Ooze
It was a moonless night and the air was full of spiders. We pulled up to the old house around 1:00 AM. The path to the front door had grown treacherous with nettles and plants that reached out to prick us and yet your father and I approached. As we got closer, the cicadas began to circle. They whispered warnings into our ears. And do you know what they said? They said, Click click click click click, and I knew exactly what they meant.
Sane people would have fled. Even I feared the house back then, but not like your father. He was sweating into his rubber boots and I could hear him sloshing with every step. That was back when your father had feet.
I wanted to keep him calm, so I tried to take his mind off the doomy atmosphere by talking. “I heard old man Dingo used to live here before the war,” I said.
I made that up, of course but your father wanted to seem cool in front of me. So he put his hands in his pockets and said, “What war?” in a husky voice.
“Desert Storm.”
He side-eyed me. Remember, we barely knew each other back then. We’d gone on two, three dates but I liked him and when we reached the door I was almost hoping it wouldn’t open. But it did. Actually it came crashing down at the slightest touch, as if the house was desperate to let us in.
We soft-stepped it across the threshold, taking care not to step on any shards of glass or decomposing animal bodies. Shriveled leaves had blown in through the collapsed roof decades ago and gave the house an aroma of compost and guts. Your father and I stood in the front room and took it all in. I could hear his knees knocking together and his heart pounding out a wicked drum beat. Each of us waited for the other to say something. Your father wanted to go home, I could tell. But he didn’t realize he was already there.
The basement made that grubble grubble sound it makes when it’s hungry and I was like, “what was that?” all kittenish, as if I were some helpless doll who only knew how to blink. Your father looked at me, took my pretending as the truth, and then did something unexpected. He went to the basement door and opened it with trembling hands. He peered into the darkness and felt cautiously along the gummy walls in search of a light switch. A light switch! As if that old shack had electricity. He expected one to be there because he’s optimistic and also naive. But, while your father is a good man, he’s also very delicious-looking so when he couldn’t find a light switch, he decided that going into the basement would be the best way to show me there was nothing scary besides a grumpy radiator. But he took one step, and that was all the basement needed to suck him down the rest of the way. He flew into the belly of the basement like spit through a straw. “Run, run, run!” he cried. But then it started to sound like “bluh, bluh, bluh,” because part of his face had been eaten off. Or maybe he did want me to “bluh” and I simply will never have the pleasure of knowing what that means. The house was eating him. It crunched and slurped and I stood there in a real pepper patch of a situation. You see, I had been so moved by your father. None of the others I’d lured into that house had gone so willingly to the basement door as him. None of the others had searched for a light. Such a sweet, human gesture! He made me feel something new and I suppose I didn’t want to let that feeling go, so I went down into the basement, scooped up what remained of him, and promised the hungry basement I would bring back another, any kind it wanted. “Basement’s choice,” I said. But after I came up the stairs, I locked the door and have kept it shut ever since.
That’s when I hand-blew this glass jar (very similar to the ones I now sell on Etsy), to keep your father safe. I put him inside and that was that. Isn’t that right, darling? Yes, of course. When he oozes like that it means he agrees.
Meghan Proulx is a freelance writer in Northern California. Her short stories have been published in Hobart, Maudlin House, The Bold Italic, and more. She was ranked as a Top Humor Writer on Medium and won a Silver Anthem Award.
To Read at a Prairie Graveside
When I die, scatter my ashes to the persistent wind
set me free over the grains and grasses
let me loose on the wild plains.
“But then we can’t visit you anywhere.”
Of course you can’t – that’s what it means to die.
But you can visit me everywhere,
that’s also what it means to die.
Annie Powell Stone (she/her) likes sad songs and funny movies. Her poetry has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her chapbook Hampden Wildlife: Reflections on the Nature of a Baltimore City Neighborhood was published by Bottlecap Press; she has been featured in numerous literary journals. Annie has a Master’s in Education from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s in English from the University of Maryland. She lives on the ancestral land of the Piscataway and Susquehannock people with her husband and two kiddos in Baltimore City, MD. Read more: anniepowellstone.com.
Subway
I’m always walking up the subway station stairs. There are white tiles all around, and the platform lies behind me. The station is empty. It’s hot in there—walls of heat closing in on me. It’s bright, almost glaringly so.
Then it isn’t.
A group of men appears at the top of the stairs, and my palms sweat instantly. My sneakers slap the hard surface as I continue upward. The men chat among themselves—then, they don’t.
They come to a stop, staring at me with a sudden unsettling focus, and their intentions become clear. They descend towards me. I pretend to ignore them and make sure to avoid eye contact.
“Where are you going, my friend?”
In this version, I’m alone. In others, my wife is with me. But in every version, the scene is the same: underground stairs and an empty station. White tiles surround me, the platform behind. A train passes without stopping. There’s nowhere to go. The space tightens around me, just like my chest. In the distance, up the stairs, past the men—light, the open street.
