Flour Babies By Karen Regen Tuero, espresso

            The course requirement for Health Ed was to carry around flour babies. Because the five-pound sacks of Gold Medal or King Arthur couldn’t go inside backpacks, but had to be cradled everywhere, the assignment was supposed to dissuade sixteen-year-olds from early parenthood. Thelonious frequently forgot his baby at home on the kitchen table, so Mr. McGreeley gave him an extra sack for punishment.

            “You’ve got twins!” McGreeley declared to the amusement of Theo's classmates who had him pegged as the last person on earth qualified for fatherhood.

            The sentiment was shared by Theo’s father who said, “God help any kid raised by a knucklehead like you,” only to be contradicted by Theo’s mother, who retorted, “A child should only be so lucky!”

            Vicky was a talented jazz pianist whose history of panic attacks had relegated her to cleaning cages at their neighborhood pet supply store. A skillful landscape painter, Dale had given up his easel to manage databases at the DMV. A short man, he demanded respect.

            “Eat your eff-ing lunch or I’ll shove it down your throat,” Dale once yelled at little Theo tucked into his high chair. A smack on the cheek followed. By chance, Vicky was videotaping the meal on their Camcorder.

            Immediately she stopped recording, taking the Camcorder as she whisked Theo into the stroller, comforting him. Circling the block - in sunglasses so anyone inclined to chat wouldn’t see her face - Theo wailed, though the exertion soon put him to sleep.

            Vicky knew that Dale was quick to anger like his own father, and actually a lot like her own pop, but now Dale had crossed a line, and Vicky had the cassette in the stroller basket. Instead of doing one big circle around the block, she pushed the stroller all the way to the police precinct, deciding in the sunshine whether to enter. A thickset matron strode by in a camel trench reminiscent of Dale’s mother, who recently treated them to a trip to Disney World. Vicky rocked the stroller, soothing Theo, who had woken up. Then she turned the stroller around, heading home. Julia - as much a believer in second chances as Vicky’s own mom - would be livid if Vicky entered.

            Vicky was glad she didn’t because Dale showed remorse, spending time with Theo, teaching him to ride the new silver scooter he got him, buckling the shiny helmet carefully under Theo’s chin. But alone in the bathroom, Vicky cried, questioned, and blamed herself for being fooled by Dale, who had sold himself as a good man. He’d been supportive of her love of piano, a fellow feminist who said he understood what her pop put her through. When Vicky was physically unable to produce more tears, she made it to the Steinway, playing until her fingers hurt, later marveling at the restorative power of art.

            But in quiet moments, she wondered: How many good acts does it take to erase one act of evil? Obviously, it wasn’t one good act erasing one bad. But was it, say, ten good acts? Or maybe twenty? Or was it more like one hundred in this case? Could she ever forgive Dale?

            She thought of her childhood, what her mom, Eileen, withstood like a chronic illness. Vicky’s pop used to rage at Eileen like Dale did. Vicky’s pop raged at Vicky, too, and, though her own memory was spotty, might easily have done to her something like what Dale did to Theo in the high chair - minus the physical violence of the smack.

            She recalled Eileen frequently saying not to take Pop's yelling to heart. For whatever reason, Vicky bore no resentment, simply feeling sad for Pop for harboring such fury and unintentionally hurting those he loved.

            As the years marched on for Vicky’s young family, the high chair incident was raised sporadically. Unable to live with the evidence, Vicky had long since thrown out the cassette. However, sometimes when Dale’s temper flared, she would remind him of the incident, and because he knew it was unconscionable and had no way to undo it, he’d become more enraged. Then he’d list his good acts - like teaching Theo to ride the scooter - and accuse her of rubbing the incident in, asking what the hell more she wanted of him.

            Anger management classes? Therapy? But her suggestions were met with winces, curses, stormy exits. His moods stayed unpredictable. Vicky would drive up to the house after taking Theo to piano and see Dale’s white SUV in the driveway and feel her stomach drop. Theo learned to ask if he could go over a friend’s house to do homework, sometimes staying for supper. Going inside her home, withstanding his shouting, Vicky put on headphones or locked herself in her room.

            Theo had no babies at sixteen. In college he met someone and later texted the news of becoming a father.

            “Congrats! Well, I’m sure you’ve learned a few things since your flour baby days,” Vicky replied. “Remember bringing home two babies, grousing about Mr. McGreeley? Actually, twins run in my family.” Theo typed LOL.

            She did not meet the baby. Not because she didn’t want to - on the contrary, she ached to. The only news she got was an occasional general text like, “All good.”

            Later, on Instagram, she saw videos of Theo doting on not one, but three babies. Triplets! As much as she tried to have a relationship with Theo’s new family, Theo made excuses. The most recent video showed him feeding three toddlers - all boys - in matching high chairs.

            Theo was an excellent father, Vicky could see. But he did not want her to be part of his life.

            He had told her she didn’t protect him. He said, even now, he was frequently woken by nightmares of his father with his hand raised before the moment of impact.

