little looser than the day before, pour coffee that slops and splashes to the floor. Vexation like venom, I want to go back to bed.

I turn on my phone and the world gets loud. A bomb playacting freedom slammed down on a school. I scroll away, I can’t listen to this on my very bad day.

Share

Buy me a Coffee

Starving Writers like coffee.

Millie slept in bed six, self-medicated snores from sloppy lips. Beds one and two held twins, big-haired girls, prostitutes when money got thin. Bed three belonged to Ron, dementia setting in. Every night Montrose shelter stayed full, regulars or one-nighters, some bruised, others bursting with ale.

One day the bean counters came with clipboards in hand. Elections were nearing and council needed a win. Visible vagrants looked bad, soccer moms were upset. The mayor didn’t like the optics of that. Re-zoning is easy, you can’t run a shelter in a residential zone, someone said. Councilors voted with mirrors firmly in hand.

Montrose shelter is now empty, shut down with red tape. Millie sleeps in the streets but keeps herself hid. The mayor with pride on his pink pudgy cheeks says look what we did, less homeless, less crime, you can sleep safe in your beds.

This story came as a prompt from . Big thank you for that, prompts are like directions I sorely need in my life.

Share

They all depend on me. Line up their lunches, tie up their shoes. Vacuum and press, laundry then snacks. He could relieve the load but he stands with his hands out waiting for a kiss.

Sometimes I remember highschool. Prepare for your future, you only get one chance. I can still picture my binder with the weird “S” doodled on top. I wrote poems in the back, jaded optimism, it made no sense.

Sometimes I think of the train tracks. Just walking and meeting the press. Toot, toot, the future won’t rest.

I can’t, so I light a cigarette, instead .

Share

He gripped her chin lightly, betwixt thumb and pointer, unflinching into her gaze. She breathed deep, quashed the urge to flick her tongue and lick his thumb.

“If you say you don’t love me I’ll leave now.” he said

No need for thought. His taste, his feel, the way his eyes crinkled when he read, but he was so bright. A star careening through her galaxy on his way to light the sky. And she? Just a small thing, a moon trapped in her own orbit.

She pulled free. Her full flush fading beside his bloom.

“I don’t,” she lied.

Share

Madison found a lump, and suddenly it was two. One in her breast followed by one in her throat. She probed at her flesh with trembling fingers, forgetting the steamy shower. Dismissing work deadlines that had badgered her thoughts just seconds ago.

A lump.

She was at the kitchen table. The moments between turning off the shower and pouring coffee forgotten. Only her daughters face, her voice. Gone away to college, now. How long since her last call? Too long.

Madison cradled the phone to her ear.

“I won’t be coming to work. I have more important things to do.”

Share

Fuck.

The wash tub overflowed. Soaked all the clean clothes still piled in the basket. The pipe needs clearing, but I can’t find your wrench. It’s lost in the mess that you left.

Besides, I don’t have the time. I have to walk the dog. She was your baby, doesn’t come when I call her. Stares at me like a stranger.

We used to walk her down Charles Street, past the cemetery. Remember? Joke about ghosts, and the bones she could dig up.

I can’t go that way anymore. Can’t stand to see your stone slowly disappearing behind growing creepers.