Micro-fiction
published by Retort Magazine, on May 12th, 2012
Into ‘the thoughts’ we project bias at all moments, while we forge our word-trances, electric in a dense world of colored noise. Metaphors are for phoring, and jousting at semantics at full charge. Sustaining vision after the original shot of noticing ‘new spectacle’ and ‘new fodder’, is the key. It’s in the sustaining of vision (and) in the follow through. It’s in the ‘holding it’ just long enough so as to corral the flowing gaze at thoughts and give them agrammatical justice. Whereas the past and future are of equal magnitude, the self at present sits at the very focal point of the conundrum. Complexity infinitum passes through the self at volumes and speeds that cannot be registered or ‘dealt with’ satisfactorily. To remain in a strong state of physical sanity (remember the orchids), the humanimal must settle with reaching out into the semantic storm, and plucking at only bits of the puzzle to hold close for observation and further wondering.
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© Dan Hedges
Continue reading Electric in a Dense World by Dan Hedges →
Micro-fiction
published by Retort Magazine, on May 4th, 2012
CORPUS CRISPY
A Pretermitted Parable
By James Luce
Bob had always felt comfort with ritual. As a young boy he had found his only sanctuary in places that felt the same as where he now sat, head bowed, slightly bored, saying nothing and looking at nobody. The same pews, the same “bells and smells”, the same routine, an unintelligible language spoken during the proceedings by those on the other side of the rail, the same standing in line to receive the bread wordlessly handed over by young boys in their simple uniforms. Bob fondly remembered his First Communion.
Bob’s father had been an Army chaplain whose duty assignments had taken him and his family all over the world. Everywhere they had traveled Bob had attended the Roman Catholic services, sometimes several times a week. When he was a boy, finding himself alone, with his newly made friends now suddenly thousands of miles away, alone in whatever sometimes exotic, sometimes banal, town his father had been shipped to, it was a relief to be able to attend services that were always the same, always predictable, always free of surprises.
Continue reading Corpus Crispy by James Luce →
Micro-fiction
published by Retort Magazine, on April 25th, 2012
Somewhere not near, not here, but still as real as a pig’s squeal, two sirens sang the same song. One was coming closer. One was fading. Together they ascended, fell, both, neither — twin tumors dancing in the ether.
“Why don’t you touch me in bed before we sleep?” Anne asked till voices told . . . → Read More: Til Blank Do US Part by Mike Davidson
Micro-fiction
published by Retort Magazine, on May 21st, 2010
A Simulation
Though the explosions shouldn’t surprise him they do. They sound off rhythmically every few minutes and he shudders startled by each and every echoing blast. Placed where he is on the terrace looking out over the river he can see the Basilica’s towers and the smoke sift upward through the trees-line. The blasts’ depth can be heard from the other end of the city—buildings rattle and shake; glass shivers in the windowpanes. At every screamed signal that precedes the cannons’ fire the same lump rises swollen and stuck in his throat; he sees crumbling walls and buildings, feels the way the earth tilts under-fire, and his hands tap his ears as he falls forward folding into the receptive ball he was taught to produce under such circumstances.
Continue reading Micro-fiction by Patterson Willis →
