I bite my tongue as the psychiatrist interviews Mr Lemming in the psychiatric ED status post suicide attempt number one: the sole survivor of his cult’s alleged mass suicide. He notes Mr Lemming’s family history, asks about recurring feelings of sadness or emptiness, psychiatric medication. Whom he lives with. What he does for a living. How much he drinks….
[ Digital Edition Available on Request | Print Edition SOLD OUT ] Issue 23 of Neon features the work of Arijit Sen, Matthew Dexter, Bob Thurber, Matthew Burnside, Daniel Powell, Ian Gammie, Patrick McGinty, and Sara Crowley. Neon is free to read. If you enjoy the work we publish a small donation is appreciated. Published…
That year, I learned about the Doppler effect in physics class. What makes the noise of a speeding car seem a pitch lower after it’s sped by you. It was fall. My pimples were mostly gone but I was still fainting. I had not yet learned how to take the new refrigerator for granted–the choice…
In memory of Matt Kinnison Unnamed, unknown I am telling an unnamed, unknown someone, that I dreamt Ed was still alive. But I am telling the unnamed, unknown person this in a dream. Even as I sleep, I know that it’s complicated. I see Ed twisting in pain on the floor. Thin as a greyhound,…
To fill the day Chairman Mao goes on long walks. He buys a gold-tipped cane from a vendor stand, walks leaning heavily on it. He kicks at errant pieces of gravel, imagining the stones are the stars of the universe. He reads The Collected Works of Charles Dickens till he falls asleep in the study…
Rented one of those little one-bedroom apartments that make you wonder whether your luck will ever change. You know the type. Wake up the first morning and you’re lying in bed, running your fingernails across the wall. You do this every morning, thinking about what went wrong and whether your ex-boyfriend really loves you as…
[ Digital Edition Available on Request | Print Edition SOLD OUT ] Issue 22 of Neon features the work of Howie Good, Paul McDonald, Ladee Hubbard, Dave Migman, Adam Moorad, Joseph AW Quintela, Jessica Hollander, Emily Darrell, and Bryce Alister Doersam. Neon is free to read. If you enjoy the work we publish a small…
Anger cloaked him. Draped in folds. You could see it. Smell it. Hear air quivering. Like hornets. Like cymbals. Terrifying. Sensual. On the day the world ended Ike Steel scoffed from his penthouse. Glaring down. Like God. As chaos consumed streets. He was still. But for the ever-trembling rage. Scotch in hand. Despising it all….
It’s coming, hurting things along the way. It throttled Mrs Lanford’s self-esteem,and left her lodger, Nigel, with tortured thoughts.Mr Kumar’s dreams suddenly turned sourand he closed his shop. Rumour is he’s torched it but I’m too afraid to look. My next door neighbour, Sharon, killed her cat;my own stays out of reach. They warned us,…
I knew by the shapes of the trees we were almost home. I wasn’t sleeping. We had reached the spot where the trees changed and I heard them say I was sleeping. Flying and falling were my only dreams then and they just repeated but in different ways. One day it would all make sense….