The view from here literary magazine

Blind Spot

by Diane Becker
A speck of light arcs through a crack in the door. You hear a fingernail drawn across a curtain. A fly bats at the window.
A Change of Pace

by Ross Sayers
Liz stepped out into the cold foyer, a light layer of sweat now dried on her back. Networking, she thought, he had said networking so many times, but she still didn't have a clue what he meant.
Scrabbling

by Sophie Hampton
Last month I moved into a flat where the walls are painted in a four syllable colour called mag-no-li-a, the same shade as the tinned rice pudding I have for supper every night.
What is Reflected

by Susan Rukeyser
There’s a secret in there. In fact, there are several. Each wrapped in plastic and stacked inside the commercial freezer humming against the far wall.
Go On, My Son

by Dan Micklethwaite
Nowadays, they slink through barriers with otherworldly grace. None of them have need for mirrors or make-up any longer, and yet here they are, at their most radiant and tender-looking.
Gallego

by Jo Mortimer
He imagined his wall a hundred feet high, a thousand, swaying across a deep blue sky.
Roaring Water Bay

by Lane Ashfeldt
Auntie Rose was the vintage of the oldest penny that we found buried in our back garden.
Irish Whiskey

by James Robison
Her life is whiskey and silky while the last storms of winter raise chalk puffs and whirligig phantoms
The Care of Babes

by Ethel Rohan
Her red-polished fingernails tugged at his chest hair. Years since he’d felt this heady rush with his wife, the sense of liquefying.
Wish You Were Here

by Nigel Jarrett
Six months after I received the cheque, a picture postcard arrived. It was addressed to me but the message section was blank.
Stealing Sunflowers in Room 45

by Anne Lauppe-Dunbar
As the very last tourist departs, night floats through the building and the Old Woman with a Rosary oozes from her canvas into the expectant air of Room 45. She whispers a longing to pick one sunflower, just the one
Gone to China

by Jane Hammons
“Why the fire?” Lily Val asks, her voice husky and low. “Someone’s going to see.”
If the Shoe Fits

by Foster Trecost
He smelled the book, searched for the new book scent, but it wasn't there. He began reading, but like the food, his taste in literature had also changed.
Skin

by Susmita Bhattacharya
Again and again, it plays in a loop, till she is so exhausted it doesn’t register anymore. The fluorescent lights that blinded her that night. The pain that stretched her body so far that she felt herself tear apart.
fragments of the bird

by James Claffey
“Didn't a crow fly into the upstairs bedroom last night at dusk.” She spoke through a mouthful of clothespins, the words splintered, her tightly curled hair not moving in the breeze.
Unordered Lists

by Chloe George
Her body had told her to get pregnant and she obeyed. It was something to do, a real thing, a concrete whole with consequences.
Hair

by Vanessa Gellard
Attention seeking and highly strung – those were the words my husband used. Cries at anything apparently - unstable, it obviously runs in the family. I had believed him too.
Everything I Had

by Ruby Cowling
I felt a sudden jab in my heel, and I hopped over, sat down and pulled off my shoe. An emerald the size of a hornet was rolling around inside. It shone from the inside and it smelt like limes.
Ming the Merciless

by Victoria Anderson
‘Ming,’ said a small voice at her feet. She looked down. It was the cat.

Blind Spot by Diane Becker

You are here. A pink dot on a map in a glass atrium where bronze deer wander. People you don’t know sit along the walls as you shake your umbrella, wetting the floor.

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A Change of Pace by Ross Sayers

Liz had a job interview the next day; her first in thirty-eight years. They asked you all kinds of silly things these days, she'd heard.

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Scrabbling by Sophie Hampton

I am eight and twenty-eight and a hundred to one. A hundred to one is an odds. Odds are how likely something is to happen. Different to odd.

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2nd Novel from TVFH Senior Editor