Bernardo Villela Archives - Black Hare Press

The Flamboyance of Flamingoes

August 5, 2022/by S. Jade Path

by Bernardo Villela

Flamingoes flew after me.

My friends and I came here for Pride. Now they’ve died.

I was scream-queening. A nun fleeing the convent hoisted me onto her back. Grown man becomes baby.

Splashing into the sea, archeologists followed firing at will but missed. The flying pink nightmares wouldn’t be deterred.

Sister carried a violin bow. She swung at them.

The flamingoes cut me with their toenails and kicked me off the nun’s back.

My blood reddening the water, I knew the flamboyance of flamingoes would become pinker and more aggressive. With my dying thoughts I prayed for their future victims.

Bernardo Villela

Bernardo Villela has short fiction included in periodicals such as Coffin Bell Journal, The Dark Corner Zine, Sparked Literary Magazine and forthcoming from Eerie River Press. He’s had stories included in anthologies such as From the Yonder II, Queer as Hell, and Disturbed. He has had poetry published by The Ekphrastic Review, Zoetic Press, and Bluepepper among others. Website: www.miller-villela.com

Eldritch & Ether

February 20, 2022/by Black Hare Press

Beautiful, heartfelt poetry from international poets

Sleep Under the Stars

March 23, 2021/by Black Hare Press

by Bernardo Villela

It was a marvellous night to sleep under the stars.

Soon, I awoke. The moonlight seemed wrong somehow. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I saw massive branches asway. Not branches but antennae, leading to a gargantuan ovoid shadow blotting out the moon. I couldn’t be seeing what I thought I was seeing, could I? Moonlit mandibles confirmed my fears: It was a cockroach towering above the centuries-old oak I’d camped under.

I ran. The light changed. Glancing skyward, I saw an intrusion of flying cockroaches swooping down. I tripped, pain rose, I’d lost my foot. Maimed, they started feasting.

Bernardo Villela

Bernardo Villela has published a novella The Isle of Helyr, and three short story collections, The Bloodmaster Trilogy and Teenage Death Songs, Vols. 1 & 2; and has short fiction included in Coffin Bell Journal, The Dark Corner Zine, 101 Proof Horror, A Monster Told Me Bedtime Stories, Page & Spine and forthcoming in 42 Stories Anthology, Constraint 280 and Rivet. You can read more about these and various other pursuits at www.miller-villela.com.

The Rift

January 30, 2021/by Anny Saludar

by Bernardo Villela

All aboard were awestruck. Creating the dimensional rift was simple, but from it came a spacecraft identical to ours.

The mission commander’s words echoed in my mind: Conducting geopolitical and scientific experiments over there shields us from consequence.

“Full speed ahead!” I said.

Our comms buzzed.

“This is the Nautilus.” From our twin ship I hear my voice speaking. It was us from another dimension.

“Thanks, our tech failed.”

My heart rate tripled. We looked at one another.

“Houston!”

“Remember your objective.”

We proceeded. The rift closed behind us sealing our doppelgänger’s fate. We were expendable, all versions of us.

Bernardo Villela

Bernardo Villela has published a novella The Isle of Helyr and three short story collections The Bloodmaster Trilogy and Teenage Death Songs Vols. 1 & 2, and has short fiction included in Coffin Bell Journal, The Dark Corner Zine, 101 Proof Horror, A Monster Told Me Bedtime Stories, Page & Spine, and forthcoming in 42 Stories Anthology, Constraint 280, and Rivet. You can read more about these and various other pursuits at www.miller-villela.com.

Visceral

December 8, 2020/by Anny Saludar

by Bernardo Villela

Malcolm awoke confused. Eyes stung from something acidic.

In pitch blackness he groped for his phone. Flashlight on.

A corrugated ceiling. No, a tunnel.

He touched the floor. Not rocky, covered in dark sludge and liquid. A muscular firmness and tissular feel. Fingerlike protuberances brushed against his hand. A noxious breeze blew.

Gaseous.

Sludge slid, knocked him about. Bumping his head into what felt like mucus, he recalled: a face fourfold his size, a gaping maw, being swallowed.

The giant thought he killed me.

Malcolm gnawed on its intestinal wall. His oxygen limited, he ate in hopes of freeing himself.

Bernardo Villela

Bernardo Villela has published the novella, The Isle of Helyr, and three short story collections, The Bloodmaster Trilogy and Teenage Death Songs Volumes 1 & 2, and has short fiction included in Coffin Bell Journal, The Dark Corner Zine, 101 Proof Horror, A Monster Told Me Bedtime Stories, Page & Spine, and forthcoming in 42 Stories Anthology, Constraint 280, and Rivet. You can read more about these and various other pursuits at www.miller-villela.com.

Tag Archive for: Bernardo Villela

by Bernardo Villela

Flamingoes flew after me.

My friends and I came here for Pride. Now they’ve died.

I was scream-queening. A nun fleeing the convent hoisted me onto her back. Grown man becomes baby.

Splashing into the sea, archeologists followed firing at will but missed. The flying pink nightmares wouldn’t be deterred.

Sister carried a violin bow. She swung at them.

The flamingoes cut me with their toenails and kicked me off the nun’s back.

My blood reddening the water, I knew the flamboyance of flamingoes would become pinker and more aggressive. With my dying thoughts I prayed for their future victims.

Bernardo Villela

by Bernardo Villela

It was a marvellous night to sleep under the stars.

I ran. The light changed. Glancing skyward, I saw an intrusion of flying cockroaches swooping down. I tripped, pain rose, I’d lost my foot. Maimed, they started feasting.

by Bernardo Villela

All aboard were awestruck. Creating the dimensional rift was simple, but from it came a spacecraft identical to ours.

The mission commander’s words echoed in my mind: Conducting geopolitical and scientific experiments over there shields us from consequence.

“Full speed ahead!” I said.

Our comms buzzed.

“This is the Nautilus.” From our twin ship I hear my voice speaking. It was us from another dimension.

“Thanks, our tech failed.”

My heart rate tripled. We looked at one another.

“Houston!”

“Remember your objective.”

We proceeded. The rift closed behind us sealing our doppelgänger’s fate. We were expendable, all versions of us.

by Bernardo Villela

Malcolm awoke confused. Eyes stung from something acidic.

In pitch blackness he groped for his phone. Flashlight on.

A corrugated ceiling. No, a tunnel.

He touched the floor. Not rocky, covered in dark sludge and liquid. A muscular firmness and tissular feel. Fingerlike protuberances brushed against his hand. A noxious breeze blew.

Gaseous.

Sludge slid, knocked him about. Bumping his head into what felt like mucus, he recalled: a face fourfold his size, a gaping maw, being swallowed.

The giant thought he killed me.

Malcolm gnawed on its intestinal wall. His oxygen limited, he ate in hopes of freeing himself.