Three flash fictions about the sharpest cut on the newest thread, the latest craze that’s all the rage …
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A MOTHER OF MONSTERS by Guy De Maupassant.
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (1850 – 1893) was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form’s finest exponents. He delighted in clever plotting, and taking his cue from Balzac, he wrote comfortably in both the high-Realist and fantastic modes; many of his short stories (notably “Le Horla”) describe apparently supernatural phenomena. However, the supernatural in Maupassant is often implicitly a symptom of the protagonists’ troubled minds, as Maupassant was fascinated by the burgeoning discipline of psychiatry. In his later years he developed a constant desire for solitude, an obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death and crazed paranoia of persecution, that came from the syphilis he had contracted in his early days. On January 2, in 1892, Maupassant tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat and was committed to a celebrated private asylum at Passy, in Paris, where he died on July 6, 1893.
This story was originally published in 1885 and can be read here.
Read by B.J. Harrison, of The Classic Tales fame – who’s new audiobook version of “The Phantom of the Opera” by Gaston Leroux should be available, at the link, as we speak.
“”The child was born in an open field, and when the weeders saw it, they fled away, screaming, and the report spread that she had given birth to a demon. From that time on, she was called ‘the Devil.'”
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10 DARLINGS AND AN HANDBAG by Violet Glaze.
Ms. Glaze’s work has appeared in numerous online and print venues in the US (including Bizarro, Baltimore Magazine, City Paper, Popmatters.com and Urbanite) and the UK (THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK: MOVIES). Violet is also the author of paranormal erotic novel HOTEL BUTTERFLY (2009) and and the short story collection I AM GENGHIS CUM (2010) (where this story first appeared), and her short fiction appears in the anthology WEREWOLVES AND SHAPESHIFTERS: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE BEATS WITHIN (2010).
Read by Marguerite Kenner. Check out previous Escape Artists stories she’s read:
“Machine Washable” and “Movement”.
“He clucked his tongue. “Maternal love will swamp the earth. Everyone wants to keep their baby healthy. Think about what that means for someone else.””
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FORBIDDEN FEAST AT THE ARMAGEDDON CAFE by John Nakamura Remy.
John is a recent graduate of the Clarion West workshop, and “Forbidden Feast” is his first publication.
It appeared earlier this year in the anthology, RIGOR AMORTIS.
Read by Kane Lynch, a cartoonist based in Oakland who recently completed the graphic novel THE RELICS. Click the link to read it online.
“Takeshi certainly knew how to treat a boy. The restaurant captured the apocalypse nouveau aesthetic perfectly. Adam admired the axe and shotgun damage and savored the taste of damp smoke. His hips moved to the elongated screams and machine gun beat of judgment punk.”