Contributor: Shihab Noor and Dekript Pakpoom-Shihai - - This last golden day, of this golden week, begun like gold. Not quite shimmering exactly, not gold dust to be sure, but the homogenous dulled gold that marks the mornings of my life. Was it this morning, I asked myself? The answer repeated itself a million times over in my hollowed-out skull. Not yet. My feet touched the floor, and I placed my hands on my knees tentatively. They still ached from the previous days labor. A golden, fruitful labor it was. The gold coins I left on the dresser still shone with their hard-day’s satisfaction. Of what more could I ask? The day’s golden moon lights streets and falls golden in through windows upon hands touched with gold rings, embossed with golden rubies. It’s time for work! Excitedly I snatch my golden jumpsuit out of the dresser drawer...

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Author: Shihab Noor and Dekript Pakpoom-Shihai

Contributor: Harry Noussias - - Every man has his destiny. He suddenly awoke with that uneasy feeling. This was quite unusual for the coldhearted, uncaring, ruthless, businessman. No sense in trying to go back to sleep. Something just wasn’t right. Fluffing the pillow or turning over on his other side wasn’t going to help. The uneasiness was just too overpowering. Maybe a walk before going to the office would help. On a bridge not far away stood another man staring at the murky water below. He too had an uneasy feeling. To jump or not to jump, that was the question. As the businessman exited his home he could see in the very far off distance, in that other side of town, the dark cloud which was belching out of the smokestacks of his factory. Normally it would have been a joyous sight for him. Production meant money, lots...

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Author: Harry Noussias

Contributor: Jon Moray - - Rusty “The Crusher” Crusheda stood outside the batter’s box, took a few practice swings while eyeballing the pitcher on the mound for the Kansas City Royals. The pitcher, Lefty Nolan, the ace of the staff and the reigning Cy Young award winner peered back at Rusty, with eyes beckoning him into the batter’s box. He was no ordinary pitcher and Rusty was no ordinary hitter. And this showdown was no ordinary showdown. It was the last game of the season and Rusty was a homerun away from breaking the single season record. The stadium was overflowing with fans, hoping to witness an historic night. Lefty had something to gain from this game as well. He was going for the league’s lead in wins, trying to notch number 25 under his belt and all but guaranteeing a second consecutive CY Young award. A reporter asked him...

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Author: Jon Moray

Contributor: Kristen Keckler - - Pam and Jerry arrived at the Eden pool, the adults-only section of the resort, expecting to see flesh—the website had alluded to “European-style bathing.” So when they’d found everyone in swimsuits, Pam was relieved. Jerry pretended to be disappointed but he wasn’t. He just wanted to be, didn’t want to worry about anything, nothing, not even tits. “Isn’t this classy?” Pam said as they claimed two in the line of chaise lounges. She’d never seen an infinity pool—the pool’s tiles shone like opals, the water flowing over into a tile-lined moat. But instead of lining up with the ocean, the edge only lined up with the fence. Green hammocks hung from poles among raised queen-size mattresses and pruned palms with bark like the skin of pineapples. A clutch of yuppies from Jersey sat on the ledge, debating St....

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Author: Kristen Keckler

Contributor: Ray Daley - - Some intact statues of The Last Mighty One still existed in the smaller outer provinces. A few desperate people still left their votive offerings at the various altars in the vain hope that life would return to them one day. That was the function of The Last Mighty One. To bring life to the lifeless. To restore energy to the exhausted. Power to the powerless. No-one truly understood the nature of his form. Why wasn't he Human, like his devotees? Obviously at some point in time people had known why he had taken that particular form. The Great Rabbit. Worship at his feet, prostrate, genuflect. The Mighty Duracell. Hear our prayers. Bring the power back, light the darkness. Save us from ourselves. - - - Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 yrs in the RAF as a clerk...

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Author: Ray Daley

Contributor: Sean Crose - - In truth you prefer the dry harvest to its more colorful counterpart. Who wants to work with water outdoors in November? Besides, the dry harvest allows you to mostly work alone. It's just you, nature, the gas-powered picker, and the cranberries. Naturally such solitary manual labor causes one's mind to wander. You tend to think of two things as you work your way across the rows of hard earth: the past and your ambitions. In a distinct way you see them both as being connected, since you never actually fulfilled the promises you made to yourself back in the day. You wonder what some of your peers would say if they saw you now, toiling in soiled jeans at six-thirty in the morning. Would they be embarrassed or would they simply turn to one another with “I told you so” looks? Of course you'd tell them that you...

