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Writing ContestOctober 31, 2013

Furniture World

Winner of our Hallowe’en microfiction contest

By Mark Rosenblum

First night as Furniture World night watchman was my last.  Kid at the temp agency said place was haunted.  Made rounds between tables decorated with bowls of plastic fruit, bedrooms with replica phones and living rooms with cardboard televisions, place felt less haunted house, more movie set.  Warehouse dates to the 1930’s.  Like most buildings surrounding the riverfront it’s been renovated.  Once dilapidated slaughterhouse now high end furniture store.   Story goes female employee killed in freak accident involving meat hook.  Hot head, alcoholic husband’s not happy with token insurance money.  One night after closing; he breaks in, strangles owner and then ends it all with an inebriated swim in the river.  Call comes at midnight.  I trailed the ringing into the bedroom section.  Didn’t realize the phone was a reproduction until I picked it up.  Voice in the receiver was faint, woman said, “Run”.  I almost made it.

 

Mark Rosenblum — a New York native who now lives in Southern California — misses the taste of real pizza and good deli food.  His work appears in Tiferet Journal, Boston Literary Magazine, Sleet Magazine, Monkeybicycle, Vine Leaves, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Penduline, Pure Slush, Emerge Literary Journal and upcoming in Raleigh Review. 

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

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