Contributor: E.K. Smith

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“So, I’ve called you in here today to let you know that… well, there’s really no easy way to say this, so I guess I’ll just say it--- we’re going to have to let you go. I wish we had another option, but we don’t.”

Clinton sat across from his boss of ten years in a stuffy, cramped office on the twelfth floor of a high rise built in the 1970s. As soon as he heard the voice stop emanating from his boss’s gingivitis-ridden mouth, he closed his eyes to allow each word to sink in--- one by one--- into the utter chaos that constituted his fatigued, painfully mediocre brain. Just as he was starting to process the meaning behind the string of words, a brisk banging sound shoved its way into his ears. It came from behind him.

A morbidly obese, blonde man in a skin-tight button up shirt turned the doorknob and stuffed himself into the tiny room. “Uhh… Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Jonsen, but I just wanted to know if you and your staff might be interested in joining this ‘water club’ I just started down on the eleventh floor.” He gasped for air and continued without any concern for the fact that Mr. Jonsen was staring at him as if he were an old whore standing in the middle of the street wearing nothing but Christmas lights and Clinton’s eyes were still firmly shut. “Basically, the way it works is that each person contributes $1 per month and then we get water delivered for one of those big dispensers that everyone can share.”

Clinton opened his eyes when he heard the word “share,” precisely on time to see a large, grey pigeon fly into the window above Mr. Jonsen’s head.

“What in God’s name…” Jonsen started, but his voice trailed off as he saw Clinton rise abruptly from his seat. For an awkward twenty-three seconds, Clinton stared at a $55 fountain pen that was collecting dust on Jonsen’s desk. Then he pushed his way past the doughy mounds of the water club guy’s belly and ran down the hallway. He flung the stairwell door open and bounded down twelve flights of stairs at his top speed, almost tripping a couple times. As soon as he was outside the building, he looked up, fighting the urge to close his eyes against the stinging sun. It was easy to assess where the window was. As he walked anxiously toward the bird that was laying on the blazing hot concrete, he saw its ratty wing twitch slightly. A wave of pure joy flushed over him. He knelt slowly, scooping up the bird in both palms and lifting it to his face. With his cheeks starting to burn in the heat, he whispered gently, “It’s just you and me.”


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E.K. Smith's work has appeared in Misfit's Miscellany. She is a new writer.

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Author: E.K. Smith

Contributor: Michael A. Withell

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I'm tired and I can't remember why they didn't bring me my tablets. I have my tablets every morning at six, it's strange that no-one brought them to me. The lady walks over to my bed, touches me on the face.

Not too hard.

And she gives the small cup to my tired hand. They always taste like the cold; bitter and metallic like the robot that they intend to turn me into. I wonder if a robot can feel the cold?

Cold; it's cold in here. The Sun seems to be on the other side of the corridor and it's dark. I can even begin to see my breath in front of my eyes, dancing in the remnants of the morning light.

You shouldn't smoke in here, they'd say to me; but I'm not smoking.

It's the cold, I'd say, A picture painted by my very lungs.

The door in front of me is open and my breath quickens in apprehension of the threshold. I wonder why they don't lock it? I thought they always locked it? Something faceless is on the small television screen, I can't make out what it is. All I see is the flowers sitting on the desk, relaxing in the glare of the morning Sun.

They look comfortable.

The man on the desk smiles past me, not making contact with my dancing eyes. I wonder if he knows why the woman didn't bring me my pills? But I can't ask him, I don't want him to look inside my head.

The front door lets me walk through it. I thank it for its courtesy and let it close and rest; I wonder if it ever gets tired? I can't imagine how a life like that can be much fun.

Open, close, open, close, open, close.

It's closed now and I can smell the flowers, they look pretty in their various states and positions. I can see the Sun now, bright and proud on its large pedestal; even when I close my eyes I can feel it touching my face.

Not too hard.

And she gives the small cup to my tired hand. They always taste like the cold; bitter and metallic like the robot that they intend to turn me into. I wonder if a robot can feel the cold?

I am not cold now, the Sun and flowers make sure of that. There are other people walking around the flowers, I don't recognise them. They are wearing green and appear to be cutting the heads of the flowers. Why are they hurting the flowers?

I lurch, move to say something, but they can't see me; I don't want them to see me.

The main gate is closed but the adjacent tunnels through the wall aren't, they are open to the elements and open to travel. I can't see anybody near the tunnel, only standing on top of the wall with their metallic grins and fingers. The light appears to be bouncing off their hands, like a tracer hurtling out of the barrel of a gun. They can't see me from there, their eyes don't stretch that far from their head.

The tunnel is cold, sheltered; I can feel the droplets taking residence on my cheeks. My cheeks must be warmer than where they usually sleep, under the tunnel; under the tunnel under the wall. I wonder why they didn't bring me my tablets?

I can hear an alarm, I wonder who got out? I hope they catch them, you're not allowed to escape.


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Michael A. Withell is a British law graduate from Hull, England. He mostly writes science-fiction, and has recently had short stories published in 'Mossyhearth Magazine' and 'Farther Stars Than These'.

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Author: Michael A. Withell

Contributor: Janet Yung

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The old, light blue, faded mini-van moved slowly down the street, pausing for a moment in front of the house. Emily wouldn’t have noticed except she was in the yard adjusting the sprinkler set up to water the newly laid sod.

“Twice a day, one hour each for two weeks till it takes,” the landscaper who’d installed it the previous week advised. Emily stuck to the regimen in spite of the slightly water logged appearance it was taking on. “It’s doing okay,” the landscaper said in response to Emily’s frantic call regarding it’s condition.

Stooped by the faucet behind the shrubs, she glanced up as the van crept by. The water sprayed droplets on the driver’s side with the sign advertising yard clean ups specializing in scooping poop.

It could’ve been any old van, similar to the ones that trolled the alleys for junk. Emily would’ve thought that was the case or, she’d imagined the whole thing, except for the sign.

She crouched lower and hoped she hadn’t been spotted. The van moved on when a woman in a S.U.V. suddenly appeared from nowhere and honked her horn.

Emily anxiously waited and tried to focus on the sprinkler’s range as she contemplated the possibility the van had turned left at the end of the street to circle the block and make another pass by. When no vehicles materialized, she sprinted along the lawn as the spray moved away from her.

Inside the security of the house, she pressed her back against the door. What would she do? If she’d been at work, she wouldn’t have seen the van. Her mind raced at the prospect it wasn’t the first time it had cruised by and, suddenly, she realized how vulnerable she was.

She set the timer on the kitchen stove for an hour and stood in the familiar space. Emily remembered the sense of relief when the driver and van had disappeared from her life for what she hoped would be forever. Looking back, the events that led up to the departure were still fresh in her memory.

As the minutes ticked by, she alternated between eating cookies, digging through the freezer for a lost pint of ice cream and peeking through the front window, convinced the van would be waiting at the curb, relieved when it wasn‘t.

The longer she waited, the more she was able to convince herself the incident had been nothing more than the by-product of her over active imagination and erstwhile anxieties. She jumped at the sound of the buzzer going off and took one last look before going outside. The street remained empty and quiet.

It didn’t seem possible after all this time he had returned, but as she bent over to retrieve the sprinkler and wind up the hose, she caught a flash of light blue and knew her fears were not ungrounded and couldn’t be ignored.


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Janet Yung lives and writes in St. Louis, MO. Short fiction has appeared in several on-line publications. Most recently “Epiphany Magazine On-Line“ and “The Feathered Flounder”.

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Author: Janet Yung

Contributor: George Sparling

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Two ugly lizards climb my wall to eat sow bugs, flies, and cockroaches. I can direct these glaucous reptiles back into their home, a terrarium, with my pineal gland. I eat human placenta whenever I can to boost my immune system. Red peppers, beets, turnips, dandelion leaves, and fetus-food I mix in a cast iron skillet cooked on a wood-burning stove. My teeth, serrated from too much port wine and bad horse while living in Oakland, yet my words are fluent, so others tell me, thoughts spilled loose from my lips, doves escaping their cage.