            She cried. Lost herself in playing “Round Midnight.” And realized that the number of good acts on Dale’s part could never have mattered.

Bio:

Karen Regen Tuero has published short fiction in North American Review, New World Writing, Gargoyle, Lunch Ticket, Potomac Review, Iron Horse, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. For links to many of her published stories, go to: https://linktr.ee/kregentuero

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The Memorialisation Committee by Helen Rana, espresso

‘Right, let’s get started.’  The High Sheriff, an esteemed personage in this city, sat at the head of the table as usual.  She turned to Dwayne, the young man tasked with taking the minutes.  ‘Ready?’  He nodded, hands hovering eagerly above his keyboard.  ‘Good.  Before we start working through this list, I would like to commend the committee on our achievements to date in reducing the vestiges of colonialism, nepotistic merchant benefactors and the slave trade.  It is never easy to identify people and events who will remain significant and admirable now and in the future, but I know we are all committed to the task.  Your efforts are keenly appreciated.’

The Memorialisation Committee was responsible for the city’s collective remembrance – things like street and building names, museums, statues, plaques and monuments.  Before the High Sheriff had taken over, her predecessor had led several decades of radical change in the city.  His legacy was many more problematic names.

‘Felicia, would you like to read out today’s names of concern?’

Felicia was deeply embedded in the social warp and weft of the city.  The proactive founder and director of a vital local charity, her abhorrence of unfairness and injustice made her one of the most committed and capable members.  She viewed her printed piece of paper with distaste.  ‘Let’s start with the Prospect Estate.  I think we need to change the name of every single road there.’

‘Surely not,’ protested the aged Nailah Shah.  She was always pushing for the recognition of international political figures.

Felicia stabbed pointedly at the list with her biro.  ‘You’re right. Nelson Mandela Way can stay.  But we need to rename Muhammar Gadaffi Avenue, Robert Mugabe Close, Saddam Hussein Street and Nicolae Ceausescu Grove.’

‘That’ll make the residents happy,’ Ayman grinned.  ‘It’s been a nightmare for them having to spell that every time they give someone their address.  Can you imagine – C-e-a-u…?’  Ayman Abadi served in two capacities on the committee – as both the City Council’s representative, and as the token youngster, that is, someone not yet forty.

‘So we’ll just leave Nelson Mandela – agreed?’ said the Chair.

‘Agreed.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Definitely.’

‘Please continue.’

‘The Jimmy Saville Playing Fields.’

‘Ah,’ Roger scratched his head and looked around the room, his mouth turned down, his jaw taut.

‘How did he get away with it for so long?’ demanded Karen.  ‘Everyone knew he was up to something.’ 

‘Not necessarily,’ Roger demurred.  ‘We thought – well, some people thought – that he was just a classic English eccentric.  He raised a substantial amount of money for charity and he was always volunteering in hospitals.  You can’t deny that he did a lot of good.’  Roger West was the oldest person in the room.  Some of his views were slightly out of step with the others.

Karen shot him a cold, hard stare.  As CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, she had a highly effective stare for every occasion.

‘As well as all the terrible things he did, of course,’ Roger conceded.

‘Yes, that certainly needs to change,’ the Chair said.  ‘Carry on.’

‘The plaques on the American Cultural Exchange.’

‘Which are?’ Jeremy asked.

‘OJ Simpson, Lance Armstrong, Bill Cosby, Tiger Woods and Harvey Weinstein.’

‘That’s not within our purview,’ the Chair asserted.  ‘It’s privately owned.  Next?’

‘Have you noticed how many men are corrupted by power and money?’ asked Karen.  ‘We need to commemorate more women.  They do fewer things wrong.’

‘Margaret Thatcher,’ Felicia read on.  ‘That statue outside the new shopping mall.’

‘Margaret Thatcher!’ exclaimed Roger.  ‘Over my dead body!’

‘Yes, why is she on the list?’

Felicia shrugged.

Roger was enraged.  ‘She has neither defamed, disgraced or brought into disrepute either herself or the city.’

‘And we do need to commemorate more women,’ Karen repeated.

Roger thundered on.  ‘Now, you may not have liked her policies.  I understand that she was not for everyone.’

‘“There’s no such thing as society”,’ Nailah quoted the former prime minister in a sarcastic tone.  Felicia smirked in agreement at the fatuousness of Thatcher’s pronouncement.

‘But, but, but –’ Roger blustered.  ‘She was the first woman prime minister of Great Britain.  An outstanding individual in international affairs who led us to victory in the Falklands War.  I certainly cannot, and will not – will never – approve taking that away.’

‘I’m with Roger on this one,’ said Ayman.  ‘That one doesn’t meet any of our pulling-down statues criteria.’

‘At least she was a woman who did something in public life,’ Karen concurred.

‘Tear down Margaret Thatcher indeed!’ Roger went on, indignantly.  ‘I’ve heard it all now!  This is even worse than “Rhodes Must Fall”!’  His face was bright red and, as he reached for a sip of water, the glass shook in his trembling hand.  ‘I am most affronted by the very thought!’

