Autumn 2019

Popshot Magazine

The illustrated magazine of new writing

Popshot Magazine2 min read
Editorial
ISSUE 25 — FANTASY AUTUMN 2019 There are no limits on fantasy. Yet, in literature it is so heavily steeped in genre it’s impossible not to think of warring kingdoms, dragons, unicorns, witches and other supernatural tropes. Fantasy with a capital F i
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The Witch And The Woods
There were once two lovers who were forbidden by their families to see each other. Every night, while their families slept, the lovers met in the woods outside of town. They did not know they were being watched. A witch lived in the woods. She watche
Popshot Magazine6 min read
Are You Lonesome Tonight?
The road Angela saw in her dreams was fresh enough to sink your heels in, slick liquorice tarmac licking the horizon like a long black tongue, forked at the end. There were no workmen in her dreams, no dull machinery; instead the road swept down the
Popshot Magazine6 min read
Side Gig
A woman with an internet connection can find financial redemption at almost any time. I, a woman, an artist, do not have the energy resources for a full-time job. I do part-time work in a library shelving books and such, but the pay is not enough to
Popshot Magazine3 min read
Xander Wears A Lovely Leather Jacket…
And when he excuses himself to the bathroom, I lean over the table, discreetly ingesting the woody eau de parfum ingrained in the fabric of its neck. Xander carries the most amazing aromas, ones that linger in the senses, all subtle and suggestive. W
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Baby Elephant
Baby Elephant is trying to sit in my lap again. I groan and uncross my legs and she half rests, watching me. I run my hands over her parchment skin, a palimpsest of grey. Her watermelon head is as hot as desire. I tickle her parachute ears. We sit li
Popshot Magazine10 min read
For The Splendour With Which She Shines
They had told me that Aoife was having trouble finding a flatmate; no-one wants to live with a prophet. The Gumtree ad was harmless enough: she didn’t mention anything about cleanliness or noise, but had strong opinions about Hildegard of Bingen. My
Popshot Magazine3 min read
So Beautiful
When the earth decided she had had enough, she did not erupt in furious volcanoes, nor shatter into ten thousand jagged shards of land — though doing so would have been satisfying. Instead, she seethed far below the surface so that no one at first no
Popshot Magazine11 min read
In America
Most of all, I didn’t like that you had to take an aeroplane to get there. The fact it was so far away. There were other things I didn’t like. I didn’t like the guns. The wild teenage shootings or the star-spangled stadiums with hooting Republicans.
Popshot Magazine2 min read
Guarding The Bridge
Jävla Kuk! My feet and my legs they hurt. My cytokerotin will be rotting in this water. Standing here up to my Kna’s {shna}, I mean knees, for the past twelve hours is too much. The stones dig into my soles and drive me to helvete. This bridge is too
Popshot Magazine1 min read
Elegy On The Underground
It was my home but now someone else sleeps in his bed. She keeps cats. She does his ironing. He wouldn’t let me keep a cat. He said he was allergic. I am allergic to the Northern Line. At night, there’s sometimes sick on the floor. It’s always on the
Popshot Magazine3 min read
Singed
Dale comes swinging in through the double doors in a cloud of smoke and I tell you, I’ve had long-burnt chips in the oven that’ve smelled better than that. So I ask him, “Dale, how’d it go in there?” and he says, “Oh dandy, Chris, just fine. Like a f
Popshot Magazine7 min read
The Wind Feels Loss
We do not build shelter from wood alone. The trees of the Herdlands are small and lonely, and their boles are like the spinal bones of cattle if they were browned and brittled and twisted up in a stack. Not good for woodwork. We must flay the stallio
Popshot Magazine11 min read
The Change
It started a little before my fourteenth birthday. The day was hot and I lay in the shade, close to the river, sweating as I turned the pages of a steamy paperback. Aches throbbed like tiny punctures up my back and thighs. Every so often those aches
Popshot Magazine3 min read
The Man Who Broke The Fetish Engine
“The police rang,” she says. “We’ve had a break-in at the Menagerie.” She coughs. “One casualty.” When I arrive, the police are still photographing the scene, and setting up those white tents you see on telly. Wearing paper suits and protective masks
Popshot Magazine3 min read
Endnotes
8 – Aarushi Shetty is a magazine subeditor from India, whose love of English brought her to England where she is currently studying for an MA. 10 – Jill Munro's first poetry collection was published in 2015. She won the Fair Acre Press Pamphlet Compe

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