The men keep staring—football jerseys, ripped jeans, and the pungent reek of booze. My pulse stutters, then races. A subway train zooms past. The station lights buzz loudly. My hands tremble. The air feels suffocating. My mouth is dry. My breathing becomes quick and shallow.
In one version, my wife stands petrified beside me, subway tiles as white as fear, as trains pass by without stopping. She clutches her purse so hard her whole body shakes. A sickening sensation churns in my stomach. In another version, I’m worn but strong; I feel no fear. In one, I can hear my heartbeat. In another, no one screams. In yet another, I keep climbing, positioning myself in front of my wife to shield her. The men and I come face to face—no light behind them, and the dark rises. A train arrives at the station.
It doesn’t stop.
Mathieu Parsy is a Canadian writer who grew up on the French Riviera before relocating to Toronto. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Panoply, Brilliant Flash Fiction, DarkWinter Lit, and Close To The Bone. Follow him on Instagram: @mathieu_parsy.
Closet
The air is still. A cold, heavy still that settles behind my eyes. I walk down a gravel path, dust pluming around my ankles. The blue and gray houses stretch before me. They are identical, in quiet rows, all balancing on four wooden stilts. But here there is no sand or sea.
The still behind my eyes is a presence. I feel its uncanny ache in my skull. I walk up the steps of a gray blue house, open the door, and enter.
Although it is not evening outside, the house is bathed in twilight. I walk through the beige kitchen, blue with shadows, through the narrow darkening hallway, into a large bedroom.
There is only an empty bed and a closed closet. Darkness seeps through the closet’s wooden slats. I do not look. I crawl under the beige quilt, close my eyes, and sleep.
In the closet. It looks and waits.
Its eyes see a curled, quiet figure without the defense of consciousness. It does not think in words. It does not want in words.
It sees her.
I see her.
Sara McClayton is an educator and writer loving in Baltimore, Maryland with her husband and dog. She enjoys exploring the oudoors, yoga, and reading. Her poetry and fiction can be found in Unbroken Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal, Club Plum Literary Journal, and Bright Flash Literary Review, among others. See her work here: linktr.ee@sarafmc.
Waiting Table
Before entering the turquoise restaurant by the sea, Dean and Dorothy each took in a lungful of sea air, smiling at the sea before smiling at each other. The hostess reminded Dorothy of their granddaughter, so pretty and petite and spirited, never a moment still. “Welcome!” the hostess said with greater enthusiasm than Dean and Dorothy had encountered when last dining out by the sea. Never one to rely on luck, Dean had called yesterday to reserve a table by the window. “Oh yes,” the hostess effervesced. “We have the perfect table for you. Follow me, please.” Two menus in hand, she led them to a table not only by the window but also off in its own quiet and private corner. “Lovely,” Dorothy said. “Thank you so much.” Dean and Dorothy had wanted to watch the sunset over appetizers and seemed certain to get their wish. Already the sky had begun its pyrotechnics. A sensational view, even if Dean and Dorothy couldn’t quite hear the surf. One disappointment: the meal Dorothy had her heart set on–shrimp scampi–had been struck from the menu with a thick black marker. “Would you rather go somewhere else?” Dean asked, ever ready to accommodate Dorothy’s taste buds. Of the two, Dorothy was the much pickier eater. On any menu, Dean could find something to satisfy, whether or not his innards later agreed with his choice. “No, no,” Dorothy said. “The view is too wonderful to leave.” Several waiters were swirling around the dining room, yet none had approached their table with glasses of water or to ask what else they might like to drink. To make eye contact with any member of the staff required Dorothy to shift her gaze away from the glorious sea and sunset. Sensing her frustration, Dean spun around in his seat and raised a beckoning hand that smacked against something invisible and unforgiving. The sun continued its descent. Following another quarter hour of no service, Dorothy declared: “This is getting ridiculous.” Needing to use the restroom, she rose in her chair only to be shoved back into it. “Did you change your mind?” Dean asked in his worried voice. “I did not,” Dorothy replied, bewildered. When they shouted, none of the other diners turned their way. When, holding each other’s hand for support, they tried in tandem to leave the table their efforts were again unsuccessful, the sun now halved by the horizon. After a time, instead of watching each other, they watched the darkening sea. They had taken a risk, going out to dinner so soon after Dean’s surgery and her seizure. But she had wanted shrimp scampi. It was what Dorothy still wanted: a last meal of shrimp scampi. Already Dean had closed his eyes, his breathing uneven and shallow. Only Dorothy saw the waiters, along with the perky hostess, finish up for the night and exit, turning out the lights. After that, until the end, Dorothy and Dean remained alone.
Kat Meads’ flash has recently appeared in Gone Lawn, Maudlin House, Does It Have Pockets?, Your Impossible Voice, and elsewhere. She is the author of more than 20 books and chapbooks of poetry and prose. Her novelette, While Visiting Babette, is forthcoming in 2025. Visit katmeads.com for more information.
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