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At The Bottom Of a Well
by Brad MacDuff
He finds himself at the bottom of a well. Not that he’s fallen in – his was a slow descent. The walls are tight and the air is close. He knows he built these walls, dug himself into this pit, but tha…
147 words
Hyacinth and Thistle
by Brad MacDuff
She lay awake, thinking about nothing and everything; of cotton and chaos, of hyacinth and thistles. Traffic droned outside. Traffic always droned. Headlights cast patterns across the ceiling; they m…
572 words
The Roar Of Life
by Brad MacDuff
My grandfather used to tell me that the ocean was hidden inside every shell. / “If you hold a shell to your ear, you can hear the waves,” he’d said. / “Shells remember their h…
362 words
One More Day of Waiting
by Brad MacDuff
She felt small – a wish in a well, a dust mote in a sunbeam. She knew she flared, but her size made the flash go unseen. People passed her, took no notice, left her rippling in her well or swir…
384 words
Untitled
by Brad MacDuff
I walked tonight; upon streets that haven’t seen the soles of my feet for more than a decade. There’s something about putting one foot in front of the other, a simple act, a balancing ac…
153 words
She Can't Remember Her Dreams
by Brad MacDuff
She awakens in the grass again – wine stained teeth and tear stained eyes. She wears the juice of kumquats like sticky orange gloves – the same glossy sugar coats her lips. There is a son…
492 words
I Miss My Muse
by Brad MacDuff
I miss my muse. / I’ve looked everywhere for her / under stairs and stars, / in branches, / behind waterfalls and ribs, / in reflections; / oily puddles / mirrors / and glassy eyes. / I…
139 words
Morning Cup
by Brad MacDuff
His plan was perfect. He’d spent months polishing it, weeks buffing it, and the last few hours making it gleam. There had been fear, sure. Doubt? Most certainly – but that was all behind …
346 words
Night #2
by Brad MacDuff
His shadow had a different voice beneath the moon. It was cold, like the light that cast it. / “What is it you want?” his shadow asked. / “I want to know what to do,” the boy …
337 words
True Blue
by Brad MacDuff
Danny was born blue. His mother and father were green and did everything by the book, “Raising Children For Green Parents.” There were no chapters on blue babies, except for the one about…
772 words
Days Like Today
by Brad MacDuff
Some mornings the mist is so thick that the lake fades into the sky – everything is lost in a cloud of white. To step from the shore is it fall into the heavens. At such a time, in such a place…
334 words
Dawn #1
by Brad MacDuff
The boy spoke to his shadow because he knew it would listen. People were different. They could feign interest and go elsewhere in their minds. His shadow though, it was always attentive, always eager…
366 words
When Your Heartstrings Finally Break
by Brad MacDuff
When your heartstrings finally break, there will be no noise, no twang, no sigh of release. The sound will be felt, not heard. It will rend the last of what it means to be whole, reduce the noun to a…
264 words
Afternoon at the Abbotoire
by Brad MacDuff
The place stank. Not just the smell of animals, but the special, sweaty stink of fear. It permeated the air. I paused, half out of the car as the smell grabbed at my tonsils. Eric slammed his door. H…
2283 words
Simple Truth
by Brad MacDuff
He looked more tired than old, but the end result was the same. His skin was ashen – not quite gray, but a non color that made me weak to see. His wrinkles were deeper, cracks in baked mud, and…
517 words
Lie To Me
by Brad MacDuff
The sky darkened and music sprang up from the small restaurant behind. It was thin music, stretched over too much outside sound to be anything more than an annoyance.
677 words
Woods #3
by Brad MacDuff
The woods were blacker than the space behind his eyes. The boy could not see his shadow, there was no light to cast it. / “Are you there?” he asked. / “Yes,” said several voic…
441 words
The Home of Lost Things
by Brad MacDuff
Perhaps he’d been here long enough that the ocean had permeated his flesh and left him a relic of Gomorrah.