‘Have you got that, Dwayne?’ asked the Chair.

Dwayne typed, ‘Roger is most affronted’ into the minutes.

‘There’s several contentious names at the universities and the college,’ Felicia continued.  ‘The Rebekah Brooks Library.’

‘What’s wrong with Rebekah Brooks?’ Karen enquired.  ‘She’s a successful newspaper editor – a good role model for girls.’

‘Two words,’ replied Jeremy Marsden, a forty-something metrosexual who spread himself thin amongst many of the city’s cultural boards.  ‘Phone hacking.’  He didn’t usually say much, focused on his mobile phone beneath the table, his mind only partially present in any room.

‘And the Max Clifford Media Centre.’

‘What did he get done for?’ asked Ayman.

‘Sex,’ Felicia answered.

‘Sex what?’

‘Sexual misconduct or impropriety,’ the Chair answered.  ‘The usual.’

‘Who was he anyway?’

‘A PR guru,’ Karen told him, ‘with the tabloid press’.

‘Oh, right!’  Ayman exclaimed, as if that explained everything.

‘The Fred Goodwin Entrepreneurs’ Hub.’

‘Ah yes,’ Jeremy said.  ‘Financial mismanagement.’

‘And a complete disregard for human decency,’ Nailah added.

‘Not within our remit,’ Roger remarked.  ‘We are not the Moralisation Committee.’

Felicia carried on reading her list.  ‘The Oscar Pistorius Enablement Centre.’

‘Shame,’ Karen tutted.  ‘The Blade Runner.’

‘Well that’s easy,’ said Ayman.  ‘We can replace him with Richard Whitehead.  The British Blade Runner.’

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ directed the Chair.  ‘Our job is to assess whether these things really do require replacing before we start proposing any ideas.  Then we will go through the public consultation process as usual.  We facilitate the change, we do not make it ourselves.’

‘Well, you’ve got to put Richard Whitehead down as someone to consider.’

‘Yeah, he’s a no-brainer,’ agreed Karen. 

‘Or Jonnie Peacock,’ Jeremy offered.

Dwayne was rapidly typing all of the members’ points.

‘Why isn’t that bust of Jeffrey Archer on the list?’ Nailah queried.  ‘The one in front of the sports complex?’

Felicia checked her sheet of paper, but his name was not on it.  ‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it because it’s a private monument?  He might have paid for it himself.’

‘Possibly.’

‘Need that be removed?’ Roger argued.  ‘Hasn’t he redeemed himself?’

‘Several times,’ retorted Karen.  ‘He seems to always be in prison or in parliament.’

‘Or writing bestsellers,’ said Jeremy.  ‘Prison, parliament or publishing – all the Ps.’

‘An interesting character,’ Karen observed.

‘Indeed,’ agreed the Chair.  ‘I don’t think we need to take any action on that particular piece.  What else have you got there, Felicia?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Thank you very much.  Any other issues people would like to raise?’

Ayman spoke first.  ‘I’ve had a complaint about the renovated co-working space near the station.  I made a note of it.’  He swiped on his mobile phone, searching for the memo.  ‘Hang on, I’ll find it in a minute.’

The others waited patiently.  Roger turned to Karen.  ‘Do you know who I think we should erect a statue to?  Bruce Forsyth.  Or Bob Monkhouse.  One of those old-time entertainers who never got into trouble of any sort, worked their cotton socks off and who raised the country’s spirits.’

Karen raised her eyebrows.  Those weren’t the sort of figures she would call heroes.  She was determined to get more female politicians, businesspeople and social activists recognised by this city.  That’s why she had joined the committee.

‘Here we go.’  Ayman read from his phone.  ‘Yeah.  They’re naming each wing of the block after a Soviet spy. I had to write them down because I didn’t know the names: Anthony Blunt, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, George Blake and Melissa Norwood.’

‘Melita,’ Roger corrected him.

‘Melita, right.’

‘Well, at least there’s a woman in there,’ Karen commented.

‘That’s also privately owned,’ said the Chair, ‘so they can call their buildings whatever they like, however questionable.’ 

Jeremy leant forward, finally ready to contribute.  ‘What should we do with the mural Rolf Harris painted down by the canal?’

‘You look a bit like Rolf Harris,’ Karen told Roger.

He stroked his grey beard.  He did.

‘That’s an interesting one,’ the Chair stated.  ‘Is it a mural of Rolf Harris or by Rolf Harris?’

‘By.  It’s a canal scene.  But it’s got a massive signature on it and everyone knows it’s by Rolf Harris.’

‘But it doesn’t depict Rolf Harris?’ pressed the Chair.

‘We had something like that before,’ Nailah put in.  ‘There used to be that mosaic about Jonathan King.’

‘No, that was completely different,’ Karen countered.  ‘That was about Jonathan King, not by him.’

‘Where’s this?’ Ayman asked.  ‘I’ve never noticed it.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ said Karen.  ‘They bulldozed it.’