It was in the hole in prison that I understood I was a shaman, one who knows. The hole was midnight black, with a concrete floor, a small opening to piss and shit, and I was always naked. Where else would you expect to find a man convicted of second-degree murder? Unceremoniously, without mysticism, spirits tore me apart to count my bones. For countless hours I slept in a half-dream as they meticulously counted all my bones. I had that extra bone. Otherwise, the spirits would’ve killed me.

My body, for a while, was a single diamond, quartz crystals filling my intestines, making me adamantine. When the guard delivered slop to me, and said, “Here’s your food, beast,” I knew I had changed, and I was human.

A saddle-billed stork and three cassowary birds lit up the darkness. The stork had a red beak that burned and suffused the hole with light, while the cassowary birds’ necks, glowing blue, red and blue sheen kept me alive in the pit. I saw the earth held up by a giant mammoth and growing from it was the Navel of the World from which the Cosmic Tree grew. I sang like a bull, and talked to yellow lemurs and dark bison. When they finally released me, I told the guards that I lived in the Tree and played on a drum made out of antelope skin. The men howled derisively, and taser-fired electric currents into me but I clung to that Tree and they looked startled because I hadn’t fallen. They stopped the torture.

After I served my sentence, I went back to my cabin in the wilderness where I wore an antler crown on my head, two stitched bear legs wrapped round my waist. I painted deer’s blood on a shirt: frogs, lizards, snakes, and birds, all crimson, life jittered on my torso. My misshapen past I cast aside, unsheathing my criminal skin. The tranquility of the creek danced through my hands, a counterpoise to the violence calcified to my bones as if to dark impermeable granite.

Dressed in street clothes, the next day I went to a bar to shoot some pool. Within ten minutes, a guy slashed me with a long black knife. “Just a quarter-inch more and you would’ve slashed my jugular,” I said to the idiot, my eyes drowning in hate, But after I got stitched up, my eyes reverted to what they were when the tasers struck me: indomitable. Don’t doubt me, you weren’t buried alive in my soul. Home, I laughed, a delirious, ludicrous roar banged against the walls. The knife reminded me of a silver salmon flashing in a ripple of water.

Now, a beard covers the scar like tough, recalcitrant black moss: unafraid eyes, my fierce beauty I stare at in the reflection of a chipped, cracked mirror. But, that wild thing plays in my being’s jazz, its storm and peace, which makes my life a dream of dance, of blood, love, death. Even murder.


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Author: George Sparling

Contributor: Gary Clifton

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The ear-splitting music in the kitchen distracted the undercover cop. As Pablo stepped away to get the dope, the huge dog materialized, intent on a bite of Narc crotch.

Pablo returned. "Damn Bozo, sleeping on the job again." Stoned, he didn't notice the dent in the skillet on the stovetop.


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Gary Clifton, forty years a cop, published a novel in national paperback and has published or has pending articles in several online magazine sites

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: Lewis Gesner

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Dad told me not to talk with other children, or even to the teachers but to answer questions as short as I could. He told me, there is nothing for me to gain from them. Go to school and come home. I always tried to do as he told. I don’t go out to recess and I sit alone at lunch. The others are mostly boring to me, and I am not good at playing and running and jumping and other physical things. But I can move a pencil good. I mean, draw pictures. Dad doesn’t even know about that.

I draw alot, when I don’t go out to recess. Actually, I feel a little lonely. I want to talk sometimes, but I don’t. I want to talk about pictures. I don’t like the school. So, when I draw, I am drawing the things I like to be around, and things that I remember from home, and I don’t feel so lonely. My desk top has a couple of ruts in it, but I line up my drawing so, if I am drawing a cut, it lines up to the rut in the desk, and the desk kind of helps me draw the cut. I have a stack of paper in my desk, of all the drawings I made from the first day of school. Someday I think, maybe I will put them on a wall in a fancy place.

Today is PTA day they call it. The parents can come in and watch us, what the teachers do with us, and like that. All these ladies, most look at us and put on some kind of smile. But I have seen the smile before, it is fake. Women that smile cannot be trusted, dad said. Mom used to smile. I think of her now, drawing. Maybe I will… her the lady comes, the one who has been watching me, inside, while other children are outside playing. I already know her question.

“Why aren’t you outside with the other children, playing?” she asks me, then, she smiles, but I hear the twist in her question. It is like a hook.

“I don’t feel good today,” I say. “So I stay inside and draw pictures.”

“Well, there's nothing wrong with drawing I guess…” she seems a little critical to me. “So, you are a little artist!” Again, the smile. I think she has dentures.

Honest, I am a little bit happy. Yes, I feel like I am an artist. “I draw alot!” I say. “But I just started this one.” There was just the first line crossing sharply over the page.

“Well I’m sure it will be a lovely drawing. What will it be of?”

I feel my face crack a smile, though I try to stop it. “My Mom.” I say.

“Well, isn’t that sweet,” she says. “I wish I could see a finished drawing of her.”

I am hooked. “I have alot of drawings in my desk!” I flip the top open and take out a stack almost as thick as the paper is wide. “Here!” I have an audience!

She holds them low, so I can see them with her, and I see her face change from the smile to maybe how she really is inside. Her hands begin to shake a little bit holding the first drawing. She places it down on the desk in front of us.

“Oh, that’s not my mom,” I say. “That’s grandma.” The woman’s mouth opened a little like she wanted to speak, but nothing came out. “And that’s the mice, they made a nest where her stomach used to be.” I had spent alot of time on that drawing, even used some crayon for colors. Grandma’s skin was brown now, and she had no eyes left. The bones stuck through here and there, and her dress was eaten away where the mice lived now. After awhile it seems the woman is frozen, so I prompt her. “The next ones is my mom and my dad.” She turns over the next page in the stack, which is upside down. I think I hear her make a little sound. But it is a choked sound. I’ve heard that one before.

I wait for her to talk, to be polite. But she says nothing, so I talk instead. “That drawing in your hand, that’s Dad, he’s leaning over. That’s our bathtub. That’s my Mom’s neck sticking up. And that’s her head, sitting in the pan on the floor beside my Dad’s foot.” The woman starts to rush through my drawings. I feel like I should talk very fast, to tell her all of what see’s looking at. “There’s Dad after he comed home with a new chain saw. That’s him kneeling on the floor, and that’s Mom, on the plastic sheets … those are the suit cases he bought used. Some of Mom’s inside…”

She drops my drawing suddenly on the desk and runs out of the room. I feel annoyed. She may have easily dropped my drawings on the floor. Dad was right about women I think. I will just continue now. Recess is almost over. Hmm, here come some policemen. Maybe they will be nicer than her. Oh, there she is again, and the teacher too. Well, I actually like the attention. If they come over here, maybe I can show them what I have in my pocket.


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Lewis Gesner is a writer and artist living in Taiwan. He publishes and exhibits internationally, and is a member of Mobius artist group, out of Boston, MA, USA. He has several books of experimental writing available from White Sky Books.

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Author: Lewis Gesner

Contributor: John Laneri

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Sheriff Matt Carson first noticed the bee when it flew from a prickly pear to the wooden casket containing the remains of the Honorable Theodore Busard, a man originally from Kentucky.

At the time, the Sheriff was standing with a group of people at the cemetery, wiping sweat from his brow and reflecting on the final minutes of the Judge’s career, which so the story goes, ended with a smile during his last visit to Aunt Jillie’s Boarding House, the finest establishment along the cattle trail to Fort Worth.

Curious, he followed the bee, watching it explore a handful of flowers as it worked its way from bloom to bloom, oblivious to the people at the graveside. Soon, he saw it dart to the preacher’s shoulder where it dawdled quietly close to the man's collar.

The good Reverend casually flicked it away, his voice rambling on, preaching words of gospel interrupted by mind-numbing oracles attributable to the late Judge.

The Sheriff followed it to his right, watching it buzz the fashionable Jillie Marbley, a lady known throughout much of Texas as, ‘Aunt Jillie’ – the belle of boarding house fame. To his delight, she was wearing a bright red dress, the likes of which attracted many an eye.

Looking away, he glanced to the side and noticed Vernon Carter, the Mayor of Neverton, gazing into the distance. Drifting beside him, he whispered, “What are you looking at, Mr. Mayor?”