760 words
I'd Rather Dance Than Talk With You
by Brad MacDuff
There is a pulse, a beat, a steady thrum that controls his every move. He doesn’t walk, he dances – he caresses the ground with his feet and the ground rises to meet his touch. Everything is song. / …
197 words
I Don't Need To Carry Them Anymore
by Brad MacDuff
the ghosts from my past / are always with me / I carry them in all I do / I’ve tried burying them / tried to forget them / they always resurface / they always haunt / my earth is too soft / the…
160 words
It's Only Rain
by Brad MacDuff
Once / she fell with the rain / Every drop carried her touch / her perfume / her kiss / It was enough to walk in the rain / He didn’t miss her when water fell from the sky / or hissed on the roads / …
142 words
Winter
by Brad MacDuff
He walks through the snow. His boots make cornstarch squeaks in the white, his breath a dragon’s plume in the blue. He has a nose, but the sensation of it is lost. His ears went first, then his…
257 words
The Smallest Life...
by Brad MacDuff
He looked for it; lifted his feet and scanned the gleaming sidewalk. He spun, full circle, searching for the smallest life that could feel pain.
806 words
What's Left Behind
by Brad MacDuff
Her medical report came back clean. The doctors had found nothing unusual. Not that she expected them to. What was broken went beneath tissue and bone. The wound could not be cauterized or sutured – …
1270 words
Valley #5
by Brad MacDuff
The boy closed his eyes before stepping into the forest. He knew what darkness awaited, and did not want it to seep beneath his lids. The whispering was gone. The shadows of the world were left in th…
592 words
The Ocean at Night
by Brad MacDuff
The ocean at night is huge. During the day, it ends in a horizon. At night it spills into the sky, washes clean the stars and makes their tiny light brighter. I sat there last night, at the shore of …
110 words
It's All Illusion
by Brad MacDuff
It was hot – not the pleasant hot of a summer day at the beach, no, this was a day made from unset gelatin. There was no walking through this day, only wading through the greasy pulp. It stuck.…
1092 words
Empty Space
by Brad MacDuff
The drawer was painted shut by time. I thought the brass knob would tear through the wood before the rails broke and the drawer slid free. The knobs themselves were too small to get a proper grip on,…
458 words
The Little Ease
by Brad MacDuff
Sampson had his mother’s hair and his father’s hands. Indeed, his entire body was a roadmap to his genealogy – a walking testament to his past. The only thing that belonged to him was the voice. Not …
491 words
One
by Brad MacDuff
“We are but the total of our longings,” he said. / “That’s a lot,” I replied. / “For some. For others the number is a single digit, prime and indivisible. For othe…
148 words
I Drove
by Brad MacDuff
I drove, and thought about you. What were you doing, right at that moment? Were you smiling? Were you happy? Were you thinking of me, of us? The questions kept coming, I found I had no answers, and …
359 words
Home
by Brad MacDuff
“Home is where you find yourself,” she said. / “I find myself every morning then,” he said. “Whiskers don’t shave themselves in the dark.” / “That̵…
102 words
Paper Wings
by Brad MacDuff
It was a moonless night and the fire was high against the darkness. The air was cold, but the heat from the flames kept back the frost and scorched leaves from reaching trees. He worked, shirtless, w…
348 words
Spaces Between Words
by Brad MacDuff
It’s a hunger – a directionless urge to consume… something… anything to fill the void. He searches, a wraith, a shadow upon a cave wall – nothing satisfies. At night the…
333 words
The-Not-So-Mad-Anymore-Hatter
by Brad MacDuff
“I’m not mad. Not anymore. I recognize madness and that makes me happy. Madness is doing what you hate for little bits of paper and metal. Madness is living in fear and hiding from joy. S…
516 words
Dragonboats
by Brad MacDuff
It’s raining outside. Somewhere in the city, dragonboats are slicing through the river as people watch in the rain. Their reflections blurred in the coffee colored water – smudges of yell…
204 words
The Hermit
by Brad MacDuff
When she’d set out, she didn’t expect to find him. She took the words of the naysayers to heart, secreted their doubts and carried them with her into the forest. She had to try though. To…
1125 words
Waiting For Ulysses
by Brad MacDuff
Some nights he manages to fight the call. He closes his eyes and finds sleep before the rumbling in his blood drives him from bed. Some nights he can sleep, and some nights he can even dream. He like…
469 words
Bones From The Past
by Brad MacDuff
Time is slippery, it expands and contracts, it is determined by velocity, measured by ticking hands on a face. The span of souls is weighed in springs and cogs. Does the gray in my hair match my cale…
320 words
Collections
by Brad MacDuff
She strikes a match against it, cups the tiny flame, and casts it into her collection of weight.
