Edge Of Humanity Magazine
Poetry & Flash Fiction Anthology
JUNE 2026 · B

Edge of Humanity Magazine

4 hours ago

Number 1

Walking up the ramp to the bridge over the Danshui river, I saw a man in a white long sleeve shirt with a red fishing rod that was at least three meters across in his gloved hands. He was standing at the corner of the spillway and the river’s edge. Slowly coming up the spillway from behind him were two murky spots- fish. Each one forty centimeters or longer by my guess. The fish splashed their way over the barrier wall, startling the fisherman and causing him to jump. In the commotion he accidentally yanked his line out of the water. Lucky for him, there was a bream raw and wriggling hooked on the line; sadly the fish couldn’t have been more than ten centimeters, mouth to tail.

Flash Fiction By Carl “Papa” Palmer

Im Falschen Fenster

I was having a Martha Stewart moment. A large windowless outside wall on the front of our house was the perfect setting for a cottage window framed with country shutters and a flower box.

Judy had recently redone the front bathroom and had me replace the old door mirror with a new one more to her taste. Being I throw away nothing, I found I now had two of the old Kmart door mirrors in my garage, one was cracked, but still too good to toss, both perfect items for my project.

Each mirror was 2 feet wide and 4 feet tall, so mounted side by side or one above the other would equal a 4X4 foot square faux window.

My neighbor from across the street, Corky, sees me gathering my supplies and knows I have some venture to tell him about. I explain how I am going to hang the mirrors, one above the other and frame them to look like a window, creating panes from the slats of leftover door moldings and lattice to create shutters.

Corky looks at the wall, the pile, the mirrors, my tools and me, says he still doesn’t see how I could make a window like that, and walks back over to his house leaving me to my task.

All went as planned, except the mirror that wasn’t cracked, became so during the process, and the mirror that was cracked, cracked again in a new place once the sun came out and heated it up.

The process went well and the flower box was the finishing touch. Covered with painted butterflies, caterpillars, bees, flowers and other critters, it had a nice homey look. I picked up some plastic frogs, butterflies and birds from the dollar store and some real flowers to complete my new window. The cracks added character, altered the reflection and actually looked like a real window from the street.

Corky came back by later as I was in the front yard admiring my work.

“Carl, that really looks good!”
“Thanks. I’m pleased with the results. So you like it?”
“I sure do. I bet it lets a lot more light into your bedroom.”
“It’s a mirror.”
“Oh, now I get it. It’s one of those mirrors you can look out of, but not into, right?”
“Right, see ya later, Corky, through my window.”

It does look like a real window, especially from the angle looking up from down on the street with the trees and sky reflecting back, but he saw the two mirrors before I even put them up and he still thinks it’s a real window. That led me to name my window.

An old German fairytale involving a pair of young lovers wanting to elope against her father’s wishes, made plans to leave that night. The lad would climb a ladder, tap upon her window and the lass would come with him to live happily ever after. He did climb the ladder and did tap on the window, but alas, it was her father’s window.
He was at the wrong window, im der falsche fenster. The false window.

So now my window has a name, Falschen Fenster. Come by and see it sometime. It does look real, but my bedroom remains quite dark.

Flash Fiction By Kurt Sanders

The Attic

The dimly lit attic floor creaked under the weight of Lori’s feet as she moved slowly across it. She disliked coming up here, but she needed the old record player stacked on top of a couple of boxes on the other side of the attic.
The attic always gave her the creeps. Suddenly, a movement caught her peripheral vision. She turned her head toward the movement and saw nothing but shadows of boxes. Behind her, a shadow flashed by, and her senses spiked. She quickly turned, and once again, nothing. A sudden, faint giggle. She was sure she heard it.
“Stop it, Lori,” she muttered to herself. “You’re just freaking yourself out.”
She retrieved the old record player and began her journey back to the attic stairs. Another quick, shadowy movement to her right. This time, she lowered her eyes to look at the floor.
“Quick, Lori, just get out of here.”
Her thoughts began to scatter. “There is someone or something up here with her. Some horrifying, grotesque humanoid just waiting to eat her brains.”
She picked up her pace.
“Christ, Lori,” her brain shouted out. “You are such a doofus.”
She reached the stairs, turned off the light, and quickly descended.
There was movement behind a stack of boxes.
“Finally, I thought she would never leave.”
“Ya, I know, right. She sure took her sweet, loving time. Is there any more chicken left?”

