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  • Endless Joke
    Endless Joke
    by David Antrobus

    Here's that writers' manual you were reaching and scrambling for. You know the one: filled with juicy writing tidbits and dripping with pop cultural snark and smartassery. Ew. Not an attractive look. But effective. And by the end, you'll either want to kiss me or kill me. With extreme prejudice. Go on. You know you want to.

  • Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip
    Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip
    by David Antrobus

    Please click on the above thumbnail to buy my short, intense nonfiction book featuring 9/11 and trauma. It's less than the price of a cup of coffee... and contains fewer calories. Although, unlike most caffeine boosts, it might make you cry.

  • Music Speaks
    Music Speaks
    by LB Clark

    My story "Solo" appears in this excellent music charity anthology, Music Speaks. It is an odd hybrid of the darkly comic and the eerily apocalyptic... with a musical theme. Aw, rather than me explain it, just read it. Okay, uh, please?

  • First Time Dead 3 (Volume 3)
    First Time Dead 3 (Volume 3)
    by Sybil Wilen, P. J. Ruce, Jeffrey McDonald, John Page, Susan Burdorf, Christina Gavi, David Alexander, Joanna Parypinski, Jack Flynn, Graeme Edwardson, David Antrobus, Jason Bailey, Xavier Axelson

    My story "Unquiet Slumbers" appears in the zombie anthology First Time Dead, Volume 3. It spills blood, gore and genuine tears of sorrow. Anyway, buy this stellar anthology and judge for yourself.

  • Seasons
    Seasons
    by David Antrobus, Edward Lorn, JD Mader, Jo-Anne Teal

    Four stories, four writers, four seasons. Characters broken by life, although not necessarily beaten. Are the seasons reminders of our growth or a glimpse of our slow decay?

  • Indies Unlimited: 2012 Flash Fiction Anthology
    Indies Unlimited: 2012 Flash Fiction Anthology
    Indies Unlimited

    I have two stories in this delightful compendium of every 2012 winner of their Flash Fiction Challenge—one a nasty little horror short, the other an amusing misadventure of Og the caveman, his first appearance.

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Friday
Jul112014

Stygian

A pale sun slides into a sky vacated by a cataract moon. Two tarnished pennies. An exchange. 

The surf sounds so close it might be undermining the very supports of this beach house. But I'm not fretting; this is the tail end of the storm. Whatever wild, dire omens rode its turbulent breakers have already come and long gone. 

Now, the susurrant rush and hiss-drag of the waves over sand and pebbles sounds more like the fading coda of some vast, tenebrous requiem shimmering into morning.

Tentative, reluctant, like lonely people closing their front doors. One more glance. The hope that won't die. 

A sudden swell, like the late, bright moments of a life, suddenly poignant against the grey of everything that came before. If not to innocence, a return to childhood at least.  

No storm will ever frighten me again. There's a dark, turgid river now, running beneath everything. 

Nona lies broken amid more broken things. Liquor bottles, betrayal, cracked photo frames, knickknacks. A laptop, its screen spiderwebbed. Our last ever fight. A doozy, as they say. A blood reckoning, I think. I pick my way through the shattered glass, through our shattered, annihilated lives, and find my phone, tacky with jellied (and gelid) blood. 

Hit 911. 

Time to pay the ferryman.

_____________________

Once again, a big shoutout to Dan Mader and all the regulars who post their amazing flash fiction on his blog every Friday. Big love and smooches to all a y'all.

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Reader Comments (4)

One of the best yet. :)

July 11, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterYvonne Hertzberger

All I know, Yvonne, is how much I'm enjoying writing and reading these short pieces, as inspired by Mader's blog. And thanks, once more, for the feedback. It's always appreciated.

July 11, 2014 | Registered CommenterDavid Antrobus

Yeah, I'm with Yvonne. This is a dope piece.

July 12, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJD Mader

Thanks, brother. And you know, this isn't false modesty, I swear, but I attribute any improvement in my own work to the inspiration provided by the improvement in the work of all the Friday regulars.

July 12, 2014 | Registered CommenterDavid Antrobus

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