Ghost Parachute

Malphus skulks through the crowded bedchamber toward the royal corpse. Death smells sweet and thick with rot. Nobles and attendants back away as Malphus passes in his sackcloth. He finds monk’s garb most effective on gobbling days. “Your Holiness,” Malphus bows, eyes averted. The priest’s voice is brittle. “His majesty already received his last rites.” […]

This was not what Landry expected when her uncle said he was going to show her what “real Florida” looked like. She expected pastel sunrises on the seashore. The sand between her toes while she collected scallops where ocean met land. Maybe shaved ice and a hammock nap while the sun beat down. As the […]

The Scrap Boys are ghosts these days, haunting small town summer streets, the four blocks that make up downtown. They drift past the sandwich shop and the dry cleaners and the florist, past the post office and Jerry’s Bar and Grill, stop to salute at the Salvation Army, try hang out in the Dollar General […]

I was perched on a low limb of a huge tree and must have been there for a long time since my ass-cheeks were numb from sitting on the wood. It wasn’t the worst place I’d come around in. I knew better than to take something from an already-open sugar packet passed beneath the divider […]

I sit in the corner of the living room with my partner of two years. His legs barely touch the fabric of the sofa and his hands hide underneath his armpits. He clenches the muscles on his cheeks before directing his eyes to the mold spreading across the kitchen wall. “Sean? What are you doing […]

We leave the bar to burn down the goat. Laughing at jokes that won’t make sense to our headaches in the morning, we stumble down the brick road as brothers and soon to be brothers. Pretending to sober up, we stick out our alcohol-soaked tongues to chew snowflakes. For a warm-up act, we light the […]