The Masquerade

by Barbara Pavone

As the jagged edges dug into his spine he relished the relief of the cold, wet cobblestones slowly soaking his shirt and soothing his bruises. He had barely any control remaining over his weak body but he exerted himself to force open his eyes. As he did so, he instantaneously regretted the effort. The cloaked figure in the harlequin mask was still staring at him mockingly, as were his equally clad assistants. He had hoped with all his heart and soul that it had been a terrible dream - their continuing presence stated otherwise.

“Wipe that indignity off your face,” snarled the leader of the harlequin army. “Surely you know you brought this upon yourself. Your meddling and so-called ‘constructive criticisms’ alienated our readers and publishers and cost us our careers.”

“No ... one ... ever ... said anything!” pleaded the critic.

At this accusation a universal groan echoed off the walls of the cave and roared in the deteriorating critic’s ear.

“We, kind Sir, always voiced our opinions of disagreement, but you persisted. Your senseless babble made us appear to be nothing more than incompetent, illiterate morons who, in your eyes, could not string two words together. You turned us into the laughing stocks of the literary world!”

On this note the critic felt himself sink farther into an abyss he was now certain he would not return from. He pondered over the masks and the figures seemed to read his mind.

“As a great writer once said: ‘All the world’s a stage.’ You’ve transformed us into fools, mere Harlequins placed into your theatre for comedic relief. We’ve adopted the role for this farewell - our final gift to you, before the curtain falls.”

Trial in the Death of a Critic

by David Docherty

Sequestered in the jury box, the days passed horrifically. How could this have happened? What deviancy leads to such miscarriage of justice? Who could and would devise such a plot? Questions like these torment the mind, scathing the very soul. Adding insult to injury, not being able to unleash the nightmare by talking it over with those owns holds near and dear cages the demons in ones own bowels.

Unsolved mysteries.

A literary critic, found dead at his desk, no discernible cause of demise, yet his brutal suffering obvious upon the silent corpse. Nearby a note, not written but pasted together with foul words cut from his own nasty reviews, no signature attached. Words of hatred spew forth, such as should never be read.

And yonder sits grimacing prosecution attorney, ceaselessly caressing his prized piece of evidence, a voodoo doll found in the writer's guild meeting room, porcupined with pens, pencils and even a feather quill piercing where a heart would lie in a real human being. The doll itself noosed about the neck with typewriter ribbon and hung eerily from the reading lamp which stood beside the very chair the reviewer so arrogantly occupied when he sat in on open mike nights.

Twenty weapons and dozens of fingerprints. More defendants than jurors and yet only one question needs answered. How could this have happened? How could anyone want to prosecute the death of a critic?

Fatal Rejection

by Pamela Kent

I knew I should have felt something when I plunged that letter opener deep into her flesh, where I estimated her heart to be – if she had a heart. And indeed, I did feel something – satisfaction
The letter opener would not have been my first choice. It was a quick, if painful death. I would have preferred something more lingering. Poison perhaps, the rack no longer being executionally correct.

I had spent seven years writing that ‘tell-all’ memoir. It had ruined my marriage, alienated my children, left me friendless, but she had destroyed my career with just a few words in an email. An email for God’s sake! The least I expected was a letter; hand-written would have been a nice touch, but I would have been satisfied with a signed, typewritten note, in an envelope, with a stamp in one corner, delivered in the usual manner. When you deliver bad news, the least you can do is to deliver it diplomatically.

She said that it wasn’t right for their agency. She said there were agencies that handled ‘this types of book’. Yes, she actually wrote ‘this types of book’.

That was what pushed me over the edge. She made a mistake in a three-line email. I made sure there were no typographical errors in the whole of my manuscript, but she couldn’t proof read one small email. And yet, she felt competent to judge my writing.

She lived to regret that rejection. But not for long.

by Virginia Winters

The outline looked like his ego: bloated, empty, one accusing hand outstretched. I stood towards the back of the crowd in the tiny parking lot attached to my bookstore. Henry Adams Cuthbert lay dead. It sounded like the title of a detective novel, the kind he destroyed with his reviews. I turned away and walked back inside.

There were no customers. I didn’t expect any, after the article he wrote about the store. Dark, uninviting, with a would-be author who knows nothing about books behind the counter: the words burned off the page.

He had arrived late and uninvited for the book launch, clutching a bottle of his favourite champagne. He poured a miserly ounce into each glass and raised his. “To my ex-wife: her book is a genuine reflection of her talent. R.I.P.”

That ended the party. The few friends I had left scurried away, murmuring to each other. He tossed his wine glass - rented - into the fireplace and waddled out the back door. He had stolen everything from me that had every mattered. Not my book. I grabbed scissors from the counter and ran after him.

“Henry. Don’t do this to me.”

He turned towards me, looked at the scissors and laughed. “Melodrama. I told you that you couldn’t write.”

I plunged them into his neck, watched the blood ooze around them, saw the unbelieving look in his eyes and watched him die. I wiped my fingerprints off the handles and walked inside to call 911.