537 words
Blue Sky?
by Brad MacDuff
It’s raining outside. I remember when the sky was blue. Now it’s heavy and low, pressing with the ache of it all. She died on Sunday, and it’s been raining since. It feels like it’s always been raini…
53 words
The Keeper of Dreams
by Brad MacDuff
He feels the weight of the sky. It presses like a cold slab of iron and digs into his sunken shoulders. He tells himself that the sky is constant, no heavier today than any other day, but it’s …
318 words
Easy
by Brad MacDuff
“It’s easy,” he says. “Like riding a bike.” / “I can’t ride a bike,” she says. “I never learned.” / “Can you dance?” / “A…
225 words
The Sage
by Brad MacDuff
“How long will it take?” asked the boy. / “You will know it all by tomorrow,” said the sage. / “Tomorrow,” the boy blinked. The sage nodded. / “But that is impossible,” said the boy. “There is too mu…
1067 words
Hardboiled
by Brad MacDuff
It was darker than a carload of assholes, and smelled much the same. Pulpmills and breweries – the air was thick with their stink; the city sweated it in the shady spots, oozed through alleys l…
733 words
Paper Wings Part Two
by Brad MacDuff
He worked without reprise. The boat took him away from everything – friends, family, life. He worked through the endless night, adding wood to the fire to guide his hand. He let it consume him.…
433 words
A Candle
by Brad MacDuff
He found his head in his hands. It fit, but it was heavy. His thoughts had weight, bowed his neck and cradled a myth wrapped in hope. Within his skull he held a candle against the dawn, a shadow to …
372 words
Sunlight
by Brad MacDuff
Sebastian is an odd character. He knows he’s odd, and that only amplifies his oddness. He seems to revel in the uncomfortable squirming of the ’Sunday’s best’ dressed. His eye…
453 words
Perception
by Brad MacDuff
She sits with her coffee cupped in two hands, cradling the heat and huddling over the steam. At first glance, she appears oblivious to those around her. Her eyes stare into her mug, but there is clar…
558 words
Get me away from here, I'm dying...
by Brad MacDuff
I knew all the songs. / I knew all the people. / It was my favorite place, / my favorite music, / I stayed long enough / not to be rude / and left when no one was looking
33 words
Pay Attention
by Brad MacDuff
Not a single soul has ever lived this moment, in this place, like you are doing so now. Appreciate that fact, take responsibility for it, and above all else – pay attention. Nothing worse can b…
104 words
Adrift
by Brad MacDuff
A spotlight sweeps across the sky – a cosmic windshield wiper, a metronome of things without beat. It swings, back and forth, so loud in its brightness that it can be heard with eyes closed. / …
145 words
One End
by Brad MacDuff
I drive. / When thoughts get too much / I flee them in pavement / There are as many roads / as there are rivers… / they must all / eventually / meet / at the same point. / an / asphalt / Atlantic / a…
43 words
Toys From Above
by Brad MacDuff
In the false glow from the city, I saw blood pooling around her, tracing the grout in the tiles, painting a grid away from her body.
