Tag: writer

an old instrument with rusty strings

he sits alone in the
darkness

on a wooden chair

The walls surrounding him
have no
mirrors and
the windows are covered
by the thickest blinds

He doesn’t want to see his
old age

and the decay that already
started consuming
his body

In his mind he’s still
young, still
in his early twenties

still dreaming

He’s listening to music

He’s playing the music
and it exhausts him

The music comes from
within

An instrument with strings

His growling guts

He lubricates them with more
beer

35

Saint Bernards are big, heavy dogs

he opened another beer 
and sat on
the couch
but turned off the TV

He watched the kid

The kid was on his knees
before the coffee table
busy with
an orange pencil and a
piece of paper 

Tongue poked
to one side and held
firmly between
the lips,
he was writing letters to
the pet dog
he’ll never see
again

And he did that
all day long

Dad sipped at his beer. The
years of action
were far beyond him now
but by all the gods
he swore
tonight will be the
night
he sneaks into his ex-wife’s
home and kidnaps
the dog

He even rented
a van
for it

51

feeling the train

A pretty thick 
slice 
of hell 

That was life 
so far 

But today things 
will change 

Today he was six 
years 
old and that meant old 
enough to 
guide his blind father 
on the streets 

The old man was only 
blind for 
a year after some work 
related accident involving acid 

And there was a mother 
somewhere too. She left 
shortly after 
father’s accident 

Today father held on 
to his son’s shirt 
at the shoulder and told him 
to walk towards the 
railway 

“I want to listen to 
the train,” said father 

but it turned out he 
wanted much 
more than that. He wanted to 
feel the train. Against 
his face 

So he stood on the rails 
and told the kid 
to go back home 
and return after an hour or so 

“Okay,” said the kid. But 
he didn’t leave. He watched 
from a safe distance 

Didn’t even find 
the 
event particularly disturbing 

Then he went back home 
and had some 
fruit loops with milk 
and his first taste of 
beer 

He had become a 
man

50

“Mother forbade feeding the poor thing” Short Story by Bogdan Dragos

Phil Slattery's avatarThe Chamber Magazine

dog

There was a dog outside and it kept barking for some reason. Ah yes, it was chained and the chain was terribly short and the poor animal was hungry.

Mother wouldn’t bother feeding it. No, mother wanted it to die because it had been father’s dog, inherited along with the house after father died. Mother forbade feeding the poor thing.

Her child stood next to the window and listened to the poor thing barking outside. It was better than listening to mother drinking and talking ugly words with her boyfriends.

He opened the window and the dog saw him immediately and barked at him. He wanted to cry. Tried talking to the creature but it wouldn’t listen. It kept barking.

“Mother would cut my hand off if she caught me stealing food for you.”

But he was a smart kid. He leaned over the window and thrust two fingers down…

View original post 82 more words

20

a woman named Cactus

high school dropout

out of a job

out of options

soon to be out of the
rented studio
apartment

he went to the local bar
and drank himself
to the point he had to vomit
to make room for more
and next thing
he knew
he was dating a woman
named Cactus

Life can get pretty
weird when
you don’t live it
consciously

I knew the guy and heard
he moved in
with his lover
and started a new life

I really, really hope the
headline
“LOCAL ALCOHOLIC DEVELOPS SCHIZOPHRENIA,
DISMEMBERS GIRLFRIEND
PLANTS HER LIMBS IN FLOWERPOTS,
STICKS NEEDLES IN THEM”
is not about him
19

spend the quarantine at your girlfriend’s house, they said

the atmosphere in the living room
felt classic

He kept asking what was
wrong
and she kept saying
nothing was wrong
when clearly there was something
very wrong

He counted
and it took precisely
74 questions, true
detective’s work, to make her
say it

“Well perhaps I am a little mad,” she
said

“Jesus Christ,” he said, “why?”

And she asked, “Do I have my
panties on or not?”

“What? What the…? How do
you want me to know?”

“Exactly,” she said. “You can’t possibly
know because you didn’t
check. You think I’m wearing
a skirt because I
wanna look trendy while staying
indoors? Why must
you be so blind, man?”

