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you died prosaically
at only forty-four

felled by a heart attack
on a bus at Hollywood and Vine

you'd made over sixty films
but it was your true role

to be destroyed spectacularly
by monsters

the joy of it
the privilege

to be driven mad
strangled

thrown down a flight
of stairs

tossed off
a castle top

and here you are again, blithely climbing
into the coach for Borgo Pass

despite the warnings of
the freaked out villagers

it's time for you to place yourself
directly in the monster's path

a small man in a huge castle
ready to be swallowed up

by Lugosi's
burning gaze



Gwynne Garfinkle lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of a novel (Can't Find My Way Home) and two collections (Sinking, Singing and People Change), all published by Aqueduct Press. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Fantasy, Uncanny, Escape Pod, and Worlds of Possibility. For more about her work, visit http://gwynnegarfinkle.com.
Current Issue
9 Feb 2026

“I’ve never actually visited the pā before,” she said out loud. “Is this where they gather lāʻī to make the pūʻolo?” she asked. “Yes,” Benny responded, glancing to see where Nanea was pointing. “Here and in other places as well. Many of these ti have been growing for decades now.” She paused for a moment. “I think about all the work you guys do, you know, up in those offices, and I think that all of that work actually starts from right here, in the ground, all covered in the earth and the pōhaku and the ti. Most people don’t even know it, but it all starts right here.
sometime in the night, we heard rocking and knocking and rapping and tapping, a million trillion tiny feet
The triangles bred and twisted, replicating themselves.
Issue 2 Feb 2026
By: Natasha King
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
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