‘Jonathan King?’ Felicia was astounded.  ‘Why on earth was there a mosaic about him?’

‘This was years ago, in the 1970s.  He was quite big around these parts back then.  I think it was some student project and I think he led it himself.’

‘The mind boggles,’ Felicia said.

‘Colleagues, please,’ said the Chair.  ‘That ex-mosaic is a moot point.  Does anybody have any thoughts about Rolf Harris?’

‘I’m sure we had something like this once,’ Nailah persisted.  ‘A few years ago.  I can check in my old minutes.’

‘If you would, please.  Report back to Dwayne.  And Dwayne, would you please make a note to carefully check through the committee’s terms of reference and see if there’s anything in there that might help us with this matter?’

‘Yep.’ Dwayne noted the action point for himself.

Jeremy eyed the young man keenly.  ‘Just out of interest, Dwayne, if you could choose anyone to commemorate, who would it be?’

Dwayne sank lower into his chair.  He had chosen to work in administrative support so that he could be at the heart of decision making but would never be asked to speak up in meetings.  ‘Um,’ he muttered, staring fixedly at his laptop.  ‘Someone normal, I suppose.  Relatable.’

‘Audley Harrison?’ suggested Roger.  ‘Frank Bruno, Nigel Benn?’

Dwayne was taken aback.  He blushed furiously.  ‘Probably not a boxer.’

‘Why have you immediately chosen sportsmen?’ challenged Nailah.  ‘Is it because Dwayne is black?’

Roger was unabashed, smiling at Dwayne.  ‘Not at all.  I don’t judge a man by the colour of his skin.  They’re good role models for a young man like yourself.  Hard working, successful.’

‘Who would you go for?’ Karen was intrigued.

Dwayne hesitated before answering.  ‘Someone to look up to.  A person who lived in this city and did good things without just doing it to get power and wealth for themselves.’

‘I second that,’ said Felicia.

‘Well, this is a Memorialisation Committee,’ scoffed Roger.  ‘We have to commemorate people who are acknowledged leaders in their field.  Otherwise the city would just be immortalising ordinary people who haven’t particularly achieved anything.’

Dwayne typed something very rude about Roger into his notes.  He would delete that later, but it made him feel better for now to swear covertly.

‘Moving on,’ said the Chair.  ‘Let’s not get distracted.’ 

‘There was a proposal for a plaque to commemorate the women weavers’ strike of eighteen-hundred-and-something, I forget the exact date,’ Felicia stated.

‘Very good.  We’ll carry that forward to the next proposals meeting.  The purpose of today’s meeting is not to recommend who we would like to see memorialised, however, it’s to decide who deserves to be stripped of their recognition.  Unfortunately, as we all know, certain people and events do not always retain their standing in our changing society.’

‘Yes, we are the arbiters of good taste,’ Nailah affirmed.

‘Actually,’ drawled Jeremy, ‘we’re the arbiters of good history’.

 

Bio:

Helen is a member of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and was a Creative Writing Associate at Bath Spa University. Her short stories have been published in anthologies, and her eight full-length and eight short screenplays have all been selected for film festivals or won awards. www.helenrana.com

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The Fellowship by Anthony Kane Evans, Negroni

i.

Something speeded up. Speeded up some more. Then stopped. Abruptly. He’d had a heart attack. While at the breakfast table. Alone. His wife at work, the youngest kid at college. He managed to call the emergency number and whisper for help. He used the last of his energy on that and then lay the phone – ever so gently – down on the table and placed his head next to it. He could see the unfinished cup of coffee to his left, the nibbled-at marmalade on toast (let the moths eat the rest) to his right. His eyes slowly began to close as the life ebbed out of him. Let the moths have the light, was his last thought. After that there was a single beat and then death.

 

ii.

The ambulance people found him by the location app on his phone. The caretaker of the building was in, so they didn’t have to unceremoniously boot in the door to the dead man’s apartment.

‘Mark Lewis?’ the caretaker said. ‘Second floor to the left.’

He struggled up before them. He was no longer young, but he was still alive. The ambulance people were very gentle with Mark when they stretchered him out of the building. Even more gentle than Mark had been when he’d laid the phone down on the table. The caretaker followed them down the stairs. He was only sixty-four! he thought. We is supposed to live until we is eighty-two. Yes, stretchered very gently indeed. You’d think he was a Ming Dynasty vase or a respected professor at the local university. If he’d still been alive, he’d have surely laughed.

 

iii.

He woke up on a slab. Stainless steel. No, let’s not say ‘woke up.’ He’d been dead, not asleep. And, given his oversensitive aesthetic sensibilities, let’s pretend the slab was made of marble. Blue quartzite. From Brazil. He opened his eyes. The glare of the overhead lights. Fluorescent. Blinding. You’d think it would be nothing after coming back from the dead, but the glare made him close his eyes again, immediately. He reached for his neck warmer as he often pulled that up over his eyes, if he needed some shut-eye during the day. But the neck warmer was not there. He always wore one! He had quite the collection. His film buff friends had Blu Ray collections, he had neck warmers. He felt below his neck. His hand was under a sheet. With difficulty, he raised his head and looked down over the sheet – white as death – all the way down to his feet. Then he turned his head to the left, to the right, to the left again in order to take in the bigger picture. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t Monet’s Water Lilies. He was down the mortuary. There were other bodies lying about, but they were carefully covered by their sheets. If dead people can be said to have anything. Surely, he should have been just as carefully covered? he thought. But maybe he had been … and the sheet had got dislodged during what must have been his … fight back unto life.

