Plugs

Jonathan Wood’s story “Notes on the Dissection of an Imaginary Beetle” from Electric Velocipede 15/16 is available online.

Sara Genge’s story “Godtouched” may be found in Strange Horizons.

Jason Erik Lundberg‘s fiction is forthcoming from Subterranean Magazine and Polyphony 7.

Ken Brady’s latest story, “Walkers of the Deep Blue Sea and Sky” appears in the Exquisite Corpuscle anthology, edited by Jay Lake and Frank Wu.

The Beak-Faced Girl

by Jonathan Wood

It was a dare, a bet, an act of bravado, a moment to become a legend to haunt the locker rooms–for immortality he kissed the beak-faced girl.

It was a dare, a bet, another way to embarrass her, to expose her as an outsider, and yet it was all she could expect, the best she could expect, and for that the beak-faced girl let him kiss her.

His soft lips met the hard contours of her yellow mouth, his wide red tongue flickered against her thin black one. And in that moment of close-pressed teenage years she spread her wings and they lifted from the ground and he saw her for the first time true, in her own space, her own place, her own setting, and amongst the clouds she was beautiful.

The hard contours of her beak met his soft pink mouth. She spread her wings at the contact. She hoisted him aloft, she felt full, she felt beautiful. And she opened her eyes, and she saw him, small frail sack of meat thing. And in her horror at his sight she let go and he fell down, down to earth.

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