Bus

The guy sat next to her on the bus. The journey ahead was long, 12 hours overnight. He took out his phone and googled "How to speak to a hot girl", after a quick glance at the search results he added "on the road". Glossed over the results again, erased the last three words and …

Shear

On the fifth day of the great binge I looked at myself in the mirror. I had just woken up, late in the afternoon. Dishevelled face, bags under the eyes, splitting headache,messy hair, aching muscles, a twitching brain and wobbling joints - not mentioning how bloated I felt, the abdominal aches and the fluttering in …

Mother

When we went see my mother at the hospital she was very sick. They had just amputated her leg. She had lost tremendous weight. Her skin clung to her bones, her hair was frazzled and her eyes sunk into her skull. We were distraught by just how frail she looked. But my mother was still …

Epilogue

Kimberly didn’t know how she felt. She was getting drunk every other night, didn’t matter she was out or in. If she couldn’t get her hands on the booze she was smoking weed or taking pills in whatever form and shape they came. All she knew was that in the past few weeks she watched …

Dissonance

I had that dream again, the one where I kneel before you and make overtures. I awoke, confronted by my fear of intimacy, my shunning of it in pursuit of a more o it. Each day I'm more afraid than the last that I'm losing you. You will have to push me because I'm a …

Strangers

The woman walked into the park, wearing a floppy hat that obscured her facial features and a dowdy trench coat that hung loose upon her spindly figure, slicing through life with her aquiline nose. Her feet buckled in her shoes as she thrust forward. She found her bench in the grey of the dying day …

In Modicums

He anxiously waited at the bus stop for her. It had been months since he'd last saw her but it had felt like years. She was on television, in many interviews, different shows and locations and it appeared a lot had transpired, it's the illusion of pluralism. In the village things hadn't changed much, things …

Mind Candy

You sit in front of me and I try to look at you. To discern meaning from the way the lines on your glowing freckled face contract, expand and quiver. I try to make sense of how your smile flickers and the way your dimples blush making eternal impressions for my mind to taste. Sweet, …

Nemesis

We fought each other, with each opportunity we got. For you it was a chance to have one over me, for me it was about destroying you. With each defeat I hoped you'd break and you would confess, at last, that I'm better than you. Then we grew and we discovered as big as the …

Olympian Challenger

Author: Astrid Arditi Title: Olympian Challenger (Book One) Genre: Young Adult/Mythology Hope Diaz is slowly and painfully losing her mother to dementia. The only parent she has ever known. A mysterious invitation to a competition hosted by the Olympian gods could be just the thing that turns her life around. The hero will be granted …