Plugs

Read Daniel Braum’s story Mystic Tryst at Farrgo’s Wainscot #8.

Trent Walters, poetry editor at A&A, has a chapbook, Learning the Ropes, from Morpo Press.

Alex Dally MacFarlane’s story “The Devonshire Arms” is available online at Clarkesworld.

Susannah Mandel’s short story “The Monkey and the Butterfly” is in Shimmer #11. She also has poems in the current issues of Sybil’s Garage, Goblin Fruit, and Peter Parasol.

Of Dances and Doors

by Daniel Braum

He doesn’t remember being born and knows the woman on the other side of the door is not his mother; yet still she created him. He loves her and hates her for that.

#

He senses the hollow place in her gut. The place longing to be filled. The place that wants to let him in.

Every action born of this hunger feeds him. Misguided fuel and black energy streaming, streaming, streaming from her heart- shadowing her silver cord. It winds into the ether, flows through the door into the void where he sits. Waiting for grace to be forgotten. Waiting to be let in.

He feels her most when she is contemplating the hollow and thinks she might fill her heart with love.
And he wants her to. He knows every act from her higher self will cause him to wither.

But she will not rise in this way. Not tonight. She will invite him in. Invite him to dance. She opens the door…
He fills the hollow in her gut. The dance begins. He leads. She lets him. Bells are rung. Promises are undone. Voices are raised. Words fly- stinging little barbs with heart ripping accuracy. She feels full. But only for the most fleeting of instants.

Then the hollow returns. There is not enough room in there, even for him. The woman staggers- her words hanging in the air with a palpable weight.

Even though no one can see him, he hides. A place behind the open bedroom door that doesn’t swing fully. The space between it and the wall.

Something has happened. Other doors are opening. The air feels heavy as if with rain.

“Brother?” A voice calls out.

He always knew he’d had brothers and sisters, though he’d never seen them.

He can’t see the source of the voice. He imagines an androgynous white form. Moving closer to him.

“Yes?” he answers.

The form and heavy air rushes to him. It feels like a cloudburst. Front on front. Then the nether void blows in and reclaims him.

#

He doesn’t remember being born and knows the woman on the other side of the door is not his mother yet still, she created him. He loves her and hates her for that.

-END-

* This is a companion story to The Dancer, the Door, and the Ordinary Stain. Which can be found in the archives under my name, from March 27, 2009. http://www.dailycabal.com/daniel_braum *

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