RETORTMAGAZINE.COM

At the generous behest of Retort’s European Associate Editor we are moving to a new server based in Amsterdam. Retort will probably disappear for a day or two, but we’ll be back. Bear with us if things look messy for a little while. Another great side-effect of the migration is that RetortMagazine.com will no longer [...]

Retort has been maliciously compromised. It seems the content will remain but I have lost the admin control.
I have no idea what motivated such an attack.
Fuck you very much hacker.
It’ll take some time to set up again, but Retort is NOT going anywhere.
Stay tuned.

Screenplay: a Poem
FADE IN:
INT. MOVIE THEATER – DAY – ESTABLISHING
We’re in a sparsely populated movie theater.  A film is being shown.  It is silent and there is no music.  We HEAR the adhesive sound of feet shuffling on sticky, black floors, which are lined with little lights in a long, plastic tube.  The flickering film [...]

A Simulation
Though the explosions shouldn’t surprise him they do. They sound off rhythmically every few minutes and he shudders startled by each and every echoing blast. Placed where he is on the terrace looking out over the river he can see the Basilica’s towers and the smoke sift upward through the trees-line. The blasts’ depth [...]

Chromosome 22
For Elizabeth Constance, Peover Churchyard, Cheshire

Same bed and yet they’re poles apart. She’s plagued
by ghosts, to all intents, while he’s moved on.
A voice she feels she knows but can’t quite place:
“What are you doing here, my sweet?” it sighs,
weird stuff that won’t parse out.. While gardening
late afternoon, she reads a shadow in
the sitting room. [...]