Vernon cleared his throat, his sleepy eyes lifting a fraction. “I was just counting those turkey buzzards circling across the way.”

“I see a bunch of ‘em – nasty creatures. I wonder what they’re watching.”

Vernon scratched at his beard then reached for a back pocket. “They’re probably keeping an eye on the Judge. I doubt they’ll let him lie still for long – probably been watching him for years.”

The Sheriff laughed quietly. “Not many folks cared for the man – that’s a fact.”

“It’s not hard to blame ‘em,” Vernon said, as he uncorked a flask of whiskey and glanced toward the preacher. “The Judge was a harsh man.” He took a shot then offered it to the Sheriff. “Care for some refreshment?”

The Sheriff turned a portion and returned the flask to Vernon. “The Judge was too hard in my opinion, especially with his use of the hangin’ rope. Lots of people got their toes twitched for no reason.”

“The rope will likely be his legacy,” Vernon replied. “Personally, I hope he chokes on it. The old buzzard didn’t have any friends to speak of. He sure as hell kept my stomach burning. I’m surprised people came to his funeral. ”

The Sheriff again glanced toward the preacher then gestured about. “I suspect most folks are here so they won’t be looked upon in the same light.”

“You’re probably right. Most of us perform our duties without much question.”

Aunt Jillie edged beside them, her red hair glowing in the sunlight. Whispering, she asked, “Would either of you gentlemen care to share some whiskey? I don’t remember much goodness in the Judge. I always thought of him as a cranky, old buzzard.”

Vernon handed her the flask, his eyes running her length. “There wasn't any goodness,” he replied, as he looked again, his eyes lifting a fraction. “You’re lookin’ mighty pretty today, Miss Jillie. I truly admire that dress.”

She turned a shot. “I appreciate the compliment. The dress was the Judge’s favorite. As I recall, he liked to wear it after splashing in my bathtub.” She took another swallow then returned the flask to Vernon and drifted away.

The Sheriff glanced at the preacher then turned to Vernon. “I wonder if the Judge was wearing the dress when he died.”

“I wouldn't be surprised. He was a mighty despicable character. But, then again, I'd like to be splashing in Jillie's bathtub about now – anything to get out of this heat.”

Laughing, the Sheriff flicked away another bead of sweat. ”I have to agree. Splashing with her has always been my favorite way to forget the Judge for a couple of hours.”

Looking away, he returned to the front and saw the bee circle the preacher’s head then land on his opposite shoulder. A few seconds later, he watched it move to the man's collar then disappear from view.

He nudged Vernon. “Watch the preacher. He's getting ready to start dancing.”

“Hell fire,” the preacher suddenly screamed. “A bee just stung me. Damn pesky critters, they’re just like the Judge – always circling around disrupting the harmony of life.”

The mourners let out a collective sigh as they watched him jump about, swatting at his collar, his efforts directed to squashing the bee.

Then calmly, as if a Divine hand had reached out to touch him, the good Reverend stopped dancing and spoke out, the bass in his voice rising to a resounding crescendo. “But, as the scriptures say: Fear not the bees for they pollinate the fields and provide us our daily sustenance.”

With those words, the Sheriff again nudged Vernon and said, “I'm about ready for some of that sustenance in liquid form. Care to join me at the saloon?”

“Don't mind if I do,” Vernon replied, his eyes finally coming to life. “I've been wantin' to try that new whiskey from Kentucky.”

“A new whiskey, you say?”

“Yep... It's called Buzzards Blend.”

Laughing, the Sheriff said, “With a name like that, I bet it gets the stomach to burning.”

Vernon glanced his way, his interest waning. “You're probably right. Maybe, I'll just settle for a beer. I don't need to be reminded of the Judge.”


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John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit can be found on the internet and in several print edition periodicals.

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Author: John Laneri

Contributor: Justine M Dunn

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My wife and I sat by the river drinking beer, as we often did on a Saturday afternoon. The streets were busy, the sunshine a welcome visitor after a week of sporadic weather. We watched the pedestrians flow past in their hundreds; some dressed for dinner others looked ready for the beach.

We chewed our courtesy peanuts as we chatted and I waved the waitress for another round of beers. Just as my arm reached its resting position on my thigh, my wife gasped and stared at me wide eyed.
“What happened to you just then?” She said, snatching her sunglasses away from her face.
“What do you mean?”
“You vanished. I blinked, and then for a tiny, tiny second you weren’t there.”
“Um, I haven’t gone anywhere.” I replied, confused at her sudden outburst and slightly embarrassed by the flutter of attention by the couple on the next table.
She sat bolt upright in her chair, her hands clutching the armrests whilst the thumb of her right hand pinched hold of the arm of her shades.
“You vanished.” She said, deadly seriously.
“Shh, calm down.” I touched her lightly on her knee, she watched my hand as it returned to my lap once again. “You must have just done a funny blink and it looked like I wasn’t here.”
“A funny blink?”
“I don’t know, maybe you’re eye rolled around a bit and didn’t quite focus properly when you opened it.” I was clutching at straws but had little else to offer. I hadn’t gone anywhere, but the look on her face told me she thought differently.
“I swear to God, for a moment, just like a flash, you weren’t there.” She put her sunglasses on the table and looked at her hand. “Look, I’m shaking.”
I took hold of her hand and squeezed it.
“You think I imagined it don’t you?” She was getting upset now.
“No, but I don’t really have an explanation for you. As far as I’m aware I have just been sitting here the whole time so I don’t think there’s much I can say.”
“Well that was only our second beer, I’m far from drunk.” She was chewing her nail now, a sure sign she was upset.
“Look, let’s just forget about it.” I suggested, hoping she would calm down a little.
“Forget about it?”
“I really don’t know what else we can do.”
“You don’t believe me do you?”
One of the things I love most about my wife, and I have done since our very early days, is that what’s written on her face reflects exactly what she’s feeling inside. She has an honestly so pure I swear she is heaven sent. She is unable to even tell the smallest of fibs; even acceptable ones when it’s Christmas or a friends birthday. Her face reveals what her soul is feeling and as I looked at her then, I knew without a doubt that she believed what she was saying. Even so, I still had no explanation for it.
“Of course I believe you, but...” My sentence trailed off and became little more than a sigh.
She pushed her chair back and stood up, said she was going to the toilet. I watched her leave, wishing I had some form of answer for her.

I took another sip of my beer and tried to make sense of the last sixty seconds. I watched the people as they passed by in their summer clothing, hats and flip flops. I just wearing a snow jacket? The thought entered my mind from nowhere. And, wasn’t I in a place without many people around? Indoors, there were only a few of us, all cold and confused? Thoughts and questions were flooding into my mind now, the more that came the more that followed. We were left alone for hours, tired and hungry. I reached for my beer, now it was my turn to have the shakes. It remained on the table while I clenched my fists. The waitress brought over the next round, I told her I had finished with the previous one. I sat forward and lifted the fresh pint with both hands, bringing the glass to my mouth like a child.

As I sat by the river in the city, the church bells chimed. Out of tune but reliable, they chimed to announce that it was three o’clock in the afternoon, we had left our home just one hour ago. I glanced down at my wrist; it was a habit of mine to check the time against that of my Rolex, though its reliability never failed me. According to my watch eight hours had passed since we left the house.


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British born and currently living in Slovenia. Writes flash fiction and has recently completed her first novel.

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Author: Justine M Dunn

Contributor: Leonard Treman

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They traveled through the woods and headed to the next town in Mississippi. The two had been friends since childhood. Jordan was black, Michel was white and together they had raised money to see the MBA finals and meet their all-time favorite player. An amount that had taken them nearly a year to raise. An interview with Michael Jordan was not cheap.

"Man, don't stop here," Jordan said.

"Why, it's just a gas station," Michel replied.

"It's a red-neck gas station," Jordan voiced with a bit of concern.

"What's wrong with red necks?" asked Michel innocently.

"They don't like my people," Jordan said dryly.

"Says who?" Michel asked slightly offended.

For a moment they were both silent then out of nowhere Jordan said, "Don't you remember when we drove through Detroit. You didn't want to stop at the gas station and I thought it was silly," Jordan said.

"Yes, you waited to for a whole hour to take that shit," Michel said.

