Category: Fiction

Bryan Billiams had, historically, never been a good liar. So that was why, as he sat in front of the two officers, Bryan Billiams told them everything. — Bryan Billiams was fifty-two years old and looking for a career change when he stumbled upon The Merry Barber. The place stood out in the same way

If we had a voice, we would scream and wail and cry so loud that no creature would dare come close to us for fear of going deaf. We would scream until the strain tore our vocal cords to shreds and the taste of blood coated our raw throat. But alas, we don’t have that

It is February and we must be brave. The mounds outside are half snow and half water. The rain falls ever so gently and mist grasps around the peaks of the mountains and then fills in the sky, hiding the sun. Inside our homes we keep our curtains closed, blocking out the dreadful weather lest

It was always there.  A silent switch so still and static, vestigial as your camouflage, but there.  Weighing you down like mercury, causing drag and taking space but there.  Inside your brain, your heart, your gills, an implicit goal, a pure command, a yearning.  One small fish, basking under the smiling moon. The chill it

Trigger warnings: mentions of blood and physical violence. space The monolith in the sky spun tauntingly, shedding bright white light across the misty horizon, the windswept bay, and the briny sea. It was just us two; the sailor and myself. For ten dollars a day, the isolation was worth it, and the quiet was nice. Our

They are splashing in the frigid lake, my boys, dumping heaps of glacial water on top of each other’s heads with glee. Prancing in their underwear around the beach, climbing onto other people’s paddleboards and inflatable water toys. Eli, don’t touch that please. It’s not ours. Words fallen on deaf ears. They have now immersed

If you asked Rosie, she would have said it was the perfect weather. When you get up in the morning, walk outside, and when exhale you can see your breath, then you look past your breath to the world beyond, and everything is still. The grass is just slightly crispy from freezing overnight. You can

The water was always dark to me. I would stand on the shoreline, bundled in the coarse wool sweater Grandma had bought me at the Granville Island market, watching my father watch the sea. He never knew I was there. Not unless I spoke. And sometimes even still he wouldn’t notice me.  He had sold

Slugs. Slimy, revolting, gag-inducing, leaf-and-fruit-munching, plant-murdering slugs! I had arrived at my garden plot early that morning—with the sun only just cresting the tops of the houses to find that a small army of the bulbous black mollusks were advancing through my territory, leaving glistening slime trails crisscrossing the dark earth. How many of them

It wasn’t the shag carpets or the original stove that dripped black grease onto the linoleum. Nor was it the fifty-year-old sliding windows that housed leggy spiders creating webs between the panes and those giant furry black houseflies that hatched out of the walls every spring. It was the view! Through the French doors that

“The ferry’s loading right now,” announces my nephew, Lucas, looking down at the time on his phone. He is strapped into the front passenger seat beside me as we hurtle down the narrow, winding highway like the lead cart in a roller coaster.  I am driving as fast as I safely can on the curving, rolling road. A few times I cross over the yellow and white lines to cut a corner but only where I can see far enough

She sat on the cool rail, looking out into the woods on the far side of the tracks. Waiting. It was still early enough that a thick fog clung to everything, as it did every morning in the spring. A breeze shifted the air around her, and she could feel the cool dampness against her