Flash Fiction By Neremiah Grue

My Dearest Darling

Leaning out a little from the high arched window, the damp midnight air enveloped her shoulders in its coldness. The sound of the city seemed so far away as she watched the late hackney carriages spinning across the bridge, delivering their charges back to hearth and home.
Her white silk gown fluttered out in pretty ripples as she fell.
Moments later, the note she’d been holding drifted out onto the dark waters of the river as her body lay crushed upon the cobbles beside it.
The night, reflecting off the river as it flowed beneath the bridge, kept silent.

Flash Fiction By Elizabeth Jurado

Mike was on his back, arms and legs flailing like an upturned cockroach. The first thing he said to me was, “I got to take a piss.” Laughing and drunk as skunks, I managed to get him up off the pavement and into the alley behind the theater. By then, we were both hysterical. “Mike, you’re on your own now. I’m not holding you while you piss.”
Best friends in the mid-80s and aficionados of alternative music, we frequented the Cameo Theater, which had transitioned from a 1940s movie theater into a punk house in 1986. The Cameo reeked of old beer and sweat, with torn black curtains, equally vile bathrooms, and a crumbling Art Deco exterior in hot pink and lime green. Local band The Drills opened for many great hardcore punk bands, including Black Flag, the Ramones, Suicidal Tendencies, and the Dead Kennedys.
Mike, who stood only 5’4” and was hammered, decided he wanted to dance in the mosh pit, where slam dancers hurled themselves off the stage into the crowd. Mild-mannered Mike, with a twinkle in his small, black, drunken eyes, declared he was ready for the mosh pit. Before I could fully register Mike’s intentions, a guy approached me and said my friend had been taken out back by the bikers.
The Cameo Theater hired local biker gangs as security guards. The bikers dumped Mike on the sidewalk outside the theater. Apparently, they weren’t going to call an ambulance. Liability and all. I managed to get him into my car and drive him to the hospital. Clunk, clunk, clunk went Mike on his new set of crutches. By the time we left the hospital, it was already daybreak, so I said to Mike, “Let’s check out some pancakes before I take you home.”

Poetry By Defy (Denise N. Fyffe)

Strength of a Woman

She rises before the rooster’s cry,
a quiet storm beneath the sky.
She cooks, she prays, she wipes a tear,
she holds the whole world close and near.
She is market woman, teacher, guide,
mother, healer, nation’s pride.
Her hands are worn, her back is strong,
she hums her children into song.
She carries burdens none can see,
yet walks with grace and dignity.
Her laughter sweet, her courage wide,
she is Jamaica’s beating stride.
Strength of a woman — fierce and bright,
a lighthouse in our darkest night.
For every triumph we have known
was built on shoulders of her own.

Poetry By Srinithi Muthu

Maybe

My thoughts cascaded as our silhouettes glided swiftly
Our fingers intertwined as our souls seem to merge into one
Is love a concept ?
Or do we just love that concept ?
If I loved to love , why do I grapple at its integrity?
We yearn to love, just as we learn to love
The blemishes on my skin
why is that we see it as such
as if it were a sin ?
My eyes are tied to yours, though what I see may not be what you behold.
Though I can’t forget, deep within the spheres of my eyes, you might find the truth that I despise.
Does this catch you by surprise ? Or Dear Reader shall we chuckle at its demise ?
I shall need some respite,
Pay me no heed, I’m not fickle nor fumble.
Alas, reality is filtered by perception, my own self portrait
painted in hues and shades of wanderlust that may
never measure up, to your idea of just
He loves me, he loves me not
We may never know, for this love can never be told
Did you really never hold me in the same what if ?
I watch as you part your lips to mouth something ,
But is that all we’ll ever be ?
I’m trying to find different ways
to express my love for you in poetic shades
What I wish to say, it’s simple really,
I’m afraid you might always be my maybe.

Poetry By Emanuela Meneghelli

I AM THIRSTY

And now I yearn and I strip the bark,
to touch life’s sap with my own hands,
I listen to sentinels stationed on the breaches,
I cheat the waiting by interpreting signs.

I am breathless, I struggle,
I want to strip away veils of stale prejudice
to seek prisms of light, solid points,
certainties to settle as a deed.
A vampire of life, I knock at your existence,
looking like an addict in withdrawal.

I ask to find restless souls, true souls,
who do not fear the thirst.
Within the interstices of every wound,
within the knowledge of different cultures,
within every sob of life
that breaks spontaneously from cracks.

I seek. I seek to calibrate every roar
net of artificial pyro-fantasies,
to define the borders of non-value,
separating the chaff from the grains of art.

Flash Fiction By Lefki Karantoni