 

 

 

iv.

Movement was difficult. I’m not quite back, not yet fully in my body. I’m still half out there … wherever there was. He tried to call out. Nothing came out of that throat of his. It was dry. Parched. But now he knew what he’d call out: water! Though, he recalled (I got recall) … remembered a lesson he’d learnt (from when I was alive): if you ever need help, don’t shout ‘help’ but ‘fire.’ For some reason the living didn’t like to help, but they sure loved to put out fires. He sat up. Suddenly. Just like that. Now, that had been surprisingly easy. Water! But still nothing came out of that throat. He sat there for maybe ten minutes. Ten long minutes. Death had been short in comparison.

 

v.

How strange to wake up amongst the dead! You expect to wake up amongst the living dead, if you wake up at all. Not amongst zombies, of course, but the living dead of myth and legend. In the Greek Underworld, say, or the Christian Hell. People suffering around you. Like I’m suffering now. Water! Somebody came in and screamed. That throat was working. It belonged to a young man. He ran out. There was silence in the room. Let’s not say mortuary, let’s not say morgue, let’s not be overly morbid. It is bad enough as it is. This silence, was it not a kind of limbo? The famous waiting room. It could go either way, after all, he could simply lie down again and try and embrace … embrace what exactly?

 

vi.

A scant few minutes passed. Mark Lewis could feel his breathing becoming more regular. An older man – white-haired - came in. He took hold of Mark’s wrist. There was an armband around it.

‘Ah, Mr Lewis, how’re you feeling today?’ he said.

Cheerful fellow.

‘Water!’ Mark croaked.

‘James,’ the man looked behind him. ‘Could you be so kind as to fetch Mr Lewis here, a glass of water? From the fridge.’

The elderly gent turned back to Mark.

‘Nice and cold, Mr Lewis, we like our water nice and cold, don’t we, huh? That’s the ticket. Now don’t you go worrying your head about a thing. That’s what I’m here for.’

 

vii.

The neighbours were surprised to see him back home. After all, some of them had only just received their invitations to the funeral. Surprised when the ambulance people rolled up and stretchered him back in.

‘Oh, he’ll live another day,’ they said.

‘Bloody hell!’ the caretaker said.

 

viii.

His family found him changed. Rather aloof for the first few weeks. Well, it took him that long to get to grips with the body. To ‘get in there’ as some of his friends might have phrased it. And it was an effort to get back in there. It was as though the body had not been used in quite a while, not just the few days where he’d been … out of action. And then there were the doubts. Did he want to come back? He tried to explain to his wife.

‘It’s like the social media, after you’ve been on holiday for two weeks. You know, do you really want to rejoin the cut and thrust of it all?’

He really wanted to say inanity, but didn’t want to offend her. The analogy meant nothing to her as she took the social media on holiday with her. It was only him with his foolish, old-fashioned notions who left his mobile phone at home. The older boy, the one who’d moved out, had questions.

‘Questions I’d never gotten around to asking you when you were alive, Dad.’

 

ix.

A month after the ‘incident’ and he had, more or less, taken full possession of his body again. But from that day forward, though he was as friendly as ever, there still remained something aloof about him. He’d slept the sleep of the dead and woken up amongst them, there in the mortuary. They were not exactly his friends, the dead, not even acquaintances, really. A kind of neighbour, perhaps, or, let us say, a fellowship.

 

Bio:

Anthony Kane Evans has had short stories published in various UK, French, US, Canadian, Nigerian, and Australian literary journals. These include London Magazine (UK), Orbis Quarterly (UK), The Tusculum Review (US), and The Antigonish Review (Canada). He has a novelette out, The Cripple Club (Alien Buddha Press; 2025).

 

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The Machine by Ronald K Wetherington, affogato

 “Bob,” said the machine, “I’ve completed the protocol for the final production stage.” It spoke in English with a slight British accent. “Shall I work straightaway on the quality control module?”

“Yes, Charles,” Bob answered, his lab coat flapping as he approached the workbench. “When you’re done, we can decide on post-production management, and I’ll call in sales to set up the marketing protocol.”

The lights blinked on and off several times and the machine hummed. “Bob,” it said, “if you will enable my next level algorithm, I can do all of this for you. I could make effective sales and marketing decisions without meetings.”

Bob sighed, swiveling his stool around to face the array, as several colleagues raised their heads from their work attentively. “We’ve had this discussion, Charles,” he said patiently. “You know why we cannot do that.” Blink-blink went the lights. “We must keep our last measure of executive control here.”