569 words
The Man #7
by Brad MacDuff
The boy stood before the abyss, before his shadow, before himself. The darkness swallowed the sublime and devoured infinity. It was all. / “What is this,” whispered the boy. / “This…
630 words
A ghost...
by Brad MacDuff
“Who are you?” she asked. Stars shone in her eyes and wonder painted her voice. / “I am a ghost,” he said. / “You’re not a ghost,” she smiled. / “I wil…
185 words
Life in a Box
by Brad MacDuff
The moon is full. It paints the night around it a velvety purple and Venus is a beauty mark on the left cheek of the sky. It seems to hang, this frosty sphere, high above the apex of it all. / But it…
372 words
Morokat
by Brad MacDuff
There was typhoon this weekend. It swept over Taiwan, flipped cars, flooded streets, tore trees from the earth, and made the ocean angry. Boats were swallowed, fishermen drowned. An entire village wa…
327 words
Wide Eyed and Gap Toothed
by Brad MacDuff
“The rich will always be rich, and the poor will always be poor,” he says. I seem to always remember him sitting in that special light just before the sun sets, in the secret space where …
403 words
Seventeen
by Brad MacDuff
He thought the door was closed. He never looked at it, simply convinced himself that it was shut. And barred. And locked and left to rust. / He found it again, by accident, when a breeze tickled his …
278 words
Soap Bubble In The Sea
by Brad MacDuff
It rained for most of the day. Not the lazy rain of summer but the torrent of early spring. It was a storm designed to drive living things from the earth, to shake the world from winter. It was rain …
511 words
It Knows...
by Brad MacDuff
You’re flying. / It’s simple. / It’s blue. / It’s free. / Up? / Down? / Who cares? / Really? / Dimensions / hold no sway… / … / … / … / Then it comes. …
231 words
Untitled
by Brad MacDuff
I found myself in the bathroom mirror tonight. I’d forgotten I was even here, but when I put my toothbrush down, there I was. At first I wasn’t sure what I was seeing – there was so…
134 words
Impaired Vision
by Brad MacDuff
He kept kittens in boxes – black boxes with no windows. He kept them in the dark for 23 hours a day. For one hour of 24, he placed them in a smaller box, collar’s on their necks that kept…
265 words
Wandering and Wondering
by Brad MacDuff
There are no stars to be seen. They are there, but their lights have been swallowed by the city’s glow – little needles of sodium unstitch the seams of the sky. Too many shadows are cast …
359 words
The Bazaar
by Brad MacDuff
It wasn’t the wind that bothered me, it was the whisper beneath. I heard it through the fine hairs on my neck – they stood at attention with each gust and told me that something wasn̵…
1113 words
Tuesday, the 17th
by Brad MacDuff
The horns outside tell you you’re awake. Cars never honk in your dreams; they just run you down and lay you flat. You know you’re awake, but you keep your eyes closed. You want to hold on…
576 words
The Home of Lost Things - Part II
by Brad MacDuff
Trying to ignore it, he thought, or trying to run from my own darkness… is like trying to keep the daylight from the sun.
716 words
Dreams of Olympus Mons
by Brad MacDuff
He wasn’t afraid of heights. It was edges that bothered him. He never trusted himself not to jump. The edge didn’t need to be physical; he’d jumped from metaphors before. All it needed to be was ther…
210 words
The Home of Lost Things - Part III
by Brad MacDuff
“Because,” said the man, weariness returning to his frame and voice, “You can only leave once.”
1559 words
Meadow #4
by Brad MacDuff
The boy walked, eyes closed against the darkness, until time was a word that rolled around in his mind – nothing more than a collection of letters and sound. Where did it come from? Whose word …
745 words
The Windy City
by Brad MacDuff
The wind was strong but directionless. It swirled through the city stirring up dust and smog, bending trees and lifting leaves. Debris danced about in spirals as people danced about in annoyance R…
357 words
An enduring testament to the impermanence of walls
by Brad MacDuff
It was an impressive stone, jutting out against the advancing ocean – an old man raising his fist against the inevitable decay of everything.