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Author: Sean Crose

Contributor: Christopher Grey - - The heat seemed worst after dusk, as if the layers of summer piled on top of each other under a thick, humid, blanket. That is why he sat on the roof of his building, enjoying a cigarette and flipping through a magazine. The last of his beer was consumed half an hour ago and so he was thirsty, drowsy and fighting a headache. Still, it was cooler up there. He heard sirens below and rose to look out over the street, but stopped. There was lavender in the air and so he knew she was there. "The girl I can't forget," he said without turning. She didn't respond. "Do you remember our song?" His mind fluttered away for a moment, recalling their time in Madrid. Candlelight hovering above the plaza. Red wine. The scent of lavender. "The melody only," he lied. He felt her breath behind him and gentle...

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Author: Christopher Grey

Contributor: Ray Daley - - I'm sitting there alone on a park bench with nothing but the fading remnants of my thoughts and dreams for company when the bomb finally goes off. There are children who are still playing on the swings, people are walking their dogs too. A little way down the path a couple are walking, holding hands, probably on their first date. On the pond, ducks and swans are competing for space with the model boat enthusiasts. Underneath the shady Oak trees a family is bonding over a picnic lunch. And this is the way the world ends. No countdown timer, no ticking clock, nothing visible to defuse. It's the ultimate weapon. You can't disarm what you can't see. When it happens it's the biggest bang since the first one. *** And yet all around me they carry on with their lives as though nothing has changed for them,...

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Author: Ray Daley

Contributor: Portia Dawn - - It has happened again. The species of Earth has once again come to its turning point. Humans, animals, and plants. They all think they have what it takes to survive. But nobody can escape the inevitable. All things must come to an end. But how have things survived so long? Because of women like us. The Mothers of Nature. There used to be hundreds of us. Each time humanity needed us, one would step up to save them. In order for them to live, one of us must die. I am the last one of many. Humanity has been given too many chances. I'm not going to fie for them. I'm not afraid of death. They just keep making mistakes they can't fix. Polluting water, waging wars, and making even more decisions that could kill them all. After this last one, who knows if they'll survive without my help. So I have only a little...

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Author: Portia Dawn

Contributor: Marian Brooks - - Every time Clara wears her black leather jacket she thinks of Joe Grimaldi. He purchased this jacket for her fifteen years ago. It’s missing a button now but otherwise, still wears well. Clara graduated from an Ivy League university with a degree in English Literature. She loved ballroom dancing. She was quite tall, not really glamorous but classy and fashionable. She twisted her blonde hair neatly into a bun at the nape of her neck. Joe liked to kiss her there. It tingled for a long while afterward. Clara categorized Joe as her first and only “true grit” boyfriend after the divorce. She was tired of academics and thought she might be missing something by limiting her mate selection to college graduates. Joe never finished high school, lived with his sister and sometimes drove a green taxi with several...

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Author: Marian Brooks

Contributor: Ray Daley - - A man comes to your house, he is wearing a grey suit. He pulls at his tie nervously as he speaks to your mother. She asks his name, "William Gibson" he replies. You later discover that he calls himself Twelve Bears, he is of the Navaho Nation. It is not a traditional name, he has not been named in the traditional First Nation way. He was not named for the first thing his mother saw after giving birth to him. He jokingly says "Otherwise my name would be Hospital Ceiling." There are many other possible reasons why he calls himself this name. He may have seen twelve bears, he may have killed twelve bears. He may have even owned twelve bears at some point in his life. You will later discover that none of these reasons are the correct one. "My mother was a good woman" he tells your mother. He insists on speaking...

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Author: Ray Daley

Contributor: Matthew H Emma - - Over the last two years, Tim Emmer had seen 80 short stories and two novels in printed works that sold seven million copies. Success brought him critical notoriety, but also social duties. Eloise Branberry, Tim’s publisher and CEO of Year of the Tiger Books expected him to attend various Upper East Side social events. Eloise somehow convinced Tim to host a soiree celebrating the signing of author Michael Stevens inside his Manhattan apartment. The gong show took place September 14, 2012. Beginning at seven o’clock, Branberry and her cronies descended. One complained about having to “rough it” by driving her Porsche because the Bentley was being serviced. Another bitched the Brie cheese was too strong for his palette. He shook hands, pretended to be grateful for their half-assed praise and tried to smile...

