After Dark, Memorial Park by Neil Ellis Orts
“The woods are dark. The are so very dark and full of sounds.” – excerpt from After Dark, Memorial Park by Neil Ellis Orts @neowrites #TheMetaworker #ForgeFriday
The Metaworker Literary Magazine
Where great stories are forged.
“The woods are dark. The are so very dark and full of sounds.” – excerpt from After Dark, Memorial Park by Neil Ellis Orts @neowrites #TheMetaworker #ForgeFriday
The woman passes every day with her pink sneakers and floral running pants and cute son in a navy uniform. The son talks a blue …
“Older brother?” “Not now, I’m busy.” The papers shuffled make a noise like a river on a bank. “Older brother?” “What is it?” “Nothing.” Outside …
In a house, in a heart, a demon lurked. The girl found it in her dead brother’s skull buried in the backyard. She looked into …
The Mother sifts through the soil, searching. Using her fingers like a sieve, she tries to find the thin filament sprouts in the mulch and …
I am lying flat on the ground in a quiet living room in a quiet home in the kind of quiet suburb everyone’s at least …
Since our son was born, you always pull out and cum on your side. I roll onto your side of the bed, still warm and …
Afternoon. Deep afternoon. Long afternoon. Too deep. Too long. Sylvie in her quilted bed. Try to sleep. Go to sleep. Quickly now! Go to sleep. …
Featuring original art by Cerid Jones The kid next door had stopped screaming and was now bashing out a single flat note on a toy …
If only Joyce hadn’t taken that damn selfie. Her and Tate, laughing at a truck stop in Mexico, drinking beer with lime, his cotton t-shirt …
James was a senior when I was a freshman at Salem North High School; I fell in love with him when I heard he’d persuaded …
The man I loved as my grandfather was a tall, strong, broad-shouldered man who carried a fake ear in his back pocket. With his indigo …
Countless streets going past, streets and buildings waiting, decaying; lining the city boulevards like tombstones leading into oblivion, waiting to be called into action, waiting …
Bob Sanders awoke one morning from a dream to discover that he no longer existed. He had died in the night. He had been fifty-eight …
It’s odd. I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ve been here for a very long time, as long as I can remember, as long as …
When the dragon first wound its way through the fragrant mist that swallowed the mountain, most had no reckoning of its nature. It was a …
We are all doomed to lose everything. I’ve lost three fingers, one arm, one eye. I’ve lost my family, my childhood home, my native tongue. …
I have stood for over a hundred years in this place, endured the idiots who link hands and try to encompass my bulk, observed the …
The darkness should be the first clue, like it was not just a memory but an encounter, both in past and present: of the future. …
I guess I never told you about Texas, long and sweet in the evening, boiling jelly, about mom’s temperature, stuck in the oven: The best …
6:47 AM The darkness turns gray; the misty fog rests over the water; the honeysuckle perfumes the air as white petals float on the still …
I knew already, struck with the phantasm of a dream that I had taken the reins of my life at last. Like a drowning man …
We will not subside, for there can be no epiphany; we march into the sand for the egrets, hunting them with our knives. No other …
Come with me, it won’t be far; we have all night, and the seasons with it, in your heart: I’m dying. I’ll tell you about …
I’ve been awake since 4 a.m. But that was twenty hours ago, and now we’re here, at the party, and …
Her new boyfriend had a ship inside a bottle. You’d ask him how he got it in there, and he’d act like you …
She’d had a cupcake for breakfast every day for the last month. Thick on the icing, more often than not with sprinkles, occasionally filled with …
A Gymnast propels through the air after launching off the springboard. Camera flashes capture blurry movements: Facebook posts for later, if She wins. Judges dress …
Once there was a man who found a forest in his pocket. When he came home after a day’s work he would take it out. …
It’s not smoggy like they say it is in London, at least I don’t think so, but the River Thames is filthier than I had …