809 words
Untitled
by Brad MacDuff
“I get angry,” he said. It was hot, and the leather chair stuck to his skin. / “Why do you get angry?” she asked, pen in hand and eyes on her notepad. / “Sometimes IR…
244 words
A wafer of light
by Brad MacDuff
She doesn’t want to remember the things she can never forget. / They find her in her sleep, / haunt her dreams and peace. / They are restless and drive her the same. / Never a moment, / no …
102 words
Yoske
by Brad MacDuff
My friend may have died, I don’t know. He played saxophone at a local jazz club. He was good, or is still good. Not the hair raising life altering good… yet, or possibly ever… it al…
149 words
Some Days
by Brad MacDuff
Some days were just bad. He knew this by the age of twelve. Some days it didn’t matter how optimistic you were, how bright and sunny the sky, or how much money you had in your pocket. Sometimes…
1057 words
Dead Stars
by Brad MacDuff
The sky fell into the sea today. The sun dragged it down; hooked a cloud with a flare and stretched heaven ’til it tore. It made no splash as it sank through the foam and the blue – only…
325 words
The Home of Lost Things IV
by Brad MacDuff
The boy stood at the threshold of the wood, staring into the false night beneath the leaves.
1805 words
Abyss #6
by Brad MacDuff
The mists closed softly behind the boy – they stole his senses and filled the world with hushed white. He could feel the ground beneath his feet, pressing up against each foot as he walked. The…
758 words
The Knocking of Hands
by Brad MacDuff
There seems to be a lag from my eyes to my brain, or perhaps I’m thinking fast enough to watch the light move from the screen to my pupil.
793 words
A Good Night
by Brad MacDuff
Last night I walked in the snow and saw my breath for the first time in years. It rose like a dragon’s plume; my shoes made cornstarch sounds beneath the streetlights . They’re always fr…
165 words
Transition
by Brad MacDuff
It’s raining today – the pounding thrum of a tropical storm, the kind that transforms roads to rivers, puddles into lakes, and days into seas too far to cross. I listen for a beat in the …
111 words
Waiting
by Brad MacDuff
Sitting and waiting to peer out a window at 30,000 feet. Waiting for the now familiar taste of recycled air. Waiting for tiny chairs, big hips, and crying children – bad movies, worse meals, an…
93 words
Insert Dream Here
by Brad MacDuff
You’re not convinced that someone doesn’t reach into your head at night and steal your dreams. Some nights they cut them up and slip them back in, other nights they just leave an empty sp…
336 words
Pedestal
by Brad MacDuff
“When you reach for something, you put it on a pedestal,” he said. They were words he’d never heard before, nor spoken, yet he knew that they were true. / “What have you reach…
138 words
Truth
by Brad MacDuff
Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, but the same is true of the over examined life. It’s possible to dig, getting ever deeper, ever smaller, until all that’s left …
151 words
Dying Slowly
by Brad MacDuff
He pushed my buttons. I saw him doing it, watched him as he prodded each one. I was too tired to do anything but watch. I made each button light up just to see him move to the next. I was a voyeur. T…
263 words
On Knowledge
by Brad MacDuff
If one ceases to learn even the simplest of things, the spirit begins to atrophy. Passion dies. Bitterness breeds. Stagnation blossoms, and with it, the meaning of life is lost.
263 words
Sometimes
by Brad MacDuff
Sometimes it’s enough to see the waves / enough to smell the trees / and taste the rain / Sometimes it’s enough to remember / only the good / and forget the pain / Sometimes it’s …
48 words
The Man Who Spoke With Skins
by Brad MacDuff
Their conversation was sparse, like pigeons against the sky, but the sound of his voice made her aware of an empty space within her chest.
998 words
Nepal, day 1
by Brad MacDuff
It was called the Excelsior – the kind of hotel that had begun like a faded memory and aged from there. A uniformed security guard stood at the entrance. He looked a lot like Fred Ward. Do you …
1367 words