"Well it's payback time brother," Jordan said.

"Well said sir," Michel responded and they drove on past the red-neck gas station.


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Leonard Treman is a 23 year old author who has been published four times so far in his short career. Once with the platinum page and three times with anthologies with phillisscott publishing.

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Author: Leonard Treman

Contributor: Gary Clifton

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She sat at the computer, poking into genealogy.

"That's similar to experimenting with anthrax," I said. "The dead are dead. Oughta leave 'em there."

"Good God," she rushed into the bedroom. "We're figgin' cousins."

"This mean no more sex?"

"Oh, hell dude, don't get too carried away."


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Gary Clifton, forty years a cop, published a novel in national paperback and has published or has pending articles in several online magazine sites

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: Karishma Shetty

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She stood there in the cold, dressed in a faux fur coat and leather overalls. Flicking her wrist, she raised the tobacco-stained ochre end to her trembling lips and filled her lungs with pretentious comfort. She stubbed the last ultra-mild under her stiletto and strutted towards his car.

This was not the first time.

He would park his black Sedan at the corner of Mt. Vernon street on Wednesday nights, and wait outside Delilah’s till she had wrapped up for the day. She’d hop in and they’d head to a pre-booked suite at a wayside inn.

Mr. Maloney was a reputed judge who had spent 30 years of his life to serve the law. He was a dedicated husband, a devoted father, and a man whose career panned out without a blotch on his reputation. Tina wasn’t his first escort, but there was something about her that kept drawing him back to Delilah’s. He never realized that his mild interest in this pretty young thing would grow into a form of wild obsession.

For three months they met once a week in discrete motels on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and this Wednesday was no different. They headed straight to the room and ensured that their murmurs of pleasure would be confined within the walls of these unfamiliar hotels.

He lay on his side as she pulled out her well-concealed revolver from behind her garter. She sat there in her corset holding the cold nozzle onto his temples. Closing her eyes, she clenched her index finger and splattered his brains out on the pillow that cushioned his head.

“That’s for Sammie’s sentence!” she breathed with relief knowing that it had taken her three years to bring her plans to fruition. Wiping the threads of blood from her face, she touched the gold band that was still clinging to her ring finger.

The praying mantis walked out without fear, as the sounds of the gun kept ricocheting through paper-thin walls.


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Author: Karishma Shetty

Contributor: S.R. Buckley

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Jamie drove them into town, winding through the suburbs at a gentle forty and dropping to thirty as the trees and cul-de-sacs began to fade to terraces and hemmed in, monoxide-shaded office buildings. Jen gave the glove compartment a little tap with her finger, and watched streams of sixth-formers wind their way around a large green park. Jen looked at Jamie’s hands on the steering wheel: still smooth as peaches, without even ghosts of hairs. Her parents would have sounded off about it on any other day: ‘never done a hard day’s work in his life! Call himself a man?’ Today, though, they sat back behind the two of them and said nothing. Cordial, or perhaps intimidated by the inevitable sight of some huge suburban villa.

The houses around here were dog-eared, cracked, lopsided. It was all fine having a chip on one’s shoulder: but then even their home, a little adjunct to a rain-swept village, looked pretty idyllic compared to this. No grass on the brown angles of those towers, there; trees were spaced out by poisoned stumps. Incompatible: tearing up pavements, ripping up foundations. Rid: poisoning of stump, removal of all arisings. Wait: Jamie was taking them down a side road, deeper into the area.

‘Detour?’ Jen said.

‘Yeah,’ Jamie said. ‘Like to avoid the main road, there.’

‘Can’t imagine this is your neck of the woods,’ her father ventured. ‘Eh? Lad like you...’

‘Dad...’ Jen said.

‘Not the kind of place you want to make your neck of the woods,’ Jamie said. No accent; not a trace. ‘You go to college to avoid it.’

Jamie slowed to avoid a flurry of kids on BMXs.

‘Suppose all your mates went up, did they?’ her father said.

‘I told them all again and again,’ Jamie said. ‘It’s the way, the best way. Called me a boff. Sissy. But tell you what, saw the alternative: some of them left at sixteen, before they even did their exams. Dads promised them jobs down on the building sites, down at the shops. Then it was Lehmans etcetera. Nothing left to go to, kicking about doing nothing.’

‘Oh dear, well, that’s how it is now. Not much out there...’ her father said.

‘No,’ Jamie said. ‘Not much at all. But I said time and time again...’

Jamie turned down another side street, a bare brick canyon, and Jen saw two young lads heave a flat-screen into the back of a car. As they neared the end of the street, a group of lads gathered around the front of one house waved to Jamie, and he slowed and wound down his window before anyone could protest.

‘Sup, Boz?’ Jamie said, rolling to a stop.

‘Oh look, the college kid,’ one of them said; all laughed.

‘See that?’ Jamie said, pointing to a yellow alarm box on the house. ‘See that, Boz? Yeah. That’s an A.D.T. alarm. It’ll be wired to the front door, and the windows. You touch that house, it’ll send a squawk straight to the company headquarters, a big hub in Sheffield. Then it’ll send a squawk to the nearest police station, which I think’s a few streets away. You’d have, depending on the traffic, two minutes. You can see it’s set...look...flashing blue lights on the underside there.’

The group stopped, looked, and then grew solemn. Boz nodded.

‘Cheers, Jamie. You’re a good lad, you are. A good lad.’

‘Plenty more fish in the sea,’ Jamie said. ‘Over on St. Albans Road there’re at least six places with rusty old boxes on the walls.’

‘They’ll have been got already,’ Boz said, ‘if they’re even still houses.’

‘True,’ Jamie said. ‘But no harm in...’

‘No, no harm.’

‘Maybe thieves have taken up residence,’ Jamie wondered aloud. ‘Plunder for them, plunder for all. That’d be ironic.’

‘Hehe. You’re a weird, weird lad, you know.’

‘I know. Take care, fella.’

Jamie moved off, wound up the window, and smiled over at Jen. Her parents’ mouths were still wide open.


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Author: S.R. Buckley

Contributor: Miles Gough

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It was an odd evening with the Grand Fiend. He was reluctant to talk. He begged forgiveness by stating he had a large meal earlier and it was not agreeing with him. He did not need to explain; it was obvious from his distended stomach and from his dinner kicking and hitting. I could see the rumbles and stretched areas where I made out the shape of the desperate fist. Truly, I could almost identify the brand of the boot pushing futilely for some freedom.

“Oh, how I wish for fleeter gastric acids. But that is beyond anyone’s control. The part I can control is the ostentatious flourish I have of swallowing my prey whole. It does nothing for the taste, just a party trick that amuses. Like someone who can toss peanuts high in the air and have them land in opened mouth every time. Of course, peanuts are small and have less of a vested interest to escape than my meal does.

“Mother said, don’t play with your food. But mother did become food, but not at that particular time. When I did eat her she didn’t offer me advice nor aphorisms, all she said as she slid down my throat was that she was once again disappointed with me. Actually, that is one of mother’s aphorisms after all.

The Grand Fiend chuckled, but the indigestion played on his face and he let things fall silent again. He belched up plague and nodded apology. “This is endemic for creatures such as me. We are cursed with poor digestion. If you see a loner in the corner constantly popping Tums or swigging from a bottle of Maalox, then you might have a nether fiend on the premises. Or you might just have mortal who eats too much fried processed foods, but still, one must be vigilant.

“For me, the feisty ones do not have any improved flavor, they are but annoying until they settle. I had one industrious morsel strike his Zippo lighter while he was interred in my stomach. The pain was terrible. I had to do something, so I reasoned, what to do with fire? Why you douse it with liquid. I took the closest bottle near me and guzzled. Naturally, it was a gallon jar of 150 proof rum. For three day, I was hiccuping fireballs.”

I poured coffee for us, and he ignored his glass. “I had one late night snack hitting me like he was a contender for middle weight champion. I was in such straights, but then I recalled that before I swallowed him, he was getting into a fight with another citizen. I hunted that second man out and swallowed him as well. The two fought each other, leaving my poor stomach lining alone. I can’t use that solution often. I was full after eating the first fellow. The second one was gluttony and so much saturated fat. No, the best I can hope for is that my victim will surrender quickly to his new reality. To give up the ghost, and become one.”

