A Conversion of Crows – B. Morris Allen – Metaphorosis Magazine
It moved forward in a crawl, jagged angles flowing over soil and stone alike, dawn shaping shadow and sun into beaks and talons that moved relentless toward her boot and over it. via Pocket
Making the List – David Hammond – Metaphorosis Magazine
It started with a routine-sounding letter from my health insurance company. I opened it quickly because I was in the mood for a snack, and there was a little picture of cherries on the lower right corner of the envelope indicating that they had used…
Something woke me. A sound. I rolled to my back. Sand and rock ground into my shoulders and my skin hurt everywhere and my lungs seemed too dry to work properly. But for a moment I forgot all that, because when I looked up, there was a silver bowl o…
The Number of the Tribe – Gerald Warfield – Metaphorosis Magazine
Gurn levered himself up from his bed of furs, hoping he hadn’t cried out. A few embers glowed in the fire pit, casting warm light on the roof of skins. Around him, he heard only gentle breathing and the snoring of his mother. No one else was awake. …
Wytchen Wood – Lori J. Fitzgerald – Metaphorosis Magazine
A decade of shavings covered the floor of Lewys’s carpentry shop. He didn’t bother sweeping any more, although he probably should — wood without magic produces a drab dust that desiccates the throat, shrivels the lungs. He coughed and gulped from hi…
The Cure for Cancer – Ryan Fitzpatrick – Metaphorosis Magazine
The cure for cancer exists. It can be found in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, an intertropical convergence zone in the heart of the country. via Pocket
Dekker’s Miracle – Frank Oreto – Metaphorosis Magazine
Charlie “Bull” Dekker drove his cruiser down the East Valley Road and thought about a woman who wasn’t his wife. Donna Swanger, the woman in question, had recently made her interests in Charlie fairly obvious. And for the first time in his twelve ye…
Cheminagium – David Gallay – Metaphorosis Magazine
Pain, true pain, lives outside of time. It arrives in a shear of liminal precognition, the thudding sky before the storm. We formulate routes of escape, believing that the visitor darkening our door could be turned away with the right words. via Poc…
Memory is a Rumor – Yaroslav Barsukov – Metaphorosis Magazine
In the heat, even paper seemed to sweat. Dr. Startsev’s fingers left wet stains on the pages of the open notebook, on a number: thirty. Thirty minutes to try and deter the people about to enter his office from doing the irreversible. via Pocket
Hishi’s claws ticked on the polished floor as she ran. The sound was barely audible, yet the teeming corridors emptied ahead of her. News had spread through the great city, out and down from the bloody throne room, that a new blend – an Excisor – ha…
Always Dawn to Forever Night – Luke Elliott – Metaphorosis Magazine
Pwela woke to a chill unknown in the Forest of Always Dawn. Tar and peat filled the air, undercutting the perpetual crispness. She shot to her bare feet. While she slept, the Rot Thing had stolen her warmstone. via Pocket
Claudia Campbell shifted in her seat, clutching her oversized pocketbook closer to her chest. She released an audible huff. With all the automation these days, why couldn’t they move things along faster? She dragged a digital magazine off a nearby t…
Velaya, the Dreaming City – Beston Barnett – Metaphorosis Magazine
I set out for Velaya as a young man, having only just pledged to wed. I was to marry Belqis, flower of our village and light of my eyes, in whose father’s orchards I had played since my childhood. Our marriage should have been enough for a lifetime …
We glided out of the base’s garage onto smooth tarmac, but once we hit the icy terrain, things got bumpy. The rover shimmied up a rise pocked with shallow fissures and slowed to a crawl as we neared the crest. I gazed up. via Pocket
The Cypress and the Rose – Sandi Leibowitz – Metaphorosis Magazine
On her sixteenth birthday, a girl approached her mother, a priestess gifted in prophecy, to learn her name and her fate. The trees of that island country spoke with the people, the priestesses most of all, and taught them things that we, to whom the…
Koehl’s Quality Impressions – Tim McDaniel – Metaphorosis Magazine
Early Wednesday morning, not much past 10:30, I wheezed my way through downtown in my old ‘31 Ford. Down to White Center, where the city sprawl collided with the suburban rents, resulting in rows of dingy cheap apartment buildings, absentee landlord…