CLASSIFIED FICTION: ‘LORD OF THE DANCE’ BY SANDRA ARNOLD
Clutching her list, Liberty pushed open the library door and skidded across the floor to a startled young man behind a mahogany desk. She waved her list and asked where she should look. He pointed to the top floor, where people were drifting […]
CLASSIFIED ARTWORK: ‘VANISHING HOPES I’ BY EMMANUEL MONZIES
Emmanuel Monziès is transposing living material like plants and bodies on paper or on canvas with a predilection for monotypes. Runner-up for the next Creative Quarterly #54 journal (November 2018 for publication in April 2019) […]
CLASSIFIED FICTION: ‘TRUTH MAY RISE IN THE CREAMY FROTH OF THE NEXT BEER’ BY SALLY RYHANEN
If there is a patron saint for the evil of heart, she must be Irish. There was my target, dangling upside down from a rustic lighthouse, begging to be rescued. Smack in front of an Irish pub. Sanderson’s regular position, according to the barman of the Shamrock Hotel […]
CLASSIFIED POETRY: ‘THE SECOND QUESTION’ BY MIKE TOOK
I’m a non-British resident, transgender working pensioner I’m a means-tested, mixed race, unpaid contracted support-worker I’m a non-white, gender fluid, single parent lesbian I’m a child of Muslim parents, asexual, agnostic […]
CLASSIFIED NON-FICTION: ‘A CASUAL SUNDAY TOURIST’ BY LAZARUS TRUBMAN
As I get older, people and events disappear from my memory, but some, thank goodness, stay there forever. Like the story of a murder I never committed. It was in 1980, a Sunday at the end of February or in the beginning of March. I was in the Army reserve […]
CLASSIFIED POETRY: ‘BORDERLINES’ BY MICHAEL SAUNDERSON
1972 EAST Harvesting rice near the borderline, sedentary spine smarts from paddy field graft. Sore calloused hands gesticulate in cultural exchange over cabbage bowls. Borderline conscious counting stars […]
CLASSIFIED NON-FICTION: ‘SUITEMATES’ BY BOB CHIKOS
The night my son Martin was born, I had the emotions most new fathers likely have, but few will admit: 10% joy and 90% sheer panic. I remember my thoughts: I don’t know anything about this person and he’s going to live with us for a loooong time. […]
CLASSIFIED FICTION: ‘BAG FOR LIFE’ BY AARON FARRELL
Bag for Life Aaron Farrell Inside the Aldi’s Bag for Life – either a sadistic joke, as this plastic will probably end a life, or just a plain lie as nothing is for life apart from the craving for something that lasts for life – is my...
CLASSIFIED POETRY: ‘REALIGNMENT’ BY ADAM NEAL
Realignment Adam Neal I float face first into obscurity, Unknowing where I’m supposed to be. Holding conversations with one hand, Told him to get the round in. Told me to get around it. Through it. Internal incandescence, Iterations of a bygone...
CLASSIFIED FICTION: ‘SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, TOO’ BY CON CHAPMAN
Sense and Sensibility, Too Con Chapman When they broke up, Marcie moved out of the north-facing apartment on Beacon Street and rented a place on the back side of the Hill, again too dark to cure her of the winter blues that ailed her, he...