The Metaworker Literary Magazine
Where great stories are forged.
“What I most liked…was the golden glow my place had when the sunlight hit the windows. It was like being on the inside of an egg, the world holding me in its warm embrace until I hatched.” – excerpt from Memories and Moonlight, speculative fiction by JH Tomen #TheMetaworker
“I steal cats for money. That’s right. I select a satisfactory feline, wait for night to fall, and pick it up like other people pick up a penny they find on the street.” – excerpt from Lost and, fiction by Lara Wass #TheMetaworker
“Scream right into the hole. It feels great.” Kathie puts a light, practiced hand on my shoulder… “I’m trying,” I say, but I’m not screaming, the screaming is not coming. – excerpt from A Guide to the Heal-By-Scream Method, fiction by Chelsea Sutton
“I hadn’t planned to leave the city…but after elbowing through…tourists, even a day’s escape sounded like heaven.” – excerpt from Trip to Fallsburg, fiction by Gillian Fletcher #TheMetaworker
“When I was eight I had a friend who ate bugs.” – excerpt from Bug Girl, fiction by Taylor Kelley #TheMetaworker
“Our pond monster is the best. He waits under unruffled water, eyes only visible if you grow too close…” excerpt from micro fiction by Ken Poyner #TheMetaworker
“They were little more than a shimmer on the backs of our newborns, translucent like a dragonfly’s.” – excerpt from When Babies Started Being Born With Wings, speculative fiction by David Henson #TheMetaworker
“In a different reality a murder encompasses the tree / of metal spires, lining the ground with pebbles” excerpt from Exhibits in Orbit, poetry by Paige M Eaton #TheMetaworker
“Zana imagines an Afrofuturistic scenario set in 2048, where Nelson Mandela had died while imprisoned… and the entire continent finds itself in a racist apartheid.” #MetaworkerMonday
“Did you know I killed a dragon once? / A bully made of scales and fire” – excerpt from Princess and Dragon, poetry by Amy Forstadt #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“I let them into the library to steal the books. They say they’re going to digitize everything. In time, we can write our own.” – excerpt from Daylight under the Geofence, speculative fiction by Robin Wyatt Dunn #TheMetaworker #ForgeFriday
“The typeface begins to rise from the aged paper. …They stretch and coalesce into an undulating vortex, spiraling around my outstretched finger like a tiny tornado.” – excerpt from Unbound, fiction by Maudie Bryant @maudiemichelle #TheMetaworker #literarymagazines
“The first set of numerals fell silently. They fell slowly and gently, tumbling like autumn leaves.” excerpt from “2575”, short fiction by Tess Hart #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Artwork by Gregg Williard, from “Scared Boy with Theory and Mask” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“The tantal was there before we were. … It was probably always there, waiting in the sand.” – excerpt from Captive Monsters Sleeping by @BradyMichelleR
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“There are places in the earth that call to you when you’re that age, and you just have to stick your hands into the mud and bring up whatever you can catch.” – excerpt from The Last Tree by Victoria Meyer #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“The smell of trash dripping days in the sun / stains the air with its yellow gunk.” – excerpt from Parteada por el Fuego / Twice Born by E. N. Díaz #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“She couldn’t believe it. She looked down at her hands, examining them, turning them back to front and back again.” – excerpt from Bananas by Jared Cole #TheMetaworker #ForgeFriday
“Like the Man, she appeared oblivious to the absence of walls. Standing in my usual spot observing the house, I kept willing [the Woman] to look my way.” – excerpt from The Season of Solitude by Jenn Haase Vetter #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“There was no such thing as afternoon here; it was always nighttime. Every day it became murkier. Every day Kivotos-4 moved further from the sun.” – excerpt from Memories of Earth by Felix Anker @bananentupper @schundundsyntax #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“I’m cursed to know the whereabouts of every small lost thing, even the things I never touch, like your toothbrush.” excerpt from Only a Witch by Steven Hage #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Today was the day – the day I’d make three year’s salary in a single evening. The day I met the Spaniard.” excerpt from Ashmedai and the Hairdresser by Allister Nelson #MetaworkerMondY #TheMetaworker
“Our Thoughts lurk in the darkened corner of your bedroom while you sleep. Our Thoughts are watching from outside the window while you enter the coffee shop and ask for a large chai latte with almond milk.” – excerpt from “Our Thoughts Are With You” by Sean Monett @nonsensepoetrycomics #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“Breathing through his respirator to filter out the steady stream of dust from above, Dimitri passed through murky pools of brown air illuminated by always-on streetlights.” – excerpt from “Astronaut Application” by Andrew Rodgers #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“The egg of flesh was placed on the table where my son and I were breakfasting. It was the shape of an ostrich egg, and slightly larger than one, too. Its ‘shell’ would bend to the touch, but it had skin like that of a human.” – excerpt from A Living Stone by Jason Ruiter #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Give it up,” hollered a voice two tombstones down. “Nothing’s spooky to anyone in this damn world of endless light. You’re not scaring anyone.” Excerpt from “Grave Lightning” by Max Zell @ZellWriter #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“If my days were like the calcified chambers of a nautilus cell, then my work was the living meat they had arisen to protect. The most human part of me.” @mxwheels #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Many thought that the worldwide aphasia outbreak would bring about the end of the world. It certainly put a crimp in all normal day-to-day activities.” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“Our reconditioned 3D printer just made that gun,” said my boss. “The genuine ones were used by real cowboys during famous gunfights.” #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“One day, colorful dots specked the sky as if a rainbow exploded.” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“At the height of my loneliness, I examine ways to escape my skin.” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“The babies of Borad weren’t sleeping. They lay in their cribs blinking. Then the crying started.” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“My little brother had shown early signs, spitting up fire with his baby food. My parents were
covered in small burns for the first few years but I’d never seen them so happy.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Nate turns me toward him, my round belly the bumper between us, his brown eyes plead with me. “Everyone has evacuated. We have to go now. Please.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“I lived here when the comet struck,” he said, raising his voice, “and I lost my Nellie when the rain of molten gold came down.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
She came out of the woods with nothing but a blanket sprayed with white and silver paint #F. J. Bergmann #TheMetaworker
#MetaworkerMonday
Below, The Metaworker presents …
D.M. Rice is a non-binary writer …
