by Helen Ivory | Oct 18, 2023 | Featured, Prose
A Martian Named Smith A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil. -Robert Heinlein The last time we spoke, you were working for an off-brand convenience store on the gulf...
by Helen Ivory | Sep 22, 2023 | Featured, Prose
Two Halves You won’t want to take the locket, but your twin sister Agnes will insist, pressing it into your hand as she stands on the doorstep of your cottage, unwilling to enter. You’re supposed to take turns looking after it, changing each...
by Helen Ivory | Aug 10, 2023 | Featured, Prose
Quince There is a quince tree in the Alice Munro short story The Moons of Jupiter, and also in the poem “Lunch With Pancho Villa” by Paul Muldoon. In the novel The Love of Singular Men, by the Brazilian author Victor Heringer, a mother beats her...
by Helen Ivory | Aug 7, 2023 | Featured, Prose
Breaking Bread with Strangers When the stranger came to my house, he brought bread. “Here,” he said, “You take it.” And then he sat down at the dinner table, waiting to be served. I placed the bread on a board. My wife brought in the brisket and...
by Helen Ivory | Jul 26, 2023 | Featured, Prose
The Holding The mute manager at the call centre where the operators sell lies sees a woman on Talbot Street sleeping on her tiptoes. She is arabesque, alert. He tells her all about the missold PPI, how she reminds him of the music box heroine from...
by Helen Ivory | Jul 13, 2023 | Featured, Prose
HUT EXIST 32 Something child There is a muttering in the hut, a miniature sandstorm whirled out of the doorway and spiralled into the curtain of evening. The something child ent gonna change. The something ent gonna get old. That and this are my...
