Would You Help Her? | Spelk
by Janelle Hardacre She doesn’t cry. She didn’t when she was attacked by a punter last week or when another woman stole the trainers off her feet. She didn’t cry when she was rattling and only had …
Arrivals | Spelk
by Kate Jones She keeps her eyes lowered, as she’s been brought up to do. She remembers the strap her father used the time her older sister dared to meet his eye during a conversation on marriage. …
The Circle | Spelk
by Kathy Hoyle Fish looked at Man through an ancient, grey eye. Man was silhouetted, dark and looming, with the sun as a halo. Man proclaimed himself. “I am Man and you are Fish and you have no rig…
The End | Spelk
by Nicholas Rixon They came, just like they always did, early in the morning. The collective sound of their hooves perfectly suited for that time of day. The shepherds, one at the back of the herd …
At Liberty | Spelk
by Iris N. Schwartz Belle never should have married a man who didn’t know how to kiss. Benjy’s sloppy, aimless probing of her mouth felt as erotic as a session in a dentist’s chair. He was dyslexic…
Salesman | Spelk
by Mark Renney “Door-to-door sales is a dying art,” he says. I don’t want to answer, to be pulled into this again but the others around the table are looking at me, waiting. “It’s just a job,” I sa…
Left-Overs | Spelk
by Stephanie Hutton My mother-who-never-mothered-me has died and I don’t know what feelings to have, so decide not to have any. Lily sits on my knee in this council flat as we rummage in tatty boxe…
Fairy Tales | Spelk
by Kate Jones She’s caught the 3.15 train, as instructed by her father. As trees and fields give way to the concrete blocks of the city, the muscles of her stomach tighten. She pulls out a book fro…
Hummingbird | Spelk
by Barbara Renel Edinburgh. A scorching day. The man is stripped to the waist, his decorated torso worn as a garment. “Olá,” he says. And she falls in love. In his studio, a skeleton wearing a suit…
Shopping, Later | Spelk
by Steve Cushman The father and son walk silently through the grocery store buying what needs to be bought: mac n’ cheese, milk, cheerios, bread and beer and pretzels, two pounds of hamburger. The …
New Equipment | Spelk
by Beau Johnson “It breaks my heart is what it does. Because of this, I think it’s fair I keep this little sermon short.” Under overhead lights, upon stainless steel tables, my words bring tears, c…
Jack, In the Box | Spelk
by David Cook “Jack, as you all know, was a man with a curious hobby. Some would call it an obsession. “His thing with jack-in-the-boxes started when he was six and I was three and Dad got him a ru…
The Fourth Stage | Spelk
by Cornelia Fick Aunt Janet choked on her beer, and then wagged a finger at her husband, Ted. “I hope the worms eat you ragged, you swine. I hope they start on your soft parts.” “That was uncalled …
Virginia Creeper | Spelk
by Sebnem Sanders Ivy fascinated Ivan. English, with prominent white or yellow-green veins. Boston, with a reddish bronze colour in the spring, and bright, deep green during summer, turning to shad…
Serafina’s Star | Spelk
by Sandra Arnold Serafina slipping out the gate at playtime. Running home to show her mother the star. Her first star. Bright and shiny on the page at the bottom of her story. Right next to THE END…
How Old is a Shadow | Spelk
by Nicholas Day Tom’s nipples had bled right through his shirt. Embarrassment is why he now insisted on running before dawn and why he placed Band-Aids over his areolas. Vanity brought him to the m…
Eating Earwax Makes You Clever | Spelk
by David Cook “Try some,” Dad says. “It’ll make you smart.” I shake my head and look disgusted. “My Dad,” he tells me, “ate his earwax, and his Dad before him, and they were very brainy men. Rememb…
The Rat-catcher’s Tales | Spelk
by CR Smith Alfred leapt from the train and weaved his way through the cobbled streets until he reached the King’s Head. After purchasing a book of matches from the waif outside, he pushed his way …
Approach to the Scar | Spelk
by David Swann I found him fumbling along the corridor in the last café before the Scar. He was an Asian guy in baggy shorts and clomping boots. Boisterous. Middle-aged. What you might call a chara…
Barbara’s Salon | Spelk
by Louise Mangos Amidst the acrid smell of chemical dyes and dusty elements of overheated hairdryers, I am looking forward to an hour of pampering. I lean back against the faux-leather headrest, an…
The Pool | Spelk
by Matthew Licht There are worse jobs than booze delivery. Many Beverly Hills Liquors’ customers who ordered in were movie stars reluctant to venture out into the human world. Once, I delivered ten…
A Treatise on the Broken Heart Idiom | Spelk
by Michelle Ross Bea presented to her classmates a drawing of an ancient Egyptian priest inserting a long bronze hook through a corpse’s nose. The task of the hook was to smash and dislodge brain m…
Ash | Spelk
by Charmaine Wilkerson His mistake, he thought, later. He’d sent a lengthy text message to the other homeowners, asking them not to flick cigarette ash off their balconies, where, down below, the b…
Death Do Us Part | Spelk
by Andrew Stancek The hospice in Lamac, a Bratislava suburb, has seen better times. The carnations on Vlasta’s side table drooped and the hall reeked of cheap institutional disinfectant which in sp…
Thank God I Hear Voices | Spelk
by Paul Beckman I wear hearing aids even though my hearing is perfect. I wear them to keep from hearing all the sounds, voices, animal noises and whispers that fight each other for my attention. Fo…
Another Damn Cottage | Spelk
by Tara Campbell It was another damn cottage, another damn grandmother, frail and helpless, waiting for a handout sent via grandchild. The wolf knocked, ate the grandmother, choking down her string…