Contributor: David Macpherson

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Rob was this roommate I had in college who had slept hard. He'd be asleep and not wake up even when the phone was ringing, but he would get up, answer it, and have a conversation, all while still being asleep. You would be on the phone with him talking and suddenly you would realize that something wasn't quite right, the way the conversation was going was off and you would ask, "Rob are you asleep right now?" And he would say, "Yes." So you would say, "Now Rob, listen to me. Hang up the phone and go to bed." And that’s what he did. He had no memory of any of this. Not even a dream memory.

We would have him write down phone messages when he was like this. He would wake up and see a note in his own hand that said, "I was asleep when Pete called. I will call him in the afternoon." That was a nice message. We didn't do nice messages often. Sometimes he would read messages that he wrote down that said, "I'm a bad bad boy. Have to return my professor's diaper." Or "I live in the Pink Pretty Panty Pantry." Junk like that. It wasn't clever, but we thought it was. Rob would smile along, though who would really like this kind of shit being done at his expense? Really.

I didn't see him for a while, I had graduated, and we were roommates, we were never best buds. But I was visiting an ex-girlfriend in his dorm, seeing if we wanted to do something about our relationship status or just be something undisclosed when I saw him. I didn't recognize. My ex had to tell me it was Rob. "Come on, that ain't him." She just shook her head and went back into her room closing the door behind me, which kind of let me know where I stood with her.

“Rob,” I said, “How you been?” I didn’t need for him to tell me. He was thin and puffy, all at the same time. His skin looked pale, like it had trapped in the wash for fifty cycles. He hadn’t been showering often enough, that was easy to determine.

He took some time to recognize me. Then he smiled yellow teeth. “Man, you are just the kind of guy I was hoping to see. I mean, you know people. I need to know people who know people.” It was like a bad musical number but I just nodded my head.

He dragged me into his room. He didn’t have a roommate. No one wanted to be his roommate, so the second bed was vacant waiting for a brave soul to fill it. “Remember those phone messages you guys used to have me write when I was asleep? Remember that? Well I still have the notebook and still I wake up and there be more of them. But about a month ago, they changed.” He pushed aside hamburger wrappers and showed me the note book he wrote the messages in. I looked at it.

They were how I recalled them. Funny things: “Must buy new footie pajamas,” or “I’m a little tea pot short and stout.” Then in his hand was a longer message, “The time has come. There will be knives on throats. There will be stains on poor campus carpets that no one will be able to remove. They will have to cut the carpets out. The blood will come. The bodies will be deposited. You need to understand Rob. This is inevitable. This shall occur. I needed a scribe, someone to record my good works. I chose you Rob.”

“Wow,” I said. “That ain’t funny.”

Rob grabbed the notebook back. “There’s others. They get more detailed. They list dates things will happen. The dates are still in the future, but not by much now.”

“Dude, go to the police.”

“How can I do that. It might be me writing this, thinking this. I might not just be dictating it. I don’t know. I figure all I need to do is not go to sleep. That’s all I can do.”

“Rob, what can I do for? Really. You won’t do the right thing and go to the cops.”

He smiled that ugly smile. “I know you have connections. Mini-thins and coffee are not cutting it anymore. I need something stronger to keep me awake. You know people.”

“Rob, that’s not a solution.”

He just stared at me. Ugly tired eyes did not plead at me, they just observed me, clinically, dispassionately. I told him sure, I would call some people. I would get him all he needed and then I left campus.

I didn’t call anyone. I don’t know anyone. I can’t figure why he thought I did. Every day I check the campus news site to see if anything happened. Nothing yet. And that’s good I guess.


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David is a writer living in Central Massachusetts with his wife Heather and son George.