“Well shit, I don’t know,” he snapped,
“perhaps it
has something to do with
the fact that your
nine-year-old kid is around and I’m
trying to be a decent
human being. Have you considered
that?”

“Oh, so you’re saying you’ve
got no skills?” she said

“Skills?” he raised his voice
higher. “Oh, so reaching
under a woman’s skirt without her
kid noticing is a skill now? Is that
how you view the perfect man, darling?”

“Hey, lower your
volume. He’ll think we’re fighting.”

He threw his
hands up. “And we aren’t?”

She rolled her eyes.

The quarantine lockdown
had just begun
30

“A spider web full of butterflies. Shaking in the wind” Short Story by Bogdan Dragos

Phil Slattery's avatarThe Chamber Magazine

She stretched on the bed and reached with her long leg and placed her foot on his desk, before him, on the notebook he was writing in.

“Wow,” she said. “Your place is so small, like a box of matches. And so empty. So lonely. Why don’t you ever have anyone over? I never see or hear you talking to people. Why must you be like that?”

“I don’t like people,” he said.

“Why?”

“Don’t ask silly questions. For the same reason I don’t like hotdogs. I just don’t like them.”

“Do you like me?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Would you like me to leave?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know a lot of things, boy. I came to you because… I wanted to have a place from which I’d be missed if I left. I thought the heart of someone as lonely as you would be…

View original post 218 more words

3

peace was never an option

there have been
too many fights lately
 
she was a
musician
and she put it as,
“Darling, we need to change
the tune.”
 
He was a
writer
and he shot her
 
and then himself
30

broken toy

it was dark and
hot
and every breath entered
with salty sweat
inside the nose

the mouth was
gagged and the whole head
covered by a
black trash bag
with two very small holes,
unaligned with her
nostrils

Her skin was itchy all
over
but there was no scratching
with hands and feet
bound to the chair

She didn’t realize that she
was in hyperventilation
and it was making things
worse

After the four hours
it took him to come back to
the basement
he found the greatest
disappointment of his life

He found her dead

There’s no feeling like
paying good money
for a toy
only to bring it home
and find that it’s broken
before you get to
play with it

He broke down and cried
for a whole hour
as he sat on her dead lap
and caressed her hair
and kissed her gagged
mouth and sucked the
snot from her nose

She was beautiful
too

Weeks later he was unable to
forget her
He carried her eyeball inside
his mouth wherever he
went
38

honestly, I had to look online for the meaning of the term

She pushed gently against me
and fell on the
bed
Stretched a leg towards me
began unbuttoning at her
jeans

I helped her take them
off
Not too gentle, not too rough

Grinning, she turned around
in bed and said, “I just
remembered, you never told me
what your muse looks like.”

“Huh?”

“And please don’t tell me
it looks like me. We both know
that’s bullshit sweet talk poets use
to get girls. Don’t
lie to me, boy. What does your
muse look like? You
can tell me.”

I reached for her foot
moved it out of the way
not too gently, not too rough
Reached for the panties

She pushed my hand away
not too gently, not too rough
“Tell me. Is it, by any chance, a little
girl locked inside a basement like
it was for my ex-boyfriend? Do you
whip her when she’s naughty
and doesn’t give you inspiration? Do
you deny her food and the
bathroom?”

“What?”

“Tell me, poet! Do you? Do you
lie on your back when you masturbate
and imagine the muse
squat above your face
and shower you with her piss
as blessing?”

I took a step back. “What?”

“Oh fuck,” she said. “Just tell
me already what your muse
looks like and how d’you get
intimate with her. Tell me!”

“I, I don’t know. I don’t work
like that.”

She stopped touching herself
Watched me expecting
to add more

I gave a shrug.

Honestly, the last time I thought of
a muse it was
some broke, homeless young guy,
scrawny as a putrid
plank and roaming the streets

He had nothing in this
world
but hunger
A hunger that possessed him
and made him write like a madman

That guy was my muse

But I figured
she wouldn’t care to hear about that

Anyway, we didn’t go out for long
after that evening

She said we’re not compatible
because I’m too vanilla
40

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