INK • by Sarthak Sharma
You promise to have my name inked on your skin someday and I say I wouldn’t ever do the same for you or for anyone at all. It is way too clichéd and the cost of having a tattoo removed… Continue Reading
You promise to have my name inked on your skin someday and I say I wouldn’t ever do the same for you or for anyone at all. It is way too clichéd and the cost of having a tattoo removed… Continue Reading
I’ve held hundreds of hands. The meaty palms of a baker. The calloused knuckles of rock climbers. The peeling cuticles of mothers with teething babies. I think the woman was a waitress. The scar of a burn framed the underside… Continue Reading
I walk in. They hand me a name badge. Immediately I ask myself why am I attending my fiftieth college reunion? The few who aren’t dead look like they should be. I’m gone. No boring stories, bad food and cheap… Continue Reading
Shotgun in hand, I inch toward the contorted deer. Behind me, breath reeking of whiskey, Pa hisses, “It’s suffering, boy. Put it out of its misery.” I rest my cheek against the stock and aim the barrel at the buck,… Continue Reading
Otis poured a Scotch and flicked on the CCTV. The fight was in full flow; he could almost smell the adrenaline as punters yelled, faces red, veins bulging. He’d miss this place. He lit a cigarette, took a drag and… Continue Reading
Friday night I played another piano bar. If you’d told my younger self that all those years of practice would amount to this… Well, I probably would have been ecstatic, to be perfectly honest. But I was young and dumb… Continue Reading
Neighbour, Your tree grew too much. Blocks my view of the ocean. I will come tomorrow to cut the top off. Neighbour from Number 32 *** Hello Neighbour, Thank-you kindly for your note. How lovely to hear from you for… Continue Reading
I sit in front of the blank canvas. There’s only a bright sun in its top right corner. My brush sits full of lemon yellow paint, but a dark tempest dominates my mind. I get gooseflesh as I replay Chuck’s… Continue Reading
On the day my mother died I woke to rain, a rhythmic tick-tick-ticking against the windows, the first real downpour we’d had in months. I roused Oliver, crouching beside his tiny bed and tugging at the blankets, the blunt comma… Continue Reading
The rumble of a motor cut through the forest, disrupting the stillness of a cool June morning. Olen grumbled. That meant humans, and humans usually meant trouble. Over the last sixty years, their fascination with his kind’s existence had pushed… Continue Reading