It all started when my Grandma was cremated. Her ashes came home in an ornate red urn that Father placed on the living room coffee table, and my Grandpa began to speak to her. “Wife, what will happen to our ashes when I die?” Grandpa murmured, staring at the silent urn. “Who will care for our spirits? Andrew or Benny or Carol?”

My mother caught me staring and told me to give Grandpa his privacy. But eight-year-old me had never seen anyone talk to ghosts before, and it fascinated me to no end. Later on, I asked Father about it.

Lorgo dressed for his job interview. He slipped on his sleeveless tan tunic. He slipped on his stained white trousers. He slipped on his thick silver bracelets. He slipped on the puddle of gore on the floor.

The mad scientist lived in a castle on a cliff overlooking a river running behind a Super Walmart. This was convenient for Lorgo because there was a bus stop at that Super Walmart and he did not have a driver's license, just one for driving carriages and another for driving ice picks.

The perfect treat for when you want to make sure the party ends with everyone’s relationships in tatters!

Ingredients:

Jennifer crouched in a large bush in a small suburban park surrounded by busy roads, apartment buildings, and tasteful iron fences, her apprentice by her side. They were trying to determine whether the little girl sitting on the grass was playing with an imaginary friend. Or someone else.

“Mister Humphries, you haven’t eaten your sandwiches!”

We left our toys in the yard sixty-some-odd years ago. You’d think, small as we were then, all the time since, it’d be impossible to find the old place.

I drove the avenues of childhood, past the gutted gas station, the place pop took us for soft serve on those summer days when I felt my feet cooking in my sneakers. A left turn where a magnificent camellia once dropped blooms. Only a stunted armature remained.

My wife, June, was the first to see it. She called to me from the deck behind the house. “Tim? Come here. Quick.”

“What is it?” I yelled from the kitchen.

“You’d better come see for yourself.”

When Nathan Rahos slumped onto a loveseat in his office, too drained to drive home after a fourteen-hour-long workday, he didn’t expect an adventure. His work as a junior accountant at the National Bureau of Fruit and Vegetables provided poor fodder for dreams, much like his personal life. So, as he dropped into a deep sleep and found himself strolling among hundreds of bookshelves, he felt like a trespasser.

Everything had been so much simpler before the cats learned to talk.

My phone buzzed on the end table, probably a morning text from Jeremy. He liked to send a smiling selfie as he lay in bed, hair still mussed from sleep. Could I grab the phone without the cats noticing I was awake? I slid my hand to the side…

“I'm king of the hill!” Ripley settled on my hip, the highest point on the bed. Slowly extending his nails, he pierced my sweatpants to prick the skin beneath. “Are you awake? I'm hungry. It's time to get up. Can we have canned food today?”

This story originally appeared in Vast Chasm Magazine in July 2022.

"I wonder if it's time to reconsider--" Dr. Jane starts.

I feel the back of my neck tighten. I know what she's going to say and she's raised it before and I'm not going to have it. "No."

She gives me a puzzled look. "What's wrong with using the Super Goblin Moving Company?"

I glance down at the small vase of yellow daffodils placed on the coffee table. "Nothing. It just isn’t for me."

"And why is that?"