A Ghostly Sign by Fleur Lind, a cocktail from Psycho Suzi’s Bar

It was Polly’s first hunt. She listened as team leader Leon blurted out the rules and dusted over any relevant ways in which the rules could or should be bent slightly. With information overload, Polly’s attention had slipped. Having just started a new job, learning the ropes in a legal firm was enough to take in without being plunged into a big team-building event with her colleagues. She looked at the faces of her team. They too had drifted in concentration,  Leon concluded his speal and opened a Q & A. Polly’s attention was snapped back with robust discussion from her team.

“We’ve got two hours to find all the stuff on this list.”

“A scavenger hunt is lame. I wanted to do rock climbing.”

“Someone might fall and sue us.”

“I was all for the mystery train trip.”

“Being Halloween and all, we should finish this event with some appropriately-named cocktails at Psycho Suzi’s Bar.”

“I’m all for that. The Hangman’s Noose or Miss Maude’s Eyeballs.”

“’ Let’s focus, people…the first thing on the list, we have to find a sign.”

“A sign?  Like from the afterlife?? A meeting of the spirits?”

“No, Annie. A sign. Like a registration plate, a street sign or something.”

“Taking one of them will end badly.”

Oh. I won’t need to pop home and get my weegie board then.”

“Good grief! Weegie boards? Polly must  be wondering what she’s got herself into…”

Polly smiled, quietly wondering exactly that; What an interesting bunch. Total nutjobs.

“So back to the sign…Psychos Suzi’s will be shut if we don’t get a move on.”

“I know where to find some. There are heaps on my Uncle Ted's old shack. He blew part of the roof off with dodgy fireworks some years ago, and a few signs are barely hanging on, so it should be easy to take one off. The shack has seen better days and times, and I think the signs hold the main structure together but it will always be his castle. He still pops in to be laird…”

“We should ask him if we can have a sign, It wouldn’t be a good look if a law firm flogged a sign without prior consent…”

“Uncle Ted died ten years ago.”

“Does anyone speak ghost?”

About the author 

 

Fleur is a Kiwi living in SE Queensland. She enjoys the fun, challenge, and possibilities of short stories. She is a member of the local writer's group - The Squabbling Scribblers. For more of Fleur's work: fleursfabulousfables.wordpress.com 

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Kindred Spirit by Donna Gum. hot cappuccino

Alone, she stood barefoot on the cold tiles, immersing herself in the portrait. She wiped the tears that kept welling despite herself.
 

His large brown eyes looked at her with the quiet wisdom and love she'd known for years. The gray strands touched his black hair. She remembered how soft it had felt. He'd fought the end as she'd tried to make it easier for him. They’d spent most evenings together in the living room. He’d insisted on sharing meals with her up to the end.
 

His breathing rasped as he walked. He’d come into the bedroom with her as she went to the bathroom. 

When she'd come out minutes later, she'd found him lying on the faded bedspread, his beautiful eyes staring, unblinking. His labored breathing ceased. She’d thought he’d improved that evening, but wasn't there a rebound of the old self before the end?
 

She gulped back a sob and reached out to straighten his image in the ornate frame on the wall. Fourteen years they'd been together, the most loyal dog she owned.

About the author 

Donna Gum began writing in non-fiction and ghost-writing, but couldn’t resist the call of fiction. She enjoys writing flash fiction in the Appalachian Mountains. Her latest fiction was published by Borderline Tales in December, 2024.

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Last Night in Dublin by Brent Cronin, Irish coffee,

 He’d heard birds chirping when he finally shut his eyes for the night, and because of his impending morning flight, he’d only slept for an hour or two. His phone alarm rattled his brain at 6:30 a.m. Delirious, he reached for the device on the nightstand, stopped the alarm, and set it for 7 a.m. His body craved sleep more than anything—except the woman next to him, who remained heavy with sleep as he traced her hip under the covers. He was in and out for the next precious half-hour, feeling her soft skin, kissing her face. Sometimes she turned to meet his mouth before turning away and drifting back to what seemed like peaceful slumber. She had no plane to catch.

At the ugly sound of the alarm, he forced himself to roll out of bed. He found his pants in a pile near the bathroom, shook them out, stepped into them. There were three small twin beds in the room (it had been the only room available), and they had occupied the middle one, where she still slept. On the windowsill sat a crumpled, translucent red condom. He retrieved it and threw it in the bathroom trash. He didn’t want her to have to deal with it.

