That last thing is what you can’t get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once and for all.—Jack Kerouac, On the Road What is to be said of the days when you feel nothing.The blank of the paper tearing through your eyes. You floata film of foam …
The laws concerning Jewish mourners (#587–590) are one of the thirty-four categories of mitzvot according to Rambam, aka Moses Maimonides, “a preeminent medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher, astronomer, and one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages” (Wikipedia, no shame). There are 613 mitzvot in the Torah, the Jewish …
SEPTEMBER 2023, SHORT STORY, 4200 WORDS Prefer to read this as an EPUB or PDF? Join our Patreon and instantly download issue 29: Avram Mordecai sits shiva for his dead sister Tamar with only Tamar herself in attendance. The memorial yahrzeit candle of remembrance burns auburn, lurid shadows waltzing upon Tamar’s face. Avram sits on …
Don’t be afraid to weave your truthinto a duvet. Sing your demon a lullaby, let it sleep. Give existence a name, a lucid flameyou wear without fear on your flesh—peel your lips, and tell me how freely you allowedyourself to taste life. Shapeshift. Remember to thrust your handinto the depth of your soul. Watch yourself …
Next time. It will be worse. Oh much worse. Enraged inferno, guns, and young men. Weapons for the destruction of the masses. Sent out amongst the virtuous. To set terror alive. Never seen in this land of strangers. Where just the other day 1300 died for a point of view. Hacked down by missiles of …
Live (or Undead) from Readercon In July I made a pilgrimage to the lands of the living, this time emerging for Readercon in Boston. Many excellent living persons gathered to ask questions about death and the dead. Here are a few of those questions answered in greater detail. What education is required to become a …
Here we are in the middle of a country of bonesIt’s midnight and there’s moonlight streaming through the window The light falls into my palm and I put it in my mouthI pray that the night does not leave me behind I pray for the abundance of sightTell me how to make a person Tell …
The Greatest Country in the World, by Rafiat Lamidi Keep Reading »
Growing up in Scotland, I have many fond memories of exploring remote and wild places, where the landscapes evoke a unique sense of atmosphere and of things unheard or unseen. There is something magical in the way the haar rolls in off the coast, shrouding the sea in a mythical fog, or the quiet stillness …
Seeing Death: Exploring Dark Omens from Scottish Folklore, by Lyndsey Croal Keep Reading »
My fleshpreserves his memories,his desires, his unfulfilled dreams of brotherhood. I carry himlike a mother, my boy wholoved to sweat under the stars. I buried him myselfunder lipstick and clothand the body I needed to survive. Still, his little bonesjut under my cheekssome mornings, and I remember I don’t hate him. How can Ihate a …
AUG 2023, SHORT STORY, 4300 WORDS Prefer to read this as an EPUB or PDF? Join our Patreon and instantly download issue 28: You are the ferryman. You have no memory of being anything else. Your posture is molded by the whims of the river, your fingers made to curl around the handle of your …