Dreams
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Sunday morning seeps into existence. Another hangover. Another new haircut. My tongue is swollen from too many shots of flaming Sambuca. The woman on TV reading the news has a chipped front tooth that’s kinda cute, but I can see straight through her. Dog Kaput. Much masturbation derived from stillborn pleasure. My liver is shrunk.… Read more
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It’s rainy. Blustery. The roads we’ve known since we were kids are as wet as gravestones that will one day become our forever home. The leaves that fall on our drunken heads then slip and slide across our shoes, and the grass that hides on the horizon squeaks like frightened mice. When I move inside… Read more
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With the rain lashing down against her limbs, she floats with her hands pressed against the window, calling to the girl inside the apartment. The girl doesn’t hear, however, and merely continues to sit before the glowing logs, tilting her head as if listening to some faraway sound. For a second, Gretchen is tempted to… Read more
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In the park next to the house I don’t live in anymore, but which I visit every night in my sleep, the girl I went to uni with who wore French-style dresses is spitting at the sky. She’s not really there. Well, she is but she isn’t. Her scent lingers, and her voice echoes around… Read more
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This had happened before. It was the same each time, yet somehow, entirely different. It always came about at night, that was for sure, and always after her parents had gone to bed when she was free to roam the apartment in search of food. What set them apart, though, was what triggered these, shiftings. The… Read more
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Trembling as the glowing logs hypnotise her like a magician’s sleight of hand, the pieces of cookie in her lap melt like wax. As they slowly drip down her thighs, the discarded bag the cookies came in curls at the corners as the heat blasting out of the heater shows no sign of diminishing, and… Read more
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Inching closer to the heater, the winding roads in her mind became streaks of fire in the sky, like those left behind by sparklers waved around on Bonfire Night or the fireworks that accompanied them, cutting through the heavens like a knife. Closer and closer still, the heat washed over her in waves—like the waves… Read more
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Wiggling those scorched toes of hers the way she wiggles like a caterpillar in her dreams, the light of the fire sends her into a trance. Like the headlights of an approaching car, the two logs glare at her like eyes, beady at first and then as bright and as whole as sibling moons. Occasionally,… Read more
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Nibbling her way through the packet of cookies, the rain lashed against the window as if it were being bombarded by giant waves reaching from the sea. It also sounded like the crashing of drums. Not the drums themselves—the big barrels that reminded her of beer kegs—but the sheets of metal suspended above. Symbols? The… Read more
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Nibbling the cookie like a hamster, Gretchen banishes the pain of never having her own Christmas tree by focusing on how good the cookie tastes. It tastes good indeed, and her smile is as wide as the thread of time that passes between the two versions of her that exist in these pages. It’s a… Read more
Author S. K. Nicholas 