 

He pulled on his sweater and slid back onto the bed, enveloping the sleeping woman. She turned and they kissed more. He wanted to tell her he loved her; he felt it in that moment, even though they’d only met the night before. Guinness, conversation, a silent disco, more Guinness, spontaneously latching onto a pub crawl; a bar with a dance floor she hadn’t been to since she was eighteen. Dancing to ABBA. Sitting on concrete steps in the rain, calling hotels between her pulling him in for kisses.

A taxi waited for him outside the hotel.

“Get lucky last night?” asked the driver, glancing at him in the rear-view mirror.

“Maybe. What makes you say that?”

“Why else would you be out at this hour?”

The driver dropped him off at his hostel, and he rode the elevator up to the six-bed dorm room he’d paid for but hadn’t slept in. He pulled his luggage from underneath the bunk bed and packed in a hurry, cramming the still-wet towel into the suitcase and sitting on it to zip it shut.

On the plane, he sat next to a priest. There was irony in that, he was sure. What a strange life—to choose celibacy. Last night, to him, had been sacred.

About the author 

Originally from Seattle, Brent Cronin is an MFA student at West Virginia University. He writes autofiction with a direct, deadpan style, and has been published in Dunes Review, The Listening Eye, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. You might find him riding his motorcycle in the Appalachian hills. 

brentcronin.com

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Jimmy Blueskies by Simeon McCathal, cafe au lait with no sugar

There is a wall between the sea and the train tracks in Seapoint where Jimmy would sit, every Saturday and Sunday in the summer. The wall faced south-southwest, so if there was sun, it would be warm. It was out of the sea breeze, and the thick granite would hold the heat for a while. Even if the wind was coming from the south or west, the wall would radiate out the heat, unless it had been dark or wet. And it was often dark and wet, even at this time of year. But that wouldn’t bother Jimmy. It was his season, and he would sit there, and only take refuge under a nearby iron bridge when the rain was bad. He had travelled across the city, from the northside to the centre and from there to the southside, taking two buses and walking several kilometres. It took a lot longer than the train, but it was cheaper.

 

If you passed Jimmy, he would always smile and wave, greet people who greeted him, and make small talk with anyone who wished to do so. He always said, more or less, the same things. He would have had a swim, and the water would be ‘like soup’. If the sun was shining, he would be resting his back against the warm wall, getting a tan on the front of his body, never the back. He wore a pair of blue bathing shorts and had the kind of drawstring duffle bag that you carry on one shoulder. They had been popular ten or more years before. He brought very little with him, aside from his customary brown towel.

 

If the sun was not shining, he might get up and look around as he chatted, and if he spotted a bit of blue sky, he’d point to it and say that the sun would be back. If there was no visible blue sky, he’s point to a bit of cloud that he would say is ‘thinning out’. And even if no clouds were obviously thinning out, he’d spot a cloud that he’d say was moving, and that the wind was going to clear up the weather soon. Sometimes, you could see rain over the sea, approaching from the east or north. Malahide could be completely obscured, and the rain already falling on most of the city. You could see the dark, flat-bottomed clouds, with faint parallel lines of rain. But Jimmy would always find some sign telling him that the sun would come out. If the day ended gloomy, he’d pack up his duffle bag, throw it over his shoulder, and head off home with a smile and a wave.

 

Jimmy would be there when our holidays started in June, and he’d be there every weekend until the end of the holidays in August. Whether he was also there in May or September, which was often the best month, I don’t know. But I would almost believe that it would be a sunny day when I walked along the path between the train tracks and the sea wall during the long holidays.

 

On a Saturday and Sunday in summer, hundreds of people would appear on the seafront. There was the sound of competing portable radios, emitting chart toppers with a tinny, raspy quality, the smell of suntan oil, crisps, soft drinks, whipped ice cream and perhaps even the smell of the sea. But those people were only fair-weather day trippers. Jimmy was there for the season.

About the author

 

Simeon McCathal creates web content, non-fiction, blogs, flash fiction, epistolary writing, short stories, and creative non-fiction. Loves everyday prose with a lacquer of hindsight and occasional moments of epiphany, themes of hope, joy, human rights, media, and life in developing countries through memoir and diary.

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