Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

"Be ridiculous," the invitation had read. In fact, looking at the outlandish figures rattling and tattling around the rooftop, Naomi had to agree they had done a good job. The simple terrace, which was closed off by the brick walls of the higher neighboring buildings, seemed overloaded with people. Elina, one of Naomi's housemates, was entertaining a mainly male group near a round table full of oddly colorful drinks. She didn't like dressing up, but she had painted her lips in dashing pink to match the polish on her long, pointy nails. She looked a little ridiculous. Amber, Naomi's other housemate, had tried her best to compensate for Elina's lack of creativity. The bright red rouge on her cheeks flashed like stoplights at dusk, outshined only by her screamingly purple feather boa. In addition, she wore a glittery dark blue shirt resembling the starry sky, tight fitting washed-out jeans and her "fuck-me-pumps".  Amber was a real gem.

Price eyed a derelict sitting outside the hotel, stopped walking, and tipped his hat.   “I’m a man of no consequence,” the vagrant brayed, his despair palpable.   Price tugged on the rope tied to his rickety wagon and stepped toward him, but the man bowed his head and waved him on – red eyes, droopy as a bloodhound’s.   Beside him, there was a cracked styrofoam cup – “ homeless and hungry ” in black, curlicue letters.   “I ain’t gonna bother you none, just wanna rest these ol’ bones.”   As the final few stragglers hastened home from their empty days, the two strangers sat in silence, unnoticed, while the purple-blue gloaming shifted about them.   “Think I might put my arm around you a bit,” Price said, rubbing his grassy gray beard, “then I’m gonna walk on out of here.”   The broken man downed the last of his gin and stared straight ahead.   Under the comfort of a steady arm, he brought his head to his hands and wept. Later, as Price wound through the sleeping borough and

The shape of a fisherman's face, a blasted red mask of ancient hope, stonecold to his wife and child, but cradling a fish in his hands and praying, like an Indian, to the spirit he has just taken. Prehistoric bluffs cut into the land by the mighty clash — a high buffer against the wash of lashing waves and on the other side the half-moon shape of the softsand curving beach becomes the pink cup that holds the sparkling sea. And you know a kind hello always hides a blistering whisper. I fall asleep at night gently rising and gently falling with the moontide that guides the thin strands of my blood, and I think of the uncountable spinning islands floating through a universe long since hardened and splendidly ordered from its loose bubbled beginnings. I am awakened by a slice of noise, a sparkly crack in the dark air. I find that a gull, sneering, the most playful of all birds, has dropped a cold hardclosed shell onto the wa