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Author: Matthew H Emma

Contributor: Joshua Dobson - - "What do you do?" the bar slut asked in an absurdly affected doll voice. The question used to make me wince and gnash my teeth, that dismal afternoon in the dingy dive bar it made me giggle dementedly. The sound of my desiccated cackle disturbed even my jaded self, the bar slut was so stunned she stopped prosti-jecting, the flawless porcelain of her carefully controlled facade cracked for the briefest of seconds and she regarded me with utter revulsion in her dead doll eyes. She caught herself slipping and jerked immediately back into "sell" mode, twinkling her dead doll eyes twice as hard. "I am a waiter," I said hollowly. "Oh really, that's kewl. Where at?" she asked, back on script, but noticeably creeped out by me. "Near here . . . the big black glass domes down by the highway." "I didn't...

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Author: Joshua Dobson

Contributor: David Elliott - - ‘One year.’ He’d clicked on the link, entering the website for the first time in his life. ‘One year, and it’s come to this.’ Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days ago, Brian had come up with a plan. He’d decided to spend the rest of his life online; no more human interaction, no more disastrous relationships, no more work, no more physical activities. Brian was going to become a fully-fledged virtual person, a cyber-hermit, and how wonderful it might have been, if anything about his plan, his scheme, his anxiety-avoiding blueprint for a better way of life, had actually worked.      And maybe it could have worked, if circumstances had been different; if he hadn’t accidentally stumbled upon lonelysouls.com.      Brian wasn’t a lonely soul, of course. The idea was completely...

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Author: David Elliott

Contributor: Marian Brooks - - Joyce watched her mother disappear, slowly. Now she’s doing the same thing. She is certain of it. When she walks down the street, no one even notices her or nods Sometimes people bump into her without so much as an “excuse me.” At one time her appearance was dramatic. Joyce loved exotic hats, expensive shoes and colorful, tailored clothing, always in good taste. Now she feels invisible. Men stare right through her, eyes like lasers, scanning the field for young, healthy women. Her reproductive equipment is thirty years past providing a viable home for anyone. When she looks in the mirror, she sees someone who “cannot possibly” be her. She sees a woman with jowls and frown lines. Joyce notices age spots and gray hair and wrinkles at the corners of her blue eyes. Her skin is dry; it flakes and floats...

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Author: Marian Brooks

Contributor: Rohini Gupta - - He is late at the supermarket and almost all the fruit is gone. Many trays are empty, leaving only out-of-season mangoes and a few sad pears. At the end are apples: the small, orange ones, and the green, imported ones. In the last tray he finds what he seeks. On the dark red paper are six golden apples, round, shiny and polished, reflecting the ceiling lights. A big woman is bearing down on them, followed by a small boy. She is heading for the last tray, but he is ahead of her and scoops them quickly up. “Surely you don’t have to take them all,” she says. “They are mine,” he snaps at her so fiercely that she steps back. She looks at his face and leaves hurriedly, dragging the child by the arm. Other people turn to look at him, but he ignores them all and makes off down the aisle with his prize. He will...

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Author: Rohini Gupta

Contributor: Michael Plesset - - He lay in the hospital bed, not in pain, but knowing that the time he had left was short. “What can we say with our last breath,” he thought, “when we have to say it all, when it really matters what we say. We can let go and drown in sadness and fear and let out a scream of anguish. That would give everybody a scare they’d always remember, but that’s not enough. Or we can say things that we should have said to people before. Or we could talk about the big things that happened over the years.” Then a nurse came in, the one with the pretty face and great body. He felt his heart beat stronger, he could always see his pulse rate and blood pressure go up on the monitor when she was in the room. He watched her move around, straightening things and checking the IV bottle with its tube leading into his arm....

