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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

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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 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

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

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

The voices begin three days before someone is to die. The coffin-maker wakes up covered in sweat. He has been talking in his sleep again, his wife says, in the language of the dead. He looks at her under the waning light of the candle. Edna’s face i…

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

Since the onset of my symptoms, I’ve been saving the last pages in the leather-bound notebook you gifted me—for this suicide note. I neglected to foresee how terrible my handwriting might be when the moment came, so please forgive my chicken scratch…

It knows all my secrets, all my weaknesses. On a good day, when the sun is shining, the offering plates are filled with honey and I have enough candles for my circle to hold, the angels keep it at bay. Not that I can summon anything higher than a me…

I ascend during the church picnic. My thighs peel off the plastic bench with a crisp smack, and I’m two feet into the air before I understand what is happening. I flip a foldout table, clawing for purchase. Potato salad and peach cobbler spill onto …

The problem, of course, is that the world ended. She’s lying in her bed, staring at the sloping scribbles on the ceiling. Downstairs, the party continues as ever. Voices rise from the parlor at all hours of the night, beckoning her with wild words s… The Edge of Things | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2kuq3TP

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

I meet with the other pregnant men on Thursdays. Our room at the civic center is between the recovering alcoholics and cancer survivors. We’re currently at eleven, now that Wallace shot himself. The room tries to look like it’s for any ol’ support g…

In the morning, when the fog lies thick and heavy on the water, I sit at my workbench and seed the next simulant. It takes fourteen double-C commands to move the digital embryo into the simulation tank and begin the process. The tank thrums to life …

6,300 Words “Sit here.” He pulls out a thin panel from the front of his kiosk, punches it into the third dimension, then into its secondary function as a chair, and places it in front of me. “Here’s safe. via Pocket Behind Her, Trailing Like Butterfly Wings | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2iUgw8k

Translated by Alex Shvartsman. You were thirty-five when you parked your pickup truck in front of that damned diner. A single poor decision that would make you hate yourself for the rest of your life. via Pocket Black Hole Heart | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2ttmfCj

Ayen ran, her bare feet kicking up a cloud of ash-colored dust across the parched earth. Behind her, the hooves of horses thundered like drums, drawing closer despite her desperate strides. via Pocket Ghost Marriage | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2EJJ8Le

Willie Kennard rode into the town of Duffy dangerously late, looking back over his shoulder at the height of the sun and squinting. He dropped down from the old mare he’d borrowed off Wilson Hayes and hitched her to a post. via Pocket Sundown | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2sWTOgh

Erika’s fingers tense on the steering wheel as she approaches the Kansas-Colorado state line. Endless fields of wheat, waiting to be harvested, sit on both sides of the interstate, the stalks rustling whisper-soft. via Pocket The Whipping Girls | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2LNvshE

Marla and Zufi, the reigning queens of Hell, were eight years into a meaningless spat, living more as roommates than lovers, and as a consequence, Marla was irritable and Zufi was bored. via Pocket Three Petitions to the Queen of Hell | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2ubsK0Z

Thistle stepped over an upturned root that twisted from the dark, wet earth. “Mama the river and the tree.” She moved with deliberate grace, each footfall a code that unlocked another hidden key. Wilder should have known. Every other word out of her… Tree of the Forest Seven Bells Turns the World Round Midnight | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2ysAfSb

“A perm? Not sure la. Those youngsters like their hair like k-pop star, right? Long and straight.” Wing Lin daubs blue along her eyelids, a shimmer of amber. Despite her suggestions, her own hair, thick even in the last years of her sixties, is set … What to Do When It’s Nothing but Static | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Fdp8vI

Caroline tucked an unruly strand of coarse brown hair up under her pink knit cap, shrugged the strap of her black violin case back into place over her shoulder, and hurried up the music building stairs. via Pocket While the Black Stars Burn | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2xzoBER

Every night, the devil sits himself on the lip of her bed and every night, she sighs and whispers the same word over and again. Yes, she murmurs. Yes, yes, of course. via Pocket Bargains by the Slant-Light | Apex Magazine via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2ybmplV