Category: Fiction

  • We Need a Pianist

    We Need a Pianist

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    by

    Shay Keats
    in , ,

    I arrive at the Pavilion at 7:30pm in my best maroon suit. Stressing about my fingers. I’ve parked, engine’s off. Unfurl my fingers, staring, and thinking, they’re not broken anymore, and there won’t be an accident tonight that changes that. So, I go inside. The Pavilion is one of those old and grand buildings that’s…

  • Nigredo

    Nigredo

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    by

    Trung Ho Huynh
    in , , ,

    Truong wakes up to the sound of his phone ringing, unwilling to touch it. He tries to ignore the sound and turns his body to the wall side. Consistently, it keeps ringing, beat after beat after beat. He awakens angrily and proceeds to pick up the phone. “Who is this?” he says with a high-pitched…

  • Hold the Note

    Hold the Note

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    by

    Adrienne Slattery
    in ,

    It’s late morning, and the paterfamilias has donned his formal attire. The toga cloaking the loose folds of his chiton is blue with a fluffy grey lining on the collar and sash. His bare feet are swathed in a pair of long woollen socks, pulled high over the rolls of his baggy grey sweatpants. From…

  • Bad Boys Get the Dark

    Bad Boys Get the Dark

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    by

    The Tert
    in ,

    By Jacob Wood When the Dark was in control, Lester had little idea of his surroundings; could see nothing but shifting shadows. For brief moments at a time he could hear fevered shuffling, the scraping of harsh blades and a horrid stench that came over him in fetid waves. For the first time, though, he…

  • WE ARE ALL BEETLES – Jacob Wood

    WE ARE ALL BEETLES – Jacob Wood

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    by

    The Tert
    in ,

         All morning he twined the coarse rope through his hands. But now he was just trying to ignore the agonising thudding beneath the angry anthill that had formed on his left forearm. It was tipped a violent red and sensitive to any sort of glancing touch. The skin there was gummy with sweat, pus building…

  • Cameron Ling – Sarcasus Sarcmus Behishd – TTPAPC 2022 Prose

    Cameron Ling – Sarcasus Sarcmus Behishd – TTPAPC 2022 Prose

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    by

    The Tert
    in ,

             The first time I visited Sarcasm the guy at the gate checking ID cards told me I wasn’t weak enough to be seeking refuge.                                                       …

  • David Allen – My Council – TTPAPC 2022 Poetry

    David Allen – My Council – TTPAPC 2022 Poetry

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    by

    The Tert
    in ,

    The love of blue and redness, No green nor minor greys. Of ordered seats and houses Is in your veins ablaze, Strong love of clear division And policy resolute I know but cannot share it, My love is for dispute   I love a hung parliament, A land of sweeping range, Of ragged politicians, Debate…

  • Abby Dickerson – A Poem for Ava – TTPAPC 2022 Poetry

    Abby Dickerson – A Poem for Ava – TTPAPC 2022 Poetry

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    by

    The Tert
    in ,

    From the moment our eyes first met, Until your last dying breath, Never could I have foretold, What warmth you brought from the cold.   It was only upon finding you, Could I discover a part of me, And with the light, you shined through, I found the courage I was blind to see.  …

  • Mya Hicks – I’m Beginning to Think Differently of You – TTPAPC 2022 Prose

    Mya Hicks – I’m Beginning to Think Differently of You – TTPAPC 2022 Prose

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    by

    The Tert
    in

    On Saturday nights, we have dinner at a restaurant she selects from a list on her phone of Trivago’s Top Places to Eat Out in our city. This is our thing, our couple’s thing.   In the bathroom mirror, I watch her reflection sweep black liner across her glossy eyelids as I struggle to gel…