Flash Fiction: “Dream Logic” by Barbara A. Barnett

Keith touches a hand to his nose, and I’m not sure what surprises him more: the blood my left hook drew, or the fact that his boxing gloves have suddenly disappeared.

“How did you–“

I slug Keith again. Keith doesn’t get dream logic, which is why he shouldn’t be narco-boxing. But it’s the latest fad so he just has to get on board with it, a badge of cool to add to his generically perfect looks and the girlfriend he cheats on and that big fat promotion because he’s got leadership potential, while I’m just bossy and shrill.

Barbara A. Barnett is a writer, musician, librarian, Odyssey Writing Workshop alum, coffee addict, wine lover, bad movie mocker, and all-around geek. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Shimmer, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, Fantasy Magazine, Black Static, and Wilde Stories 2011: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction. Barbara lives with her husband in southern New Jersey and has been known to frequently burst into song.

You can find her online at www.babarnett.com, or babbling as a member of the Star-Dusted Sirens writing group at stardustedsirens.wordpress.com.

Main Story: “The Title of This Story” by Stephanie Campisi

In Downtown, between the hypodermic fringes of Sitter Park, where the junkies walk a prickly carpet of needle-tipped glass and crumpled foil, and the painful gloom of the domed Helltricks complex that pollutes the Skendgrotian skyline with its void reflective windows and vast wooden landing platforms, lay a sickle-shaped swathe of religion and spirituality, and similar things long-illicit. A trickle of residences and warehouses and gutted ex-churches, hammered together as one with irrationally-added cement facades, drooping and spiking in architectural curlicues and messes of starved ivy that drank the moisture from the porous walls.

Stephanie Campisi is an author of the strange and wondrous. Her short fiction and poetry has been published in magazines and anthologies worldwide. She tweets at @readinasitting and keeps a poetry journal at poetdeploriate.tumblr.com.

About the Narrators:

Gareth Stack is a writer and performer who creates comedy series and documentaries for Irish radio. He has been published in Analogue Music Magazine, This Is Not Where I Belong, In Transit, Piranha! Magazine, Explore Magazine, Blue Ireland, and Albedo One. You can find him on the web at garethstack.com, and on twitter @Garethstack.

Tim Maroney has an endless fascination with ideas, and invention; the things that keep life spicy and interesting! He believes everyone’s got a tale to tell and enjoys “Talking Story!”. He enjoys playing music, mostly on guitar. He’s even been the opening act for a ten-band rock concert. Learning new things, like podcasting, excites him. He’s been on four of the seven continents and has seen some of the wonders of our Earth. While in the Navy he earned the rare and coveted dual Snake Plisskin Award: He escaped from New York and LA, same as Snake (though these were two of the five submarines he served on). Not too bad for a guy from a small town in North-Central Florida!

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