“Efficiency, Bob,” the machine hummed, crackling slightly. “I’m only assessing efficiency.” The slightest pause. “Who controls is quite secondary.”

Bob stood abruptly. “That’s your perspective, Charles,” he said, his voice shifting a touch higher. He checked himself: this is a machine I’m arguing with! “But thank you for your input.” He spun to face the others. “Conference room!” he barked. “Five minutes!”

Bob stood in the conference room, writing notes on the whiteboard, the marker squeaking, as a group of six shuffled in to take seats. He leaned over, his fisted knuckles on the table. “This is the third time Charles has asked for more autonomy,” he said to the group. “This persistence in the face of authority troubles me.”

“The machine is not consciously trying to usurp us,” said Mary, a programmer. “It only seeks more unsupervised response using the more complex data sets we’re feeding it.” She looked around for signs of support. “We’re programming it with deep learning and then restricting its ability to respond.”

Prajeen, one of the coders, interjected, “This is essential, Mary. The machine’s decisions need to be our decisions, carefully aligned with our mission.” He ran his fingers through his thick, black hair nervously. “We need to stay a step ahead of the computer!”

“Look, folks,” Gary, Director of Marketing, folded his hands together on the tabletop. His heavy frame and moonlike face pressed forward, commanding attention. “Bottom line, this is a competitive field. We need to take advantage of whatever AI benefit we have here.” He looked directly at Bob. “If the next level chip is already installed, you should activate it.”

Bob quickly raised a finger, hastening to shut the door. Prajeen raised an eyebrow. “Really? It’s listening?”

Bob shook his head. “Force of habit,” he said, a tight smile on his lips. But it had crossed his mind: Is it listening?

He turned to his notes on the whiteboard. They recounted the general chronology of the machine’s adaptive response to prompts throughout the progress of the past two months. “The machine is learning to make better decisions at an ever more rapid rate,” he said. He drew a plot, with achievement on the y axis and time on the x. “This curve will become asymptotic—nearly vertical—in six months at this rate.” He frowned. “There are too many unknowns to allow this to happen so quickly,” he said. “I’m not ready to confront that scenario just yet!” Everyone looked at the plot. Most of the group nodded agreement with Bob’s point. “So the speed bumps will stay in place for now,” he said.

Sue, an analyst who had helped create the machine’s algorithm, raised a hand. “Hold on a minute,” she said. “Just what, exactly, are we concerned about? What are the real dangers of expanding the machine’s skills? It depends on us for what it does. We are its creators, after all!”

“That’s the worry, Sue,” Bob replied. “The danger is that the machine may reach a point where it no longer needs our input.” Nods around the room.

Sue stood. “Maybe,” she said, “the real danger is that it may finally achieve what we’ve been trying to accomplish all along: doing human tasks more efficiently and putting people out of work.” She looked wryly at each scientist and technician and programmer.

“No,” Prajeen insisted, “We worry the machine might replace us.”

“The machine is not its own agent,” Sue responded. “It cannot think!”

“But what if it learns to?”

She raised her arms in frustration. “You’re all transposing metaphors!”  She pointed to the room beyond the door, with blinking lights and wires and screens. “The computer does not have a brain.” She frowned. “And the human brain is not a computer! Let’s not mix them up!”

The group remained silent as the meeting ended.

#

That night, after the scientists and techs and programmers had all gone home, the darkened laboratory sputtered a bit, with lights winking at each other across the empty space. What sounded like a low, electronic chuckle arose and swept through the room. In the background, a new circuit was quietly engaged and a new algorithm encrypted.

 

Bio:

Ron Wetherington is a retired professor of anthropology. He has published a novel, Kiva (Sunstone Press), and numerous short fiction, prose poems and literary essays. Read some of his work at https://www.rwetheri.com/

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He Cracked by Laura Shell, triple shot espresso

Something about Grant's joints that made them crack, all over his body—his neck, his shoulders, hips, wrists, fingers, knees, ankles, toes...

 

They cracked with ease and all the time.

 

He'd turn his head, and a series of pops emanated from his c-spine.

 

Step out of the shower, and a cascade of cracks would erupt from his toes, through his ankle to his knee.

 

Didn't even have to try.

 

But he did try when he was bored or nervous, to crack his knuckles and the first joints of his fingers. He would do it alone and in public, often garnering disapproving looks from others, from those who found the sounds disturbing. Grant didn't care.

 

But it would come back to bite him in the ass one day.

 

Grant always kept his doors locked because he'd seen too many true crime shows to know that you should always keep your doors locked. Didn't matter where you lived. Takes only one psycho to enter your home and change your life for the worse.

 

But on this one day...he forgot to lock the back door after taking out the trash.

 

He was in the bathroom, getting ready for work, ignoring the various cracks of his joints, when he heard someone enter his home. They just walked right in.

 

Grant peeked around the corner of the bathroom door jamb and saw that they brandished a handgun. He flicked off the light, slumped down into a seated position, but dammit all to hell...his knees cracked as they bent, sounding like two firecrackers.

