It was autumn and night when I first saw it.

The dark spot darted from the refrigerator to the corner of the kitchen, where we kept a sexy basket of dirty dish towels. I approached the basket and nudged it with my foot, which caused the runner to bolt back to the refrigerator and me to screech.

Beach Season is coming to a close, so it’s nice that Winslow and Dr. Spiderqueen are able to get some sun before Spooky Season sets in. I don’t think Winslow is actually capable of tanning, so his choice of swimwear for today is purely for fanservice.

Full disclosure, I am not the devil. I cannot damn you soul nor make Faustian bargains. Rather I am a simple warlock of humble means who is in need of a man’s soul for various occult purposes.

Prepare yourselves, people of the internet, for the August 2022 issue of Defenestration! How are you all doing? Good? Staying hydrated?

This month’s issue is totally weird. I’ve mentioned this before, but it seems like writers are all part of the same strange zeitgeist during each of our reading periods, and Eileen and I see very clear themes and subject matter in many of the poems and stories submitted. Sometimes you can chalk that up to what the market’s doing; some magazine or anthology might have just concluded its selections for a themed issue, and now everyone’s trying to find a home for the very niche story they wrote. That’s only sometimes, though. More often than not, writers and poets are just breathing the same inspirational air.

Menelaus’s hoary beard is stained red with Trojan blood. Lo, how he sits grieving at the prow of the flagship of a thousand ships, the craggy furrows of his brow deepened with the loss of his brethren, of Patroclus, of dishonored Ajax brought low by his own hand, of even the mighty Achilles. His powerful shoulders bend under the weight of a ten years’ war.

Nearby, his wife Helen is moodily gazing at the horizon, smoking a jay.