I was concerned. “How do you get through this, how do you let the pain pass?”

“All I can do is think of better times,” he said.

“The better times, when you are sated and at peace,” I suggested.

“No. I think of the times when I am hungry. When I am famished for hunting, for sport. When every person passing is potential. Is possible. When every encounter is backlit by lightning storms. When every gaze and gesture is a fait accompli for satisfaction.”

He looked down at the seismic movement of his belly. He suggested a game of Scrabble, but it was obvious on inspection that the game we had was missing half the tiles. So instead we let our coffees cool and listened to the wind rattle the shutters outside.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Chad Stroup

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The tooth pricked and became wedged in my finger. I extracted my hand from the salty water, terrified by the determined nibble.
Shark?
No, this tooth was somehow less threatening. Iridescent, as though articulated by a masterful diamond cutter. Brilliant and entrancing, it stirred my primal urges.
I understood my fate.
Tonight I attached a loincloth to my waist (for I may still be modest if I meet a mermaid) and plunged into the sea. I dove deep into the dark, the water filled my lungs, my situation seemed bleak. Pressure building.
My man-gills appeared seconds before suffocation.
Home. Finally.


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Chad Stroup is currently pursuing his MFA in Fiction at San Diego State University. He also runs a blog at http://subvertbia.blogspot.com/

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Author: Chad Stroup

Contributor: Eric Suhem

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Leo squeezed into the tiny little chair in the children’s reading room of the public library. Seated around the room, fittingly, were children, aged 4 through 8. On the walls and shelves were various children’s’ art projects, such as finger paintings, drawings, ceramics. The children waited eagerly for Leo to begin reading the story, he chose ‘Crime and Punishment’ by Dostoyevsky. As he read page after page, Leo became more and more animated, eyes bulging, jowls sweating, yelling intensely. Leo was a professional wrestler who liked to volunteer at the library to help the community, and the tiny children’s reading room chair was creaking under his girth. Many children had already left the room. Some of them were disturbed by the incident and dealt with it in their own individual ways. A couple of the children remained to stare, as they were fascinated by the phenomenon.

Leo decided to regroup and start reading chapter two, but his mind twirled into his last visit with his girlfriend Meba. Their relationship had transformed each other’s lives in innumerable positive ways, but Meba had a number of concerns about Leo’s wrestling, and Leo had become disturbed by Meba’s obsession with rabbits. The other night, after a dinner of carrots and lettuce shreds, he had picked up one of the rabbit figurines and threw it into the sink. Meba’s apartment was filled with them, tiny glass rabbit figurines. Also porcelain rabbit statues, rabbit drinking glasses and mugs, pictures and sun shades with little scenes of rabbits at play. Meba’s vacuum cleaner had a rabbit head which she had constructed out of felt and bean bags, attached to its top. There were brass rabbit door-knockers and a rabbit telephone. In spite of Meba’s rabbit-like bent for sex, which he enjoyed, Leo had become disturbed by it all, and he loudly told her so, one night in her apartment, which she called ‘the hutch’. In response, she threw a number of the glass figurines at him. He picked the silicate rabbits up off the floor and left the apartment.

Now, in the library, the children watched, intrigued, as Leo continued reading ‘Crime and Punishment’, using some of Meba’s glass rabbit figurines as action figures, though dramatically breaking them into shards on the floor, in a rage over Meba’s rabbit fixation.

By this time, the children had pretty much abandoned the reading area, hoping for greener pastures. In fact, many of the children were now on the pastoral library lawn, where a lunchtime outdoor play was to be performed by some of the volunteers. The play was to be George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, modified and condensed for a younger audience. The modifications called for the performers to merely run around in animal costumes making noises for 30 minutes while the children ate lunch. The library volunteers were randomly assigned the animal they were to portray. Leo was designated to play the rabbit.

Meba happened to be walking by, on a lunch break from her shift at the nearby hat factory, and recognized the grunts and moans of the man in the rabbit costume. She knew it was Leo, and approached him at the end of the play. “I’m glad that you’re taking an interest in rabbits,” said Meba flirtatiously, her left eyelash batting madly, as she chewed shreds of lettuce, “how about if we meet at ‘the hutch’ tonight, and bring the rabbit costume!”

“I’ll bring my wrestling costume, too,” said Leo. They looked into each other’s eyes, knowing their fates were entwined.

The next morning, Leo packed some books in a bag for that day’s reading session with the children: Peter Rabbit, Watership Down, The Runaway Bunny, and The Wrestler’s Handbook.


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Eric Suhem dwells in cubicles by day and scribbles stories by night. He can be found in the orange hallway (www.orangehallway.com)

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Author: Eric Suhem

Contributor: John Laneri

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Once a month, Jane, and I gather with family for a relaxed evening at the country club. The affairs are comfortable events that feature good food and stimulating conversation.

While dressing for last night’s occasion, I recall asking Jane, “Should I wear my red golf shirt?”

”The blue and white you bought at Pebble Beach would look great.”

“But, it's my favorite shirt. I’d hate to get blood on it.”

She looked at me, frowning. “I’ll never understand what it is between doctors and lawyers. You people have no respect for one another. Just try to endure her. She’s actually a very nice person.”

Jane might be right, but with Mary Ellen being the lawyer in the family, I have a personal obligation to protect my ego from her acid tongue. Not only does the woman irritate the hell out of me, she turns simple conversations into courtroom dramas, which unfortunately leave me with monstrous headaches. She’s also Jane’s younger sister – a relationship that places me in a delicate position.

As expected, Mary Ellen was waiting when we arrived at the club.

She took my arm and pointed me toward the bar, her brown eyes alive with energy. “I have an interesting case I need to discuss with you.”

Once cornered, I soon learned her client was a man in trouble with the law. Reluctantly, I listened while she spelled out the details, taking me step by step on his travels, as he moved from one pasture to another, his inclinations directed toward domesticated farm animals.

“Do you think my client is mentally incompetent?” she asked finally.

Side-stepping her question, I replied, “I wouldn’t know… it’s possible.”

Her mouth twitched a fraction. “As I frequently point out in court, your answer is evasive.”

I looked away and motioned to the bartender, certain that I would need plenty of scotch to last out the evening. Then, I voiced another opinion in hopes of shutting her up. “Professionally speaking, I’d say that your man needs a psychiatrist. He definitely has an abnormal attraction to farm animals.”

She exhaled a breath of frustration then said, “I asked a simple question. All I want is an honest yes or no answer from a neutral physician. So I’ll ask again, is he or isn’t he competent?”

Trying to remain calm, I replied, “Mary Ellen, I do urology for a living. I work on bladders and prostates. I don’t probe psyches, and I don’t have an opinion. But, if you want to know what I think, then I’d say, he's probably crazy as hell!”

I slid off my stool, forgetting about ever getting a drink, and started searching for the cheese dip. I needed a distraction from the woman’s constant questions.

She followed close on my heels. “You probably want money like most doctors, so tell me, what do you know about domesticated farm animals?”

I turned to her and smiled. “I don’t remember learning anything about farm animals. It wasn’t part of the medical school curriculum. You'll have to ask a veterinarian.”

Pausing, she pushed a strand of hair away from her face. “Can I ask you another question?”

I relaxed and reached for a chip. “Sure, why not?”

“Then please help me understand what you've said. You stated that you learned nothing in medical school. Am I correct?”

“That's correct.” I replied, as I eased the chip into a cheese dip.

“Did you or did you not graduate from medical school?” she asked suddenly, her intensity causing me to spill the dip across my shirt.

Growing more annoyed, I brushed away a glob stuck to the logo and indicated yes to her question.

Continuing, she said, “As I understand it, you say that you graduated from medical school, yet you have no recollection of learning anything? Can you explain that?”

“You’re twisting my words. I learned how to diagnose and treat human diseases. That's what doctors do.”

She considered my answer. “I’ll rephrase my question and ask you again from another perspective. If, as you state, you know nothing about domesticated farm animals, how can you have an opinion regarding the people that prefer to engage those animals for their intimate pleasures?”