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Author: Michael Plesset

Contributor: MARK SLADE - - I was lying face down on the beach tasting the sand mixed with salt water in my mouth from the ocean's waves repeatedly smashing me in the face. I opened my eyes to a blurred spiraling sun in the damning sky, sending shock waves to my brain. When my eyes finally focused correctly, I saw Alban lying beside me, dead. A puddle of crimson forming around a black hollow chasm that was once where his left eye had been. His otherwise smooth golden skin on his face had not a scar nor a blemish. He had a dark, ludicrous smile on his face. I started to rise and discovered the WW1 Colt .45 revolver firmly in my hand. I jumped up, dropping the gun. “No!” I screamed. I backed away, cursing at everything and everyone. It was happening again. This time, it was my turn. And I can't understand why God and the universe...

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Author: Mark Slade

Contributor: Chelsea Resnick - - We walk through the drip-drip gloom of Pike’s Market, Lena in an electric-purple windbreaker and Marc in a gray wool coat. We’ve never matched in outward appearances, Marc so handsomely tailored, and Lena so quirkily adorned in handmade creations, but we move in step, trusting in the silent communication we’ve always shared. We move past rows of watermelons, carrots, and kumquats. Somewhere off to our right is the Sound, a salty sheet of steel that we can’t see around the frozen stacks of halibut at a fish stall. Marc speaks openly first. “I thought you were gone for good. I assumed you were married by now. Probably selling your stuff at craft fairs if you weren’t pinned down with kids or something.” To fill the uncomfortable pause, we each take a haricot from a vendor, a stocky man in overalls and...

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Author: Chelsea Resnick

Contributor: David Macpherson - - My father was beside himself over the dirt bikes. A bunch of the neighborhood teenagers had dirt bikes and they rode through our subdivision late at night, every night. Because our house was on the corner of Hemlock Lane and Elm Street, they cut through our lawn, tearing up the grass every time. His first course of action was talking to the dirt biker’s parents. Did he really think that was going to help? It seemed that the ruts in the lawn got deeper. Next, my father reasoned that he should make the lawn less appealing to the dirt bikers. He bought a large landscaping rock and placed it in the middle of the lawn, the place that the bikes always appeared to go through. In the morning, we woke to see that this large half ton rock was rolled up right next to the house. Like a giant Easter egg roll,...

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Author: David Macpherson

Contributor: Brent Rankin - -     Our baby was born a…ah…I don’t know how to say this.  Even now, I shutter when I think about it.  When delivered, our baby was…a frog.  A tadpole, actually, with the little green arms and legs just forming, and a tail to match.  Huge bulbous eyes, both with convex lens like swimming goggles, filled with a clear fluid.  Water, I think.  A toad.  When slapped on its bottom (where ever that was), it didn’t cry.  It just went “ribit…ribit…” and licked its long slanted forehead with its elongated tongue.     I realized it was time to have a talk with the wife, but she was sedated.  So I waited in the room where fathers’ wait.  How am I going to explain this to the family?  Who is even going to believe...

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Author: Brent Rankin

Contributor: Jerry Guarino - -     Times change and we change with them.  Television, movies, clothing, food; you could probably name your own list.  Technology has probably been the most significant catalyst of change.  Think about the cell phone, digital camera and the Internet.  Joey was one of those people who resisted change, someone still looking for phone booths and mailboxes in 2013.     “I’d like a roll of stamps please,” said Joey.     “Sorry, we don’t sell stamps anymore” replied the pretty teenager.     “But it’s Sunday.  The post office is closed.”     “You can always email,” said the grocery store clerk.     “I don’t have a computer,” said Joey.  The girl just shrugged a little, not knowing what...

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Author: Jerry Guarino

Contributor: Jeremy Levine - - Jeb was puttering along, sitting atop his tractor, its rattling vibrations shaking his gritted teeth. He turned his head skyward, observing a hawk glide across the cloudless sky in effortless circles. While his gaze was distracted, there was a crashing and a clunking, a rumbling under his vehicle. “Tarnation!” Jeb tuned off the tractor and jumped down from it, stumbling as he landed on the soft earth. He spotted a flash of red on the brown dirt by the front tire. He rushed forward and knelt down. Sheriff was there, crushed under the wheel, stone dead. “Ma! I need you!” Jeb pivoted in his squat, his eye on his home. After a few seconds, Jebʼs wife, Henrietta, was out in the field, her apron billowing in the dusty wind. “Whatcha need, honey?” “The dog, Ma, the dog!” Jeb said, a shaking finger pointing...

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Author: Jeremy Levine