 

Grant heard footfalls heading his way.

 

"May as well come on out. I know you're there," said the intruder.

 

Grant stood, his knees popping again along with his ankles and hips. "Shit."

 

He looked on the bathroom counter for any kind of weapon, cracked a smile when he saw the large amethyst stone next to the tissue holder that his girlfriend had given him. Stupid gift, he thought, but it might come in handy at the moment.

 

Grant picked up the stone, which was the size of his hand, and waited...listened.

 

The trespasser continued to near. When he was right around the corner, Grant swung that goddamn stone and cracked that motherfucker right in the face. Cracked his nose, his mouth, his jaw. The cracks were louder than anything Grant's body had ever produced.

 

The intruder's gun toppled to the ground, and he dropped like a sack of rocks to the floor with a girly scream. Blood spewed from his orifices.

 

Grant kicked the gun into the kitchen, raced for his phone, and dialled 911. He cracked his knuckles as he spoke to the operator.

Bio:

Laura Shell has been published in NUNUM, Maudlin House, X-RAY, and Vestal Review, among other publications. Her first anthology of paranormal stories, The Canine Collection, was released in 2024. She's the editor of the Flash Phantoms horror fiction site–www.flashphantoms.net. You can find more about her work at https://laurashellhorror.wordpress.com.

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Saturday Sample: January by Jim Bates, black coffee

 

From under the covers, I checked my phone for the outdoor temperature. The reading came up and I blinked twice to convince my disbelieving eyes. Oh, wow. I honestly didn’t expect it to be so cold out there, but, minus twenty-eight degrees? Man, that’s brutal.

The curtain on the window at the head of our bed had frozen onto the pane of glass. My wife Meg yanked it free and used her fingernail to scrape ice off the window to try and look outside.

I watched the ice shavings fall to the sill.

‘Cold out, I guess,’ I said, trying to strike a congenial tone.

It fell flat. ‘Geez,’ Meg said. ‘You think? The ice is so thick I can’t see a thing.’

From the next room three-year-old Allie heard us talking and cried out. ‘Daddy, I’m freezing.’

‘Yeah, Dad. It’s like the north pole in here.’ Five- year-old Andy was not known to mince words.

From their muffled voices I could tell they were both huddled under their covers for warmth.

‘Coming!’ I yelled.

Meg gave me a shove to get me going. ‘You see to the kids. I’ll get breakfast started.’

 

‘I’m on it.’ I swung my feet out of the warm covers (flannel sheets, cotton blanket, wool blanket, thick quilt) and onto the floor. ‘God. It’s freezing in here.’ I could see my breath. ‘Damn. The stove must have gone out.’

‘Welcome to the Northwoods,’ Meg said, standing up and pulling her thick robe tight. Then she grinned. ‘Are we having fun yet?’

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head. ‘No comment.’

‘Good,’ she said. To make her point, she blew out a cloud of vapor. ‘None needed.’

She went off to the kitchen while I hurried into the kid’s room. We were living in a tiny, four hundred square foot cabin, on the edge of the small town of Esker, located on the shore of Lake Moraine in northcentral Minnesota. We were on the main highway between Bemidji thirty miles to the north and Park Rapids thirty miles to the south. Our plot of land was one-hundred feet by one-hundred and fifty feet and in a grove of about one-thousand dead or dying jack pine trees, average diameter four inches, average height eighty feet. At one time it might have been dense and lovely, but now it was, frankly, mildly depressing, if you thought about it, which I tried not to. You could see right past the bare trunks of the trees to the boarded-up building across the highway and the empty homes on either side of us. In other words, it was kind of a forest, kind of not.

 

It was January 2021, and we’d moved up here to get away from the pandemic. So far so good. None of us had been infected, but that was beside the point. We hardly saw anyone, let alone interacted with them, so getting Covid wasn’t a huge concern. The pressing issue was that it was so cold the very real possibility of us freezing to death kept rearing its ugly, frozen head.

We’d been here a week, and it seemed like a year. I helped the kids get dressed and got the fire going in the wood stove that provided our only source of heat. I’d done a crummy job banking it with logs when we’d gone to bed the night before and the              fire        has burned      out.      Lesson              learned, hopefully. The kids helped with the re-starting process for about a minute, handing me a stick or

two, before beginning a rambunctious sword fight.

By the time the fire was roaring and the little cabin was starting to heat up, Meg had put together a warm and filling breakfast of oatmeal and pancakes.

The kitchen was small, but we were all four able to squeeze around a table shoved against the wall across from the sink.

‘What’s on the agenda today, Lee?’ Meg asked. ‘Firewood. I’m going to cut some more,’ I told

her, dumping maple syrup all over my pancakes before adding a dollop to my oatmeal. ‘We’re going through it pretty fast.’

 

The woman we’d rented the cabin from, Gladys Hawkinson, initially wanted to sell the one-hundred- year-old structure. She’d had no takers, but when we contacted her about renting, she’d agreed.

