A big thank you to editor, Mirjana, for yet another wonderful issue of Suburban Witchcraft. Issue 9 is packed full of an amazing array of art, poetry and prose. I feel privileged to have my work, Desperation Equals Damnation, included in this fabulous magazine.
I’m delighted to announce a new piece of creative writing, …and Coltrane Played, written between myself and my fabulous co-author, and the love of my life, Gina Maria Manchego, is now available at Collaborature. This is a wonderful magazine that prints stories, poems and more, always written collaboratively between two people. Very unique.
Collaborature To work jointly with others writing in prose or verse.
A short prose that blends music and love, I hope you enjoy our contribution: …and Coltrane Played
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider a small donation to help further my writing life. Thank you for reading Richard
I’ve now been writing for a long time, and it gets harder to manage each year. So, in an unusually technological step, ‘for me, anyway’, I’ve opened a ko-fi donation page. Every little helps to fuel the dream. I shall try my best to post some really good short stories and the like as a thank you.
Here is a short fiction about time and its passing.
Unnecessary Adjustments
Pain and anger. Neither holds sway. Every tick both antagonises and coagulates in equal measures.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I dissipate in perfectly well-measured moments. Not a one longer than the next, nor the last. Like the clacking Newton’s Cradle with its five silver balls, the one positioned exactly central on my wooden desk beneath the workshop window, they regulate my demise. I hope I aren’t the ball in the middle. I prefer the outside and a quicker escape.
Demise? A bit dramatic, I hope.
I know all these facts. There is nothing else to know, only this: Who regulates said demise? That’s what I want to know. Need to know. Have to know! I cast my mind back, but it comes back clueless.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The first few days are an adjustment. The rest of the week is an experience. Week two gathers the information listed above. Week three adds momentum. This isn’t because of things changing — they never change — just to my resolve hardening. If I’m going down, I’m taking my tormentor down with me. Big talk for a man who’s never thrown a punch in his life.
I count everything from the bird calls in the presumed morning to the chirping cicadas in the expected night. The minutes of each day become an exact science. Food and drink aren’t involved; I’ve had neither since my arrival. The spectral fog that fills the room as drips of moist mist intensify; it is the only thing that has changed. So, this is where I will have him, or them, whichever applies, and shall practise at least a degree of revenge.
The whitening light becomes my fixation, the semi-permanent darkness an ignored anomaly.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I tire. This is the truth of it. I have let my guard down just once.
She appears like an oncoming vehicle in a car’s fogging headlights. A smudge. A shape. Darkness where lightness has roamed. This is her entry into my nightmare. Not a man at all!
“Who…?”
“You know my name,” she breezes.
I freeze. I do know it. I just kind of hope she doesn’t know mine.
“Come,” she says.
“Must I?”
“You did well. Better than most. What others fail to accept, you have adapted to in carefully observed increments.”
“I ticked into death.”
“Ticked towards Death,” she corrects.
“How…?”
“Best you don’t ask. Just know I’ll take care of you. That’s all that matters at the end.”
End! I aren’t in total agreement with this, but what choice do I have?
So, I take her proffered, skeletal hand and allow her to lead me away from the light in a total reverse of all the presumed theories. It hurts not one bit.
The ticking stops.
The other side requires no adjustments. I roam free. I glide. Time and space and family and life and death, all such real-world things are pointless here. No adjustments required. No tweaks at all.
For a clockmaker, it is quite the revelation.
End
As always, thank you for reading, and for your continued support.
I’m delighted to have been featured in the latest issue of Viridine Literary Magazine. The Savage Coast, a micro literary fiction, is now available as one of many great reads in Issue 2. Out now!
A freak collision, they said. The full moon now resembled a half-eaten cake. Something had gouged out its left flank, leaving the celestial giant lopsided and broken.
It didn’t hurt us. A blessing, some argued. When the fallen moon crushed Australia like a custard pie dropped from a plate, the rest of the world got lucky. So they thought.
Wolves hunted. Bats skittered. Vampires bit. The creatures of the night attacked. They were lost, you see. Lost without it. I know, for the moonlight was all that calmed me and now there was none. A werewolf forever, mayhem was mine.
I’m delighted to have had my latest children’s fantasy, The Gemini Crystals, published by the amazing people at Starspun Lit. Below is a small sample of their mission statement and my reason for such delight.
Our mission is to provide fantastical stories to the youth of today and improve children’s literacy and comprehension of the larger world through our digital platform.
Our stories are also designed as a therapeutic tool for children with medical needs, including those with neurodevelopmental disorders so they may soar beyond reality. We are partnering with various hospitals and clinics to organize read-alouds so we may brighten their days with the magic of your storytelling.
As a strong believer in that every child should have access to good reading, I jumped at the chance to be a part of this wonderful narrative. My hope would be for many more such schemes to come.
Particular thanks go to Editor-In-Chief, Ramya Suresh, for her invaluable help and input with both the writing and artwork.
I hope you get a chance to recommend my story and all the other fabulous offerings at Starspun Lit to any child who might enjoy and benefit from them.
I’m delighted to announce that my dark fiction short story, Ripples, has been included in the newly released anthology: Wreckollections: Invasive Ideas of a Nightmare.
Richard M. Ankers - Storybook 
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