I kicked off 2026 with a new Patreon benefit, Flash Fiction Fridays. My vision is to showcase the immeasurable talents of the horror authors I enjoy reading. These Flash Fiction stories are an invitation to readers—here is a taste of what they have to offer. If you like it, there’s more.
After each story, there’s an author photo, bio, and 3 links to recommended work. My intent is to feature underrated authors but I already love the idea of doing whatever I want. So far this month, members read stories from
Rae Wilde, “In Memoria Tenebat”
Stephen Graham Jones recently released, States of Grace, a collection of Flash Fiction. I enjoyed it so much, I want more people to discover this treasure. SGJ wrote, THE HALL OF MAN for this Patreon project, I hope you enjoy it
The Hall of Man
Stephen Graham Jones
So this monkey was looking at me at the zoo two Thursdays ago. I measure it like that because this is another Thursday, not because I’m some freak with a made-up calendar. But I am continually surprised how fast Thursdays accumulate. But this isn’t about that. It’s about that monkey. It wasn’t a chimpanzee, wasn’t one of those little organ-grinder ones either—those are the two ends of the monkey spectrum, aren’t they? So far as I, a non-specialist in monkeys, knows. If I’d looked at the placard, this monkey’s little label at lower right of its glass-fronted enclosure, I could just say to you now that it was “this” or “that” kind of monkey, and this would all be going faster, and together we might look up or even already know their peculiarities, their range and diet, their cultural significance and endangered status, and—okay, yes: whether it’s a known thing, their ability to, just with their big unblinking eyes, flay away a person’s carefully constructed disguises, both social and practical, and see them as they really are. This, as I’m sure you’re guessing, is what happened to me two Thursdays ago. The monkey was one of those whose face is sort of framed in hair, if that makes sense? Like a stiff Abraham Lincoln beard, except around the whole face, wrapping around to be muttonchops and, yes, a grave and serious unibrow, one that makes a person want to consider if this monkey is a philosopher for its troop, its kind, its species. That frame of hair was slightly more golden, probably from more constant exposure to sunlight, than the grungy brown the rest of the monkey was, which I of course take to be some evolutionary adaptation or another, probably relating to finding mates or dealing with insects or social status, not all of which are mutually exclusive, of course. But enough about the monkey’s physical characteristics. I’m sure you remember it as well. What’s important about this particular monkey is that when it slowly rotated its leathery, dry face around to settle its overlarge and needlessly invasive eyes on me and no one else, my tongue writhed involuntarily in response to the tactile sensation I didn’t ask for, of licking this monkey’s cheek, solely so my saliva could serve as the moisturizer it so desperately needed. Rather, I should say, or admit, my tongue in its ivory cage spasmed with desire. But I’m no monkey-licker. I wasn’t even at the zoo for the Hall of Primates that Thursday. I was there to look at the beetles again. The Hall of Primates was just a shortcut. But then, stumbling into the humid clamor of a crowd I hadn’t anticipated—this many people care about monkeys?—I found myself caught, as it were, in that monkey’s penetrating headlights. No: in its x-ray vision. Its visual autopsy of everything that composes me. Its wholly unwavering gaze drank me in molecule by molecule, and knew me in a way that left me stripped naked. The heat of that attention made my skin writhe, my sphincter clinch, my stomach surge up to the back of my throat. Oh, you? the monkey was saying with its saucer eyes, its bored expression. Perhaps it was an Owl Monkey, if such a species exists. That was its effect on me anyway: I was become a mouse, trying to shrink down into its own slight form. This whole while, which a lesser person could measure in a snap but which I knew to be a brief aperture through which eternity blew, the monkey reposed up on that branch, its long arms hugging the cream-colored balustrade that supports the roof of its enclosure. So, we meet in this most unlikely of places, it was whispering to me with all but its mouth. What this monkey was seeing, of course—obviously—was my long, heavy, figurative tail, languorously swishing back and forth. To this monkey, the large, hollow-black spots dotting my skin, hiding my form, allowing me to draw closer and closer to prey, were so apparent as to be immediately dismissed, my true nature practically a pulsating aura for its all-seeing eyes. The crowd, as ever, was too dull to even begin to sense this about me. Their inner monkeys, however, could be made to register me, I knew. Alone in a room with me, the rest of the city sleeping, they would, in their last moment, with the clutter of the world fallen away, recognize me for what I am. In the dark, my teeth, somewhat figurative, at least until they bite, become suddenly apparent. This potential is what that monkey saw, that Thursday. This threat is what its highly tuned instincts keyed on, telling it not to look away from me, lest it be dragged from its perch. But then, knowing it was safe behind its thick glass, it chose to, as it were, ring the alarm for its troop, opening its mouth wide as if in a display of aggression but then screaming in the back of its throat, and even then lowering its left hand to point at me with a needlessly long index finger. And its “troop,” of course—this is where this encounters veers to the unfortunate—was the crowd milling around me. To be sure, I don’t fault this monkey for this. Announcing predators is of necessity loud and demonstrative, and, if predators are left unannounced, well: no more monkeys. Its about survival, I know, and accept, even welcome. But survival is paramount for my kind as well. That self-preservation instinct is why, instead of visiting the beetles that Thursday, I stationed myself at the exit of the Hall of Primates, taking a series of surreptitious photographs of the two visitors I was certain the monkey had alerted to my presence. Because if you know who I am—what I am—then . . . then things become significantly more difficult for me, do they not? I haven’t made it this far into the jungle this century by not anticipating, and forestalling, such difficulties, you see. But, with this stack of photographs, I’ve now been able to, with the diligence and rigor my kind is known for, visit a certain room after dark last Thursday, and now this one as well, “Thursday” not having ever been a personal unit of measurement, but, really, isn’t it arbitrary that “Sundays” or “the weekend” get to be the representative of the week? Why not a simple, elegant “Thursday?” Perhaps the revolution starts here, with me. But, alas, not with you, no. You can set that shoulder bag down, now. And of course that phone. This is the natural way of things, I’m sorry. I wait in the corner for you to return, I flash my teeth, I bite down, I leave no evidence, and then . . . then the next time the zoo beckons and I go to visit the beetles I prefer, the better to appreciate their unflagging industry, I plan to skirt the Hall of Primates, perhaps striding instead, fists clenching and opening, clenching and opening, through the aviary with its distasteful smells, or the African exhibit with its striped ponies and other cartoon denizens of the recreated savannah. Taking this shortcut, though, or, rather, this long way around the monkeys, I’ll be looking neither left nor right, so I don’t, in turn, have to register the nervous swish of a tail, nor see the unblinking eyes of those brightly colored birds as they shift from foot to foot. We’re all agitated, bird, trust me. We’re all swishing our tails back and forth from the accumulation of nerves. Some of us just do it so it appears we’re part of the tall grass, part of the darkness. Please don’t open your mouth and announce me, though? After cleaning up the mess that kind of situation leaves behind, I might elect, finally, to visit your enclosure after-hours. And those accursed monkeys’ as well. I would take no pleasure from it, mind, but, in that I would be, in a sense, preserving later pleasure . . . I trust we understand each other, imaginary bird? No, not you. Here, let me help you out of that skin. It’s been a long day, I know. Only a little bit longer now, though. Trust me, this will only hurt a little. Well, at least until it hurts a lot.
PS. If you are a horror author I have read, reviewed or worked with before, please email me at therealmotherhorror@gmail.com if you are interested in being featured
I could not love this more.
Love SGJ, grabbed the book from the link immediately.