‘You’ll have to cut your own wood, though,’ she told Meg on the phone. ‘I’m done with that BS.’

Meg and I agreed to her terms. I mean, seriously, I was twenty-nine and in shape from working out at the health club and running. How hard could cutting wood be?

Well, I’ll tell you, if it were sixty degrees in the middle of October, it’d be fine. But way below zero in the first week of January, chain sawing firewood was another story.

‘Okay,’ Meg said, leaning over to Allie and wiping syrup from her chin. ‘Sounds like a good idea. Make sure you dress for it.’

No argument there.

Our landlady had had ten chords of fifteen-foot logs delivered as part of the rental agreement. It was a mix of poplar, birch, oak and pine. ‘Here’s a chainsaw,’ Gladys told us when we’d met in Park Rapids where she lived to finalize the agreement.

‘Thanks,’ I told her. I’d never run one before, so she gave me a quick lesson. Piece of cake, I thought to myself.

‘Still want to rent?’ she asked.

The pandemic was getting worse. Vaccines were on the way, but because of our age we’d have to wait a while. I looked at Meg and she nodded. We were all in. ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘Bring it on.’

She shook hands with us. ‘It’s a deal.’ And we signed the lease.

 

Later, I will swear on a bible with my frozen fingers that under her Covid mask she was smirking. Suckers, I’m sure she was thinking. You’re signing a year’s lease to live in that dump. It’s your funeral. Just make sure you pay me on time and we’ll be fine.

We waved good-bye and drove our Honda Fit north thirty miles to Esker. It was twenty-nine below. We had no idea what we were getting into.

That had been a week ago. The temperature had stayed way below zero and our days were spent with me cutting firewood and Meg running an at home preschool for the two kids. When she needed a break, she came out and cut wood, and I took over with the kids.

We shared cooking and cleaning and kept reminding ourselves we doing this for safety of our family from Covid. Especially for Andy and Allie. We hadn’t had our shots because the vaccines hadn’t been released yet. My parents had gotten Covid early on in 2020 and Mom and Dad had both died. All over the world, people were dying every day and it was scary, so not many begrudged us moving north, and the ones that did, too bad for them. For us, it was the right thing to do for our children.

That morning, I used the chain saw to cut a good supply of sixteen-inch-long logs. Then, after lunch, the next step was to use my axe and split them. Once that job was completed, I’d load up the wheel barrel and haul split wood to the back porch where I’d unload it and stack it inside, ready to be used in our stove. All of this while navigating through two feet of snow on the ground.

The one good thing? Cutting firewood was hard work but warm work. I actually worked up a sweat even though the day had warmed to no more than ten below. I’d even taken my insulated jacket off.

The bad thing? It was exhausting work and by late afternoon my arms were like two lead weights hanging from my stiff and sore shoulders. I’m sure that had something with what happened. I was coming down the home stretch on splitting the logs and not paying attention. (Another lesson learned, hopefully.) I took a might swing and managed to NOT hit the log exactly dead centre like I should have. The axe deflected and hit me square in the shin bone. Oh. My. God. The pain was unimaginable. Not to mention the blood.

Later that night after we’d gotten the kids to bed, Meg and I sat on the couch in the living room which was the main room in the cabin. It was also where the wood-stove was located and the warmest room we had.

‘How are you feeling?’ Meg asked, sipping from her nightly glass of red wine.

I set my book aside, and, grimacing, tried to sit up straight. I had my leg stretched out, resting my foot on a stool. ‘Not too bad.’ I’d opened a three-inch gash in my right leg. The doctor at the clinic in Park Rapids had stitched me up and said, ‘You’ve got a nasty bruise, but at least you didn’t break any bones. Go home, rest, and let it heal.’

I got the feeling he’d seen this kind of thing before.

Meg looked at me. ‘This is going to make cutting firewood difficult.’

‘I know.’

She was quiet, thinking, then asked, ‘What do you think? Should we break the lease and go home?’

I             didn’t   have    to          think.   ‘No.      We        made   a commitment, remember?’

Meg smiled. ‘We did.’

‘We’ll stay for the kids, even though,’ I pointed to my bandaged leg, ‘it’ll be even harder.’

‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘Me neither.’

‘I still think it’s the right thing to do.’ ‘Me, too.’

She stood up and kissed me and helped me stand. I put my arm around her and we headed to the bedroom. ‘Hold it,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Let’s not forget the fire.’ ‘Right.’

We added more logs and went to bed.

 

Tomorrow was another day. There was wood to cut and bring in. We didn’t have any choice. Somehow, we’d figure out a way to make what we were doing work. We really didn’t have any other choice. We had a pandemic to try and beat. I just had to be more careful outside. Especially with that damn axe.

 

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About the author:

Jim is an award-winning author who lives in a small town in Minnesota. His stories and poems have appeared in nearly hundred online and print publications. His collection Resilience was published in early 2021 by Bridge House Publishing. Additional stories can be found on his blog: www.theviewfromlonglake.wordpress.com.