And so it went. She continued to pound me over and over with questions about domestic farm animals and deranged psyches. By then, my only alternative was to move my head from side to side in continual bewilderment.

Finally, I reached over the bar for a bottle of scotch, found a glass and filled it to the top.

She stopped the interrogation and pointed to the glass. “You just drank four ounces of whiskey… that’s suicidal. Am I not correct?”

I knew her question was rhetorical. It sounded too open ended. By then, I wasn’t sure that moving my head in circles would make much difference as to the outcome of our conversation, so I tipped the bottle to again refill the glass.

“You’re going to drink another full glass of whiskey!” she said, her voice striking a high note. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

I continued to ignore her. And soon, she seemed to mellow, her imposing style of pain and suffering no longer a problem.

From there, my memory gets fuzzy. I think Jane drove me home. The only thing I know for sure is that I again have another of my typical, Mary Ellen Abernathy headaches, and for what it’s worth, the aspirin bottle is empty.


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John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit can be found on the internet and in several print edition periodicals.

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Author: John Laneri

Contributor: G.A. Rozen

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Never show your cards. Standard maxim, and everyone who knows better keeps it holy. Unless, of course, there's the tilt factor.
Before I even look at my cards, I know this is the hand to take him. I've had this guy on the hook for hours, and outside the casino, I have the feeling the sun might just be poking up from behind the mountains. Some people have work weeks, work hours, work seasons. I work when the right fish comes along and starts taking nibbles.
Jack seven, off-suit. Garbage. Excellent.
He's a math geek, a scientist from one of those countries that might as well be Russia. “Didn't even start playing til' I'm forty,” he'd said, back when he was still talking. He's short, fat, and has one of those god awful haircuts you'd swear was a bad piece. I've played his type before. Lovers of the order hidden in the chaos.
He checks, never moving, his eyes darting from me, to his cards, to his chips. Pocket queens or tens, maybe. Something dangerous. He wants to see how strong I am. I throw out a small raise. He holds perfectly still, so still I know he's straining not to move. Excited. Perfect.
Mr Ed, I call him that because he's big, snorts, and is constantly stamping his feet like a hoof, stands over my shoulder. He's a proxy for my bank roll, an older gentleman I met in Atlantic City. There's a small yellow note-pad in his hand, and he scribbles every bet as it's made. Pointless, really. Never had to cheat anyone. I can win the old fashioned way. I notice he's wearing the same shirt and tie as the day before and smile brightly.
The flop comes up king, queen, nine, and the geek checks again. He wants me committed, so I check him right back, waving down the drink girl. I could feel his stillness, his intense focus. I ordered a whiskey-coke, watching his reflection in a mirrored wall over the girl's shoulder.
Once, when I was a kid, I played a cash game in Chicago. It was a real wise-guy scene, all cigar smoke and suspicion, and when I took one of the gentlemen for fifteen, I felt like I had conquered the world. It all seemed so easy; I'd made in a night what my pops had used to make in a year. It didn't feel so easy when I left the place and the same gentleman jumped me in the alley. He broke three of my ribs, kicking me while I curled into a ball on the dirty, wet asphalt.
“Worth it,” was all he said before walking away. He didn't even take his money back. That wasn't the point. It's never the point. Tilt is blind.
The turn's a jack, giving me a shit pair, but also putting a gut-shot on the table. A ten takes the board. A ten I know he doesn't have. I forget my cards. Reality is created anew. Now I have a straight. I know this like I know the alphabet. It's not a bluff. It's not a lie. It is a message scrawled across my brain in neon spray-paint. You are in control.
He pushes stacks forward. Thousands. There's plenty more behind them, I know, and he wants to throw his weight around. I never show off. I want'm thinking I'm short-stacked from the beginning. Assholes like to pick on the weak. They also tend to have money.
He's got paint. Now I'm sure. Kings or queens, doesn't really matter which.
He furrows his brow. To me it's a scream. A tortured bellow.
“All of it,” I say, sliding my technicolor stacks towards the center of the table. All balls, no hesitation. No weakness.
I lean back, and I can feel him staring. The waitress arrives with my drink, and I tip her with one of the twenty-fives in my pocket. I sip my drink through the tiny straw with a grin, returning his stare. The look he gives me is the same as the suit who broke my ribs, and I know I have him.
Never show your cards. That's what they say. Unless there's the tilt factor. If you know it'll send your mark into full-on, raging tilt.
Fold. The pot is mine.
When he tosses his cards to the center with an agitated grumble, I chuckle so he can hear. I flip my jack seven in triumph, not saying a word.
When he finally calmed down, when he finally returned to his seat at the table, he bought another twenty thousand chips.
Yeah. That was a good night.


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G.A. Rozen is an MFA candidate in Fiction at Columbia College in Chicago. His work has appeared at Hogglepot.com, HalfwayDowntheStairs.net, and the Rain Taxi Review of Books. He is slovenly, unpleasant, and bitingly sarcastic, all of which are made painfully clear by his experimental satire blog, thePastisStupid.wordpress.com

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Author: G.A. Rozen

Contributor: Zach Smith

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“It doesn’t matter what you say, it doesn’t matter how you say it, as long as you say it with a pipe in your mouth, you will look intelligent.” he said with a pipe in hand being prepared to smoke.
He scooped up the tobacco, and pressed it in, but not too firm, testing the firmness by giving a few unlit puffs on the stem to make sure there was proper draw. If the pipe was packed too firmly, then keeping it lit would require much more effort and ergo less enjoyment, if the tobacco was not in firm enough then the smoke would likely get too hot and scald ones mouth, like a hot cup of coffee drunk too fast. He flicked the Zippo, they say you are supposed to use a wooden match with a pipe, but he played by his own rules. How many college guys do you see smoking a pipe around campus anyway, a tobacco pipe that is? He had only ever seen one at the college, and that was himself. He took a few quick puffs as he held the flame over the bowl to get a nice burn going on it, then it was ready, he could keep it lit with minimal effort, and still be able to converse, so long as the phrases were kept relatively short. His two friends inhaled deeply through their noses, they loved the smell of the birthday cake blend tobacco. He didn’t have the heart to tell them it tasted awful.
“Why does smoking a pipe make you look more intelligent?” asked Dean.
“Do you disagree?” he replied.
“No I don’t, but it seems like there should be a reason for it.”
He held the stem of the pipe in the middle of his mouth, hand on the bowl, and blew smoke out of both sides simultaneously, smiling in a way.
“You’re right, there is a reason, but it’s fairly long and complex.”
His friends indicated for him to continue.
“Very well,” he took a few quick puffs to keep a nice burn going for the explanation. As he spoke he would take a puff between each sentence to keep the pipe lit.
“A cigarette will stay lit without effort since the burning element [puff] or the cherry is exposed to the air [puff]. The burning element in a pipe is blocked from the air [puff]. If air is not continually drawn to the cherry by puffing [puff], it will extinguish itself [puff]. In order to smoke a pipe and converse [puff], a pipe smoker will have to keep his phrases short [puff]. This has the effect of sounding intelligent [puff], since long meandering sentences give the impression that the speaker is talking out of other body parts rather then their brain [puff] [puff] [puff]. The pipe smoker says the short sentence [puff], and then takes a puff [puff]. If the pipe smoker says a long sentence [puff], he has to puff a few times when he is finished to keep it lit [puff] [puff]. This allows for the listener to fully absorb what the pipe smoker has said [puff]. When combined [puff], these two speaking elements give the impression of intelligence and wisdom [puff]. However these effects are merely incidental [puff], really all the pipe smoker is doing is trying to keep the pipe lit [puff].”
“So it’s all an illusion then?” asked Dean.
“Precisely.”
“And it’s coincidental at that too,” said Nick.
“Quite,” he said.
“So you really aren’t that smart then are you?” asked Dean.
He took a long draw and held the pipe in his hand, then blew smoke out through his nose.
“Nice try,” he said.


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I am a graduate of Chestnut Hill College. I have been writing for about seven years. I also have severe dyslexia, which has hindered me in my creative endeavors, but has also inspired me to work harder to succeed as a writer.

