Fictional Worlds

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io “Shit,” Charlotte Berry whispered as the fog of sleep began to clear. She heard Arthur fumbling in the bathroom cabinet and saw his reflection in the mirror, salt-and-pepper hair and a small bald spot as he hunched over, a medicine bottle close to h… Fugue State | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2JWuf85

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2ul7GB6 In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written, all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts. You maintain a menu of a half dozen Experiences on your digital blackboard, but Vision Quest is the one th…

In memory of Bob Yano Sr. As the house A.I., she always projected her voice as if just around a corner or down a hall, and it gave the illusion that a real person waited barely out of sight. via Pocket Master Brahms | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2S6FOvZ via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

Alec Chu traveled the high road, swinging his bot through the trees. The wet branches shook with the storm’s convulsions but penetrating the kidnapper’s camp perimeter was easy from up here, and the rain and wind didn’t touch him. Not in the Hole. v… Riding the Signal | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2BBnxRS via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

You’d think it would make us happy when a kid checks out the same book a zillion times in a row, but actually it just keeps us up at night. The Runaway Prince is one of those low-budget young adult fantasies from the mid-nineties, before J.K. via Po… A Witch’s Guide to Escape A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2C1ax4Y

When the dog dies, she doesn’t know she is dying. You shouldn’t feel sorry for her. To her, life lasts forever.  Infants and dogs recognize the flow of time, but not their presence in it. via Pocket

Each morning is a decision. Should I put on the brown mask or the blue? Should I be a tradesman or an assassin today? Whatever the queen demands, of course, I am. But so often she ignores me, and I am left to figure out for myself who to be. via Poc… via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Hzt7aG

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io This one was made of glass. He wasn’t all that similar to my son, but he was sweet with a high, gentle voice like wind blowing across branches. via Pocket

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

Black stone lying on a white stone. César Vallejo, the author of the poem “Black stone lying on a white stone,” was a Peruvian writer living in Spain in the 1930s when he succumbed to an infection turned totalitarian. via Pocket Toward a New Lexicon of Augury | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2zuMo7L via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

The little girl reached up and tugged on her mother’s sleeve. “Mommy. That man’s here again!” The woman looked over at the odd man who’d been at the park for the last several weekends to see that he was, indeed, smiling at them and waving. via Pocket Godzilla vs Buster Keaton, Or I Didn’t Even Need a Map | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2OHrQyu via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io My parents were offered the usual platitudes: Einstein did not speak until he was in primary school(not true); did you try a body-based therapy(the answer a horrified “no!”); she will never shut up when she starts(in high school, I would often go fo… The Prison-house of Language | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2C5Xn9Q

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Poets and sages like to say that there is clarity in certain death. That a calm resignation settles over the nearly deceased, and they embrace the inevitability of the end of life with dignity and grace. via Pocket Ghosts of New York | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2CgiA0E

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io MS. Orre. 1013A Miscellany of materials copied from within Master Leuwin Orrerel’s (d. Lady Year 673, Bright Be the Edges) library by Dominic Merrowin (d. Lady Year 673, Bright Be the Edges). via Pocket The Green Book | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2CgiJRK

My granddad used to tell me that there were only two things he was afraid of: sharks and somehow finding himself in Iraq. I am on my way to, of all places, Baghdad. For a long time Iraq was synonymous with violence and mayhem. Grandad didn’t live to… The Standard of Ur | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Ep9pP9

A Siren’s Cry Is a Song of Sorrow | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2xDNiih My first memory is of orderly rows of human skulls placed on glass shelves. Little white cards that I cannot read rest in front of each. My parents had taken me to the Museum of Natural History as a means of expanding my educational horizons. via Po…

Jerena hung up after listening to the on-hold loop six whole minutes. She knew those needle-sharp mini-shrieks ending each repetition were supposed to annoy her. “Well guess what? They worked,” she told her mousy-grey cat. Human Services had won ano… Luisah’s Church | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2wQp1Hx