Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

  The mob hushes to a chill silence. A lit match is thrown, the whoosh- bang of boiler pilot light, then the roar of flame that engulfs him. He doesn’t scream? Her legs shake and she loses her footing on the   car roof, spins around, but too late; the image is already branded into her soul. She falls to the dirt track, covering her mouth and nose; the urge to help -do something - and the need to escape, pound, pulling her nowhere except down, down into a crouching ball. In her head moments unravel.   Someone saying    ‘They caught him lying with another man - like with a woman. God’s punishment!’ She scrambles to get a view. Tall, bloodied youth, trussed in a rubber tire, being bumped between three men like he’s inside a pinball machine. Can of gasoline held aloft.   She runs as fast as she’s ever run, faster even than when she won the university relay, away from that place by the river where women did their washing and sang togeth...

You give it everything you’ve got. And then the day comes when you’ve got nothing more to give. Nothing. He’s had it all. So you decide to leave. Just like that. If you thought about it, you’d find reasons to stay. Your sister found reasons to stay. She said she’d be happy with what she had and develop a thicker skin. Your sister’s always had a thick skin. You go. With your old suitcase. You don’t take the one he gave you to take on honeymoon, the red leather one with your initials on it, your married initials, for when you became his possession, Mrs Him. You take your old suitcase which was your brother’s when he went to college and which was handed down to him by Uncle Bert because your brother was going to be a lawyer, like Uncle Bert and not a farmer like your father who wouldn’t even give your brother a wallet when he left, never mind a suitcase. You go. But what do you take when you leave your husband? Some women would take his best things, or ruin them. You could wreck hi...

The boy sits alone while the carriage fills around him. It's a V-line, a long haul, thundering into morning. Barely legible, a chipped sign fades and Violet Town falls away. He retreats to a paperback kingdom, while oblivious wheels devour miles. Sometimes his eyes rise to watch the landscape grind from here to there. Terminus halogen holds the night at bay as a voiceover calls passengers awake. At journey's end, crisp air whispers possibility. Behind him, doors hiss shut. Ahead, a turnstile beckons. by Ryan Stone First published in Writers’ Forum Magazine issue 159, December 2014 Image courtesy of tongdang at FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

Another grey dawn marked the end of another dark night, marked the start of another dark day. He shuffled awkwardly on the hard cot , his uniform stiff and cold. The meagre woollen blanket felt damp and offered no warmth. The kettle hissed as boiled water splashed into a pot. “Tea, Sir.” He wrapped his hands around the heat of the tin mug. His head was pounding in time to the pounding of the guns. Don’t think. Thinking was a luxury for the living. Existence was his goal. How long? The question pushed back into the recesses of his mind. Sanity was his goal.  Gun in hand , he forced one leg then the other to climb the ladder. His body jolted like a marionette as red clouded his eyes and brain. He fell back in the mud grimacing a smile. Wounded, he would survive. He would go home to live. Remember. He would not forget that life chose him.  by Philippa Shingleton

As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope the voyage is a long one. May there be many a summer morning when, with what pleasure, what joy, you come into harbors seen for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for. ...

It had been another fraught morning. Delayed karma, that's what it was and serve him right. Not that it had been all bad. No, at various moments either side of breakfast he'd been flying. A marvellous idea to do something extraordinary next August had popped into his head. It would be something that he would write a book about. He didn't know yet what this something was but such minor details were the stuff of trivia. It'd be something that pushed him to the limits of his physical powers. He'd also pretty much settled on a plan to paint the living room walls a mish mash of vibrant primary colours, possibly implementing some kind of mural on the main wall. Such grand thoughts often came in threes and so it was, while musing on the living room thing on the way home from the cafe, he'd come to the realisation that orange was his favourite colour. It was an unexpected load off his mind but the epiphany had soon delivered its nagging price. Had it been his...

“Sorry mate, full up.” “What do you mean, full up?” “Just what I said, full up!” “Haven’t you seen the state of my wife?” The innkeeper eased his copious figure further around the door frame and cast an indifferent eye over the tiny, tired woman with the blue shawl sitting on the donkey. “She seems pretty far gone. Oh well. It’s a shame but it’s not my fault you know. If we had a room I’d give it to you mate. It’s this silly census business - bloody Herod with his petty bureaucracy. He just loves it, doesn’t he? All this paperwork. Oh well. Keeps the Romans busy, anyway.” “Yes, but what about my wife? She’s not going to give birth out here in the street, is she? It’s Christmas for God’s sake!” “It’s what?” “Oh nevermind. Look, don’t you even have a stable or something?” A Roman soldier appeared in the doorway and pushed past them, reeling. He wove a few steps into the street, singing, before he fell and lay face down in the mud, giggling to himself. Joseph and th...