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Author: Zach Smith

Contributor: Lacy Lalonde

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It was not that Sara wanted to be different, even though she really did. And it wasn’t like she wanted people to notice how different she was, even though she really did. It was just that she wanted to do things in a way that nobody else did, and she never liked to do the same thing the same way twice. She always took a different route home, even if it meant just walking on the opposite side of the street, it was still different. She was still seeing it from a different angle. She was still walking on new ground.
It all had to do with a poem, that Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken.
It is a poignant poem. It is a dangerous poem. It changed her life.
History has shown us the power literature can have on the human mind. There are countless examples of this, Plato’s Republic, the Communist Manifesto, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Mein Kampf, just to name a few. Society not only subjects their most fragile and temperamental young minds to explore the vast wonders of literature, but also forces them to understand it, analyze it, and then grades them on how well they best understood the overall message behind Tolstoy’s reasoning of death and what it means to truly live via the fictional manifestation of Ivan Ilyich.
It was one of those assigned readings that you have to do in school, and Sara was only 13 when she first read the poem. She had no idea what she was getting herself into. Nobody seems to truly believe that literature can indeed change a life. All books and poems and plays and essays should come with a warning label. WARNING: READING THIS MAY FILL YOUR MIND WITH NEW IDEAS AND NOTIONS YOU NEVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE.
Well, for Sara, the ramifications of reading literature were immediate and life altering. She was never the same after reading The Road Not Taken one Monday afternoon.
First she read the poem at home in her room, speaking the words only in her head.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
She liked that it rhymed and didn’t go on forever like those poems by Anne Askew. She had learned in class that poetry was a living thing that needed to be given a voice and an audience. And then she read it out loud because she remembered that is how poetry is supposed to be read.
She spoke it quietly at first, whispering the words out.
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
But as she continued the words churned something inside of her, a sort of self-revelation, and her voice grew louder until by the last stanza she was shouting out
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Her parents rushed into her room with worry on their faces. Why was she shouting, they wanted to know. Sara, with tears in her eyes, read aloud the poem once again but this time for an audience. She held onto the small book with one hand while her other waved itself around in tune with the words.
She learned the words by heart and then took them to her heart and kept them there forever. She strived to do things differently than they were used to being done. She read her books frontwards and then backwards. She would have an orgasm and then make love. She wore glasses with varying prescriptions so she could see the world in different ways. She hated when it didn’t feel right. She loved when it didn’t feel right. She stayed. She left. She ran. She walked.
She lived her interpretation of those words in every aspect of her life: You only have one life but there are different roads. Why not take as many as you can?


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Lacy Lalonde is a 25 year old masters student living in Montreal. She loves to write fiction and secretly hopes it makes her famous one day. She has published a handful of her short stories, consisting of both genre and non-genre fiction.

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Author: Lacy Lalonde

Contributor: Miles Gough

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"Why are you not doing mating rituals?" the Grand Fiend asked one evening. "You are just cloistered away with such a doddering old monster such as myself. Shouldn't you try to find a mate, a companion, or at least some late-night hook-up?"

I told him that I only meet with him once a week, and I enjoyed our time together and our talks. I also mentioned that dating was never a comfortable thing for me. That was one of the reasons I enjoyed the research I was conducting. Talking with blood thirsty monsters once a week was more satisfying and safe then a blind date excursion to a TGIFridays.

"But what about dancing?" he asked. "How can you live without dancing? A little Inuit woman told me once that if you do not dance you rust. What fine advice. I was greatly affected by her wisdom and made sure to eat her slowly and with relish; one should not gobble down such treasures, but savor them."

"Dancing scares me more than anything," I said. "I feel like I have several poorly assembled left feet."

"Nonsense. I have seen a 12 foot long bi-forcated centipede beast do a soft shoe to Putting on the Ritz quite handily. Why should you feel impeded if it did not? Perhaps monsters are the only ones who can truly appreciate the joy of dancing. The opportunity of a spotlight that you do not need to shy away from.

"Werewolves are quite beautiful when dancing, though quite ostentatious. They like to go for a large ballet routine. I saw one start dancing in human form and take a huge leap into the air just as the moon emerged and landed gracefully as a wolf. I would like to see Barishnikov try to do something so elegant.

"And you would weep to watch zombies do the salsa. Zombies are wonderful in appropriating latin rhythms into their shambling walk. Actually, all the shambling creatures are keen to do a cha-cha.

"The finest dance I ever saw was done by a ghoul who found itself in a kitchenalia store on a summer's evening. The place was packed with purchasers of gourmet cookwear. The sound system played a salsa CD and the ghoul was compelled to dance cha-cha. One, two, cha-cha-cha. The ghoul was loving the music, the movement and the attention. The whole store stopped and witnessed his graceful display of the moment. He took one young lady and swung her around and partnered with her for a few steps. People were cheering and clapping along and the ghoul kept on dancing. When the song was over the place shook with applause. The ghoul took a low respectful bow.

"Of course, there were no survivors."

After saying this, the Grand Fiend was silent for some time. He then announced the evening over and sent me out to go dancing. I went home instead. While walking down the street, I found my step lighter, supple and daring.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Matt Shaner

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I stand at the entrance of the room holding a clipboard with our standard sheet of paper; blank lines and spaces for demographics as if you could narrow down a life to bullet points.
The man is on the stretcher, tubes running from his arms. A younger man leans at his side.
“Matt, is that you?” the man asks.
“It is dad. I’m here.”
“I’m so glad you’re here. Thank god you’re here.”
His wife fills out the paper. Her hand is red around the pen, going white with force.
“I want to go. I can’t take this anymore.”
“I know dad.”
“We had our differences but I love you.”
She keeps writing.
“He wants to go,” she says.
Before I walked in, the nurse told her he would be admitted. His information said he swallowed pills and whiskey. It said he was ranting about returning to Vietnam. The man has a ring of white hair and a white mustache. His voice bellows.
“Help me.”
“They are helping you dad.”
His wife hands me the paper.
“The admission person will be back to talk to you later.” I say this and look at her. She is well dressed.
“Thank you for your help,” she says.
“I can’t do it,” he yells.
“You’re welcome,” I tell her.
“It will be okay dad,” the younger man says.
I walk out of the room, think of their faces, their moment in reality, and wonder do we ever really win?


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I am a writer from outside Reading, PA. I have nineteen stories published online or in print including a novel and novella from Eternal Press. I work part time at a hospital emergency room and full time as a dad and husband while chasing the dream of writing.

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Author: Matt Shaner

Contributor: John Laneri

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It was a Sunday morning when Sheriff Matt Carson arrived at the Judge's house – a large Victorian located on a hilltop overlooking Neverton, a small community along the cattle trail to Fort Worth.

The Judge was none other than the Honorable Theodore Busard, a man that controlled the countryside with a firm hand, a powerful will and a rope that fit readily around many a neck.

Hurrying to the Judge’s office, the Sheriff – usually a relaxed, confident man – was justifiably tense, unsure of the Judge's intentions.

The old man looked up, peering over half glasses. “Take a seat Sheriff. We need to talk.” He pointed a gnarled finger to a stool then returned to his telescope, a newer model that kept him abreast of the happenings in his domain.

To the Sheriff’s eye, the Judge was an frightful man with a skeletal body residing in a wheelchair. Over his ears, tufts of hair sprang from either side of his skull, a characteristic that some said, hid the horns of the devil.

Pushing the telescope aside, the Judge turned to the Sheriff. “I need you to arrange a rendezvous with Aunt Jillie.”

“What kind of rendezvous did you have in mind?” the Sheriff asked carefully, certain the man was referring to Aunt Jillie, the attractive, fun loving proprietress of the finest establishment in Texas.

The Judge sat upright and screamed, “You know exactly what kind of rendezvous I’m referring too, so watch your tongue, young fellow.”

The Sheriff shifted uncomfortably, knowing the old man could be vicious.

“As I was saying,” the Judge continued, “You tell Aunt Jillie that I need a couple of her girls for the afternoon. It’s about time I get reacquainted with some of the finer young women in my town. And tell her, I'll provide some whiskey and a few choice steaks for her effort, so be here at three o'clock sharp.”

With that said, he returned to his telescope, indicating their conversation had concluded.

