The kid next door had stopped screaming and was now bashing out a single flat note on a toy piano. Its parents were upstairs rehearsing their little drama of the […]
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The Metaworker Literary Magazine
Where great stories are forged
The kid next door had stopped screaming and was now bashing out a single flat note on a toy piano. Its parents were upstairs rehearsing their little drama of the […]
Read moreIf only Joyce hadn’t taken that damn selfie. Her and Tate, laughing at a truck stop in Mexico, drinking beer with lime, his cotton t-shirt sticky with sweat, her tank […]
Read moreJames was a senior when I was a freshman at Salem North High School; I fell in love with him when I heard he’d persuaded the principal to let him […]
Read moreThe man I loved as my grandfather was a tall, strong, broad-shouldered man who carried a fake ear in his back pocket. With his indigo skin and smile brighter than […]
Read moreCountless streets going past, streets and buildings waiting, decaying; lining the city boulevards like tombstones leading into oblivion, waiting to be called into action, waiting in worn Victorian splendor for […]
Read moreBob Sanders awoke one morning from a dream to discover that he no longer existed. He had died in the night. He had been fifty-eight years old when he died. […]
Read moreIt’s odd. I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ve been here for a very long time, as long as I can remember, as long as anyone can remember, but it’s […]
Read moreWhen the dragon first wound its way through the fragrant mist that swallowed the mountain, most had no reckoning of its nature. It was a myth, one the wise and […]
Read moreWe are all doomed to lose everything. I’ve lost three fingers, one arm, one eye. I’ve lost my family, my childhood home, my native tongue. I’m getting better and better […]
Read moreI have stood for over a hundred years in this place, endured the idiots who link hands and try to encompass my bulk, observed the overprepared hiker complete with stuffed […]
Read moreThe darkness should be the first clue, like it was not just a memory but an encounter, both in past and present: of the future. Or some thing who remembers […]
Read moreI guess I never told you about Texas, long and sweet in the evening, boiling jelly, about mom’s temperature, stuck in the oven: The best and worst part of the […]
Read more6:47 AM The darkness turns gray; the misty fog rests over the water; the honeysuckle perfumes the air as white petals float on the still water. 7:03 AM Beneath the […]
Read moreI knew already, struck with the phantasm of a dream that I had taken the reins of my life at last. Like a drowning man finding the hole in the […]
Read moreWe will not subside, for there can be no epiphany; we march into the sand for the egrets, hunting them with our knives. No other faith is real to me […]
Read moreCome with me, it won’t be far; we have all night, and the seasons with it, in your heart: I’m dying. I’ll tell you about the nearer part of it, […]
Read moreI’ve been awake since 4 a.m. But that was twenty hours ago, and now we’re here, at the party, and the sky seems low and […]
Read moreHer new boyfriend had a ship inside a bottle. You’d ask him how he got it in there, and he’d act like you had to be a mason […]
Read moreShe’d had a cupcake for breakfast every day for the last month. Thick on the icing, more often than not with sprinkles, occasionally filled with sweet cream or more icing. […]
Read moreThe weed is helping. I can’t survive without it. Honestly, it more or less serves as a natural replacement for Lexapro, because fuck that shit. It’s like lightening your hair […]
Read moreA Gymnast propels through the air after launching off the springboard. Camera flashes capture blurry movements: Facebook posts for later, if She wins. Judges dress in hooking avenue suits, out […]
Read moreOnce there was a man who found a forest in his pocket. When he came home after a day’s work he would take it out. His house would fill up […]
Read moreIt’s not smoggy like they say it is in London, at least I don’t think so, but the River Thames is filthier than I had imagined. I saw it from […]
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