Welcome to the deck – the home of our blog posts, articles, random musings, and wonderful writings!
Little Donkey
by Allan Miller At the school’s harvest festival concert, my son, along with his P1 classmates, sang a song about turnips. I wasn’t there to see it — not because I’m an international businessman who was beset by a series of misadventures, arriving seconds after my child’s big moment— but because Duncan would only sing…
Past Lives
by Rowan Tate My sister believes we were monks once, tending a quiet temple. Another time, soldiers who died on the same battlefield. I ask her why I don’t remember. She just shrugs, peeling an apple. “You never do,” she says. I watch the knife flash. Something about it makes my hands shake. Rowan Tate is…
Abusive Relationship
by Jennifer Weigel Checking in every minute, interrupting work and play, demanding all my attention. Monitoring my calls and texts, everything I read, every website I visit. Following me everywhere I go, everything I do and don’t do, every stop along the way. Knowing when I’m out late, if I’m someplace I shouldn’t be, whatever…
Viságe
by Thomas Bailey The world knew her as Lady Elvira. There was no record of her true name – or, if there was, it had long been destroyed. ‘Elvira’ was all that remained. She was born to the wealthy Viságe family, who lived somewhere on the border between France and Italy. Whether they were more…
Inheritance, still
by Robert Henry Privy excavation on the side of Ma’s old lodge. Four legs of metal, barracks housing, left besideher things and the mobile home. What we said by the chain fence. Where she insisted on plowing the plumber instead of getting rid of the outhouse. Where, instead, we loitered like car dice swinging by…
Confessions Of A Silent Liar
by Olive Zhang Shame is a hunter. It haunts me even more than the memory of her. I wash my hand over and over with soap and warm water, but I can’t rid myself of an inner stain. Bubbles slip through the cracks of my fingers, rising up and finally popping a few inches from…
Pretending
by Jonny Voorheis My brother died because my mother put him in the shed and left him there and he died of the cold. He could have left at any time, but he was very simple, that’s what my mother’s always said, and so he didn’t. He stayed there and he died. That’s it. That’s…
Host
by Shona Maloney The lie was tiny once. A flicker. A necessary evil. I thought I buried it. But it fed on my guilt, bloated in silence, and grew teeth. Now it wears my face, and speaks in my voice. It signs my name, answers my child’s questions, kisses my husband with my mouth. I…
Fatherless Child
by Anabela Machado With all the documents spread out on the table, Sam slowly reconstructed his family tree, running back in time, sharp eyes cataloguing all the faces in the black and white photos. He had always liked to collect things touched by age, so it made sense for the whole of his family history…
When The War Came
by Charley Swire The war came for my brother the way it came for all men: a manila envelope that flopped through his letterbox and landed on the doormat. It was a warm autumn. We lay suffocating in his hot-boxed living room. Sweat rolled down my back and pooled in the dimples at the bottom…
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