Matt Render

“Roy the Barber I” by Matt Render

Roy’s Skin had the tone of mild coffee, smooth, warm, and always emitting a decadent aroma of aftershave and spearmint. The scent would linger in Trvevor’s nostrils, on his clothes and in his mind for hours, sometimes days. And with that unforgettable scent, he could picture lonely Roy, silently cutting away, carefully examining his lines, skillfully applying the shaving cream, tapping the razor clean after every slow stroke.  Trevor could see Roy In his lonely one bedroom unit, the moonlight shining over his sheets as he lay the...

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“Frozen Lake II” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #95

Greg managed to park his souped up car just outside the entrance to the packed club, in full view of for the snaking line of drugged up high schoolers. The car ride had been long enough for the alcohol to proliferate through Rosa's bloodstream, enough to impair her motor functioning to the point of complete numbness on the lower half of her body. Just after fumbling the door handle open, Rosa spilled out face first into the icy side walk, going unnoticed by almost everyone in line, and laughed at by the ones who did witness her col...

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“Cupcake Dan III” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #84

Of course, Belinda knew it was strange for Dan to be leaving every Wednesday night shortly after eating the Wednesday night double entree, sausage pizza and her famous spaghetti casserole, a staple dish which she herself had invented, inspired from the Marcello Vince cooking show she often fell asleep to during afternoon naps prior to her dinner prep. Dan’s Wednesday night excursions had persisted ever since Dan was a teenager, old enough to drive his mother’s car. Having only one vehicle, the pristinely kept ancient relic from the dawn...

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“Cupcake Dan II” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #81

Outside Oleg’s Cakes was a concrete circus of coked up caffeine fiends, chain smoking already half-smoked cigarettes and chiming in and out through the front door of the shop, each time with a new conspiracy, or gripe. Chester, whom as his namesake implied, smoked chesterfields, wore a red beanie with a blue pom-pom on the top, heavily padded yellow mittens and a white wooled scarf that had yellowed from dried mucus and smoke. Inside the bottom left pocket of his green parka was always a half filled Mickey, assortments of dead...

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“Cupcake Dan I” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #78

When Rosa entered the hotel bar, not a single head turned to see her wearing the fur coat over her skimpy dress, tight enough to expose the unflattering sagging of her skin, and the lights dim enough to expose the crease marks from her underbelly all the way to the scars in her cheeks. Outside, it was the five o’clock blueness of a winter evening casted out across cold steel skyscraper windows, into porcelain bedrooms and marble countertops, heated tile bathrooms and stainless steel light fixtures glowing and radiant like glossy ma...

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“Driving (Continuation)” by Matt Render

Even then, shifting in front of the mirror surrounded by her white walled room and its massive windows exposing the thick grey sun setting over the ice, while the room ruptured like a street cleaner from savage blasts of drums, and the static squeals of guitars, and the depraved howls of embittered words transfusing from her stereo speakers into her innermost wounds, she could still taste the picture of cold turkey on her mind. Rosa reached straight for a cigarette as she did whenever her hunger pangs started to act up, cracked ope...

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“Frozen Lake ” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #73

The frozen lake on an empty winter afternoon, the echoing silence and moaning gusts of wind through the barren trees was a peaceful and serene contrast to the blasts coming through the brand new stereo sound system Rosa had received from Teddy for passing her last English test, as she cranked her new device to full volume, allowing her selections of guttural punk music to rupture through the bungalow walls while Rosa did her makeup. She had already botched the job several times, either making it look too overdone to the point of l...

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“Mercy Seat (Another continuation) ” by Matt Render

Though Teddy had tried, Rosa refused his attempts to drive her to her mother’s funeral one weekend, firm on her decision instead to go to the concert she’d been excited about for weeks.  Chester Stinson, a blonde haired teen idol within the community was the frontman of ‘the Christ Incarnates’ , and Rosa had decided that if she could score some over the counter painkillers or some MDMA for him and the band mates, maybe she would have her way in.  Teddy had a rare stirring of his conscience when he had heard about Cathy’s death,...

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“How Real Dreams Can Be ... (a continuation on the last two) ” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #70

‘It’s strange how real a dream could be.’ Rosa one thought spring morning, sweating as she awoke wrapped in the white sheets on her massive bed, the morning light flooding the space all around her room through the large wood panel windows, creating constellations of dust clouds in the air, dancing beneath the light rays like ghosts in the daylight. With her head still stuck to the pillow, a small puddle of drool around her mouth, her eyes stared out the windows across the long stretches of lake and the expanses of empty sky, allowing her min...

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“Law And Order” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #69

Rosa didn’t miss her mother, the thoughts containing her became more and more infrequent, even while she was eating maple syrup, or watching old ‘Law And Order’ episodes as they had used to do together. She didn’t miss the warmth of her mother’s lap, or the way her mother's expert hands glided through her hair, allowing her nails to just slightly graze the surface of Rosa’s scalp. She didn’t miss Thursday fajita night, the jazz music and the smell of Jasmine candles while Cathy took her evening baths, or the racket she made getting up severa...

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“Children's Aid” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #68

Rosa never forgot looking into her mother’s eyes, the last moments they had ever laid upon her, the bewildered Cathy, drinking in the last sight of her daughter through a thick pool of tears, before Rosa was whisked away into a child services van. Elizabeth, the smartly dressed overweight van driver had a pleasant chubby cheeked smile and curly brown locks and glasses which all combined to give her a damp, subdued appearance, like a soggy wafer, thin as cardboard and tasteless, perfect for her role as mediator for children from broken h...

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“Table For Four” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #67

“That movie fucking sucked.”  “Cmon, Paul. Not that bad.” Said Darren, picking his leather coat up off from the theatre seat.  “I liked it.”  Said Kira, barely audible enough for anyone to hear.  Prying their feet off the sticky theatre floor, the group marched out into the summer evening, leaving behind their trail of empty wine spritzer cans, sunflower seed shells and popcorn kernels.  “Hmm, Gus’s is close to here. And I know they’re still open.. That dude never sleeps.” Said Darren, stepping ou...

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“The Salesman ” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #65

“I’ve told you a hundred times, Justin... Quit making me out to be the bad guy” “But, I said I was sorry. I don’t know what else to do at this point” Justin said, squeezing his temple, as though to mitigate the pounding of his recurring stress headaches.   “Look, you know I love you, but, yeah... at this point I don’t know, like, what to do...” Laura looked down at the newly purchased silver bracelet with the aqua marine Aquarius charm Justin had wrapped around her wrist.  He didn’t want to mention how he had sacrific...

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“The Whistle” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #64

This old house—chips from the ceiling fall and scatter like rain clouds of dust; the floorboards cry in ache; the pipes squeal like a rusted train car. Between his slowly decaying house and the thoughts racing through his mind, There is no silence to be found for Robert. He lays in his bed with a deep longing—a longing for the quiet peace of death; to be buried beneath the rotting floorboards; to be one with the mounds of dust in the cobwebbed corner of his bedroom.  When he is not being tormented by his own mind, it is by the soun...

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“Hallucinations ” by Matt Render

Submitted to Contest #63

Apparently, Michael was seeing things.  At least, that was one of the many rumours about him going around Cloverlawn Collegiate. One student’s mother, who had a psychology degree, informed him that Michael had taken so much LSD, he suffered a mental lapse and had experienced hallucinations and severe delusions ever since. Another person heard that Michael had attempted suicide, and then prescribed mood stabilizers so heavy that he had lost grips with reality.  Some blamed his parents who were both big city lawyers and p...

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