John Tenniel

Basement Cat

Grandpa said: When I was a young man I lived in the city, in one apartment or another. Once I ...
Martha Musil

Lady Wilhelmina’s Tale

As some of you know, I am a metropolitan sophisticate disguised temporarily as a rustic hayseed. The town I live ...

Tales of Old Chinatown (II)

Not long ago, I watched a production of Ionesco’s play, ‘The Bald Soprano’ on Youtube. This is a classic example ...

Rondel

Filomena having told her story, the queen commended her, and bade Gabriele speak. He said it was his purpose to ...

The Forest of M.

All the things that are happening now – the pandemic, the war in Syria, bush fires in Australia, Brexit, the ...
photo by @MIkeElliott

The Date

He lives outside the city walls. But the suburbs are no refuge now. He does not understand what is happening ...

The Portal

Subject: Day 19 of 2nd region wide ‘recalibrated’ lockdown
[unspecified frequencies]
Time started: 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time
Location: West of the Capital He left ...

An Exam

This non-fiction piece describes events that took place in the mid-eighties in Communist Romania when both abortion and contraception were ...

Regard Everything as a Dream

Ernesto sat across from his wife, Maria, on the balcony of their apartment in Rome, sipping wine. In spite of ...

Post Hanc…

This story is a slightly fictionalized, but nonetheless, highly accurate account of a conversation that occurred between myself and a ...

The Cage

Editor's Note: If you are viewing this story on a mobile device, turn the device horizontally to view it in ...

Nabokov id. 19

They’d been watching Kinton a while: he seemed distracted but distracted in a way that suggested he was listening as ...

Lost Loves Night at Sara’s Virtual Wine Club

Sara went next. She twirled the Merlot in her glass for a moment, then leaned in toward her web cam: ...

Outcaste

How long have I been here? A mere week yet the question sets off vertigo. Time moves in opposite directions: ...

Dugout

René Vne, being neither here nor there in terms of a job, dreamed of becoming a real estate agent, once ...

The Wall

The Wall is the Wall; it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it. In ...

The Expat’s Tale

Rosenkrantz and Gildenstern are chatting over Skype. “Hey, I just got an email from my cousin Don.” “Which one’s that?” ...

19 Stairs

Meow..meow… Meeowwwwwwwww…. Meowww Thud.. thud.. “Mummy ... what are you doing? It’s still dark outside” said Sameera. “The cat is ...

The Story of the Goat

Wherein it is shown that patience might be a virtue, were we to wait long enough to find out. When, ...

Antonio

Antonio had been many things, but at the time of the plague he was working as the super in an ...

Shift

This was another merciless July. After ten in the morning Raisa could no longer bear to be in the sun ...

Holy Ground

The holiday of Passover, marked by Jews across the world on the evening of the first full moon following the ...

And Watch It Burn

Under the dome enclosing their perch high above the city, the storytellers sat in silence. Multi-colored facets caught the lowering ...

Quarantine Dreams

Steel yourself for a year indoors. Haunted but not hunted; banging on the windows to let everyone know you're home ...