On returning to town, the Sheriff stopped at the boarding house to convey the news to Jillie. She met him at the door, smiling pleasantly until he related the Judges orders.

Naturally, she was reluctant to accept the Judge's demands until the Sheriff said, “Don't forget, the Judge likes to hang women. He enjoys watching their toes twitch. On the other hand, your girls might be just what it takes to put the old buzzard to rest for good.”

Jillie agreed, so at three o’clock that afternoon, they arrived at the Judge's house where they found him sitting in his wheelchair on the patio, a manicured area which overlooked a rocky hillside and the town three quarters of a mile in the distance.

The Judge opened an eye.

Hesitantly, Jillie stepped forward, her red hair glowing in the sunlight. “Your honor, I’d like to introduce two of my finest young ladies. They're like daughters to me.”

The Judge lifted his glasses and extended a hand to the first girl. “Come here little lady. I need to see your charming characteristics.”

She edged toward him, her cheeks blushing. “Pleased to meet you Mr. Judge.”

“You look delectable. What’s your name?”

“People call me Sally May. I'm good with spurs, but I can get a hand gun to firing like a Winchester rifle.”

The Judge’s mouth flew open just as a cough began to heave from deep within his chest. “You’re a mighty tempting young filly,” he sputtered, as he turned away to cast a wad of phloem to the side.

Finally, he turned to the other girl and studied her, saying, “Your green eyes remind me of my first wife... well maybe that was the other wife, the one I had to hang by the neck.”

Noticing Jillie and the Sheriff standing to the side, he turned to them. “You two get out of here. Go toss some horseshoes.”

As instructed, they drifted toward the horseshoe pit where they settled back to wait while the girls attempted to wake His Honor's honor.

The Sheriff said to Jillie, “I hope your girls know what they’re doing. The Judge can get mighty ornery.”

Give them time. They’re my best,” she replied, as she glanced about. “Care to pitch horseshoes while the steaks cook?”

“It's my favorite game,” he replied, knowing she always lost.

After haggling for awhile over a one dollar bet, Jillie eventually grabbed a shoe, aligned her sights, and launched the first one, a beauty that flipped end over end, coming to rest with a solid clang exactly where she intended – a perfect ringer.

She turned to him. “That was a nice toss for a lady.”

“Take another try. The contest is not over 'til it's over.”

Again, Jillie aligned her sights and launched a perfectly arched fling, one that looked good until it grazed the pole by the slightest fraction and began rolling toward the patio.

At the time, the girls were standing to the side discussing their next tactic. Unfortunately, they didn’t see the shoe flip onto the patio and give the wheelchair a gentle nudge. They also failed to see the chair gradually start moving toward the side of the hill.

By the time they missed the old Judge, he was well on its way to Neverton, rolling straight down the rocky incline directly toward the main street of town and a particularly large bolder about half way down.

On their way back to town, the Sheriff said, “I hope to remember today forever.”

“Why's that?” Jillie asked. “I'd like to forget about the Judge.”

“Me too,” he replied. “But, I need to remember not to toss horseshoes with you, if I start to get cranky in my old age.”


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John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit have appeared in several scientific journals as well as a number of internet blogs and short story print editions.

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Author: John Laneri

Contributor: Daniel Rosales

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Martin Clark is not a man unlike most, he requires and breathes oxygen, eats and secretes feces like the best of us, and by that I mean people such as presidents and celebrities. However, upon medical examination of said waste you would find the difference between a Herbert Hoover deuce and of fools making some claim to fame; and that of our inadequate narrator’s eating habits and disparaging quality of subsistence. The reader could even determine Clark is malnourished by the coloring of said deuce, but we aren’t here to discuss the fecal matter of someone belonging to the lowest strata of society. Instead this is the tale that begins and ends with Martin Clark. A former prominent Congressman turned destitute bum; looked down upon by former colleagues, and even other beggars. He felt so lowly that it often crossed his mind that if the feral and unwanted meandering cats and dogs were able to talk they would snicker and berate him as well.
But let’s start from this tale’s exposition, the beginning of our narrator’s career: when he proudly and arrogantly paced the halls and chamber of Capitol Hill; slowly and indiscriminately making enemies with rival party members and those of his own party alike.
Clark was hated by members of the opposition because he took delight in thwarting any of their attempts to pass legislation in favor of destroying the tyranny of the majority while preventing the rule of the minority as well.
In time he grew greedy and hell bent on gaining higher office, making him wary of those members of his own party he saw as competition. With avarice and grandiose delusions in the depths of him, he set out to do whatever was necessary in order to gain the power he desired. Clark, through ill advice from his greed began dealing with the wrong type of people -murderous thugs, whose only loyalties were to money and themselves. Clark then proceeded to place a bounty on several of his own party’s leaders, removing any and all that stood in his way. In his dealings with these fearsome murderers he became part of something he had never intended. Never intending on getting caught, losing his job, the death of his wife and kids; no he never could have predicted such calamity, but life always deals in the unknown and unpredictable fashion.
As it turns out, the hit men he hired were being tapped and followed by the FBI, and all his happenings were being reported straight to the Attorney General. Who let it play out longer than he should have in effort to gather enough evidence on both men and arrest them. However life has its own plan and doesn’t concern itself with the will of men.
In what should have been a successful hit the hired guns realized that they were being followed, and perhaps their new client was to blame. Upon realizing this, they decided to make a statement and turn on their employer.
His family became the hit.
In what Martin thought was his moment of glory; life dealt him an agonizing hand. When he expected the hit to be happening in a place far away, it was happening in his own backyard so to speak. The men crept in like vermin in the dead of night. In a blinding flash and deafening bang two things occurred, the death of his beloved wife, and a rude awakening. In the face of his assailants he begged for his life and children to no avail, they were there to show him who he was dealing with.
After the fact Clark pieced together what had happened, and what had gone awry. He couldn’t say how but he knew that he too was being followed and tapped. In light of this information he did the only sensible thing and left; ran far away, away from the grasp of his assailants, and the justice of the law. He dove into the lowest depths of society, sharing the life of those he once denied escape from their poverty; forced to live on the scraps of the scraps of vagabonds.
It turns out dear reader, that, that vagabond is none other than I, your deplorable narrator -Martin Clark.
No longer able to live in these conditions, emotionally maimed by the loss of my family and status, I no longer can face the dawning of a new day or the twilight of another night; hunted by my thoughts and guilt.
With these, my last words filled with remorse and regret I beg forgiveness though expect none. I apologize from the bottom of my heart and depths of my soul.

With sincere regret,
Martin Clark.


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Author: Daniel Rosales

Contributor: Holly Day

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I pick up the newspaper and I see her picture on the front page. Every morning, across the aisle from me on the bus, she sits there with her swollen eyes and her chipped teeth and her layers of pancake makeup, trying to hide the destruction of the night before.
For weeks, I’ve tried to work up the nerve to ask her where the bruises come from, who hurts her, why she puts up with it. For weeks, I’ve made plans to become her friend, only chickening out at the last minute. I don’t want to get involved in something I can’t handle. I don’t know how to do these things.
I’ve convinced myself she’s a boxer, a wrestler, a rodeo clown, a personal trainer. Of course, I know all these things aren’t true, because she’s so small, too small, and women who do those things usually have muscle tone, height, an aura of self-possession, self-confidence, excessive body hair. She has none of these things. She is so small. One more punch in the face and she’s done for.
I see her picture on the front page of the newspaper, down at the bottom half, just after the fold. Someone punched her in the face one too many times. Her body was found half-submerged in water, under the bridge. Her clothes were ripped as though they had caught on something on the way down. Someone had thrown her off the bridge, probably after she was dead. I don’t even know her name. The newspaper says the police don’t know her name.
If I had talked to her, just once, I might have known her name. I might have known something about her, something I could tell the police. I could help them find who did this to her. I can’t help them. I clear my throat and work loose the knot growing in my chest. My husband looks over the table at me and asks if anything’s wrong.
“No. It’s nothing,” I say, and pour myself another bowl of cereal. I turn the page. The woman goes away.


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Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her poetry and fiction has recently appeared in Hawai’i Pacific Review, The Oxford American, and Slipstream.

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Author: Holly Day