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Author: David Macpherson

Contributor: Nathaniel Tower

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A puddle of goopy pink blob greeted Marty Cooper when he woke up one Sunday morning. He'd been dreaming about his wife being angry at him for some reason or another.
When his alarm blasted him out of his nightmare, he tried to spring his head off the pillow and silence the buzzing, but the thick sticky substance clung to his head and pillow like gum to a shoe and asphalt on a hot day. The further he pulled his head away from the pillow the further the pink gelatin stretched.
Despite the force pulling Marty's head back to the stained pillow, his head felt significantly lighter. Staring at the goop, it didn't take long for Marty to figure out what was happening. His brain was leaking out of his ear.
While trying to gather the strength to lift his leaking body from the bed, Marty tried to remember what he had done the night before and where his wife was right now. There was the off chance she had gone to church, but he didn't think she would have gone without at least waking him. Unless of course she really was mad at him. Perhaps that hadn't been a dream after all.
Through his gooey thoughts, Marty thought he heard his wife's nagging voice call for him to get out of bed so she could change the sheets. Marty sprang out of his bed like a lopsided jack-in-the-box. His unbalanced body bumped into the nightstand, knocking over the hand-blown glass lamp his grandmother had given him for no reason other than she was dying. The lamp fell to the carpet out of Marty's desperate reaching hand. He shook his head to try to regain his center of balance, a string of thick pink goo squirting like jelly out of a water pistol onto his dresser and carpet.
"Muhbran," Marty shouted, the words coming out mostly wrong. He clasped his hands to his head in a scene reminiscent of The Scream, which Marty had never actually seen. The goop seeped onto his left hand and oozed its way between his fingers and down his arm, but nothing came out of the right ear.
Marty raced to the bathroom, his body dragging as if he were some sort of wounded animal searching for protection from an onslaught of hunters. He rifled through his toiletries until he came across a loose cotton ball. Showing no concern for the grime that had collected in the soft fabric, Marty plunged it into his left ear. After tilting his head to the right a little to let his brain settle, he stood and looked in the mirror.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with his general appearance, save for the cotton ball sticking out of his ear. Only a few seconds into the study of his visage, Marty saw the cotton ball expanding as it filled with the pink sludge that he had formerly used to think. Without thinking, he sprinted from the bathroom into the kitchen and threw his body down by his wine rack. He pulled out the bottles one by one, but they were all unopened. Without much consideration, he chose the finest bottle from his collection, a 1998 vintage, and set it down on the linoleum tile while he searched his drawers for a corkscrew, but all he could find were some knives and toothpicks.
By now the cotton ball was a breaking dam, and Marty's liquefied brain was seeping down his neck and unto his favorite shirt. He mumbled and moaned as he grabbed the wine bottle and headed down the hall and out his front door. Bottle in hand, he stumbled like a drunken zombie across his lawn and then his neighbor's, almost tripping over the Sunday paper. Two cars driving slowly through the neighborhood almost collided as their drivers gasped at the sight.
Marty charged up the lone step onto the neighbor's porch and began pounding on the door. After three knocks he slapped at the doorbell. Unsure if he'd actually hit it, he slapped twice more. A moment later, with little sense of urgency, a man in a blue robe opened the door.
"What's going on, Marty? What brings you over to the ol' abode so early in the morning?" the robed man asked as he sipped from a steaming coffee cup.
"Corscrew," Marty shouted as he held up the wine bottle while pressing his other hand against the swollen cotton ball.
"I don't think you need to drink this early in the morning," the neighbor replied with a few hearty laughs.
"CORSCREW!" Marty screamed at the man, the force of his efforts causing a thick sludge of brain to ooze between his fingers and onto his neighbor's immaculate porch.
"What the hell?" With a horrified look, the neighbor slammed the door. Marty heard the man's hoarse screams echo around the foyer. He smashed the bottle of wine against the sidelight window, the shards of glass piercing the delicate flesh of his uncalloused hand. With blood seeping from his hand and brains gushing from his head, Marty staggered back to his house with the half-broken bottle dangling from his fingertips to do the next most logical thing: call 9-1-1.
Hunched over in a near bear crawl, Marty reentered his house and climbed the stairs to his bedroom. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and flipped it on. His fingers jabbed at the buttons until he finally dialed the right combination.
"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" he heard an operator say as he brought the phone to his good ear.
Before he could utter a response, he saw the handgun resting on the floor. He inhaled deeply the scent of fresh gunpowder. The phone slipped from his hand as he felt the small hole on the right side of his head. His body collapsed to the carpet and his wife smiled in the mirror.


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Nathaniel Tower writes fiction, teaches English, and manages the online lit magazine Bartleby Snopes. His short fiction has appeared in over 100 online and print magazines. His story "The Oaten Hands" was named one of 190 notable stories by storySouth's Million Writers Award in 2009. His first novel, A Reason To Kill, is was released in July 2011 through MuseItUp Publishing. Visit him at www.bartlebysnopes.com/ntower.htm

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Author: Nathaniel Tower

Contributor: Chad Stroup

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Do not attend class; it is a construct.
Cross the revolving threshold with a malleable mind.
What you absorb may or may not affect you profoundly.
You may think the man next to you is corporeal.
Caress his well-worn sweater.
It is the dressing of a corpse.
You may know in your mind's eye that the woman across the room is breathing.
Crumple a piece of paper and softly toss it at her.
It will bounce off her face as if she were made of wax.
You may believe that your professor is planting seeds in your mind.
He or she is digging shallow graves.
Determine for yourself what will be engraved in your headstone.


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I am an MFA Creative Writing Student with a focus in fiction at San Diego State University. I enjoy twisting the possibilities of the darker side of fiction. I also run a blog at http://subvertbia.blogspot.com/

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Author: Chad Stroup

Contributor: Ward Webb

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The gash in my forehead stung like a bitch. If it wasn’t so dark I’d be able to check my fingers to see how bloody it is; but it’s too dark in here. Dark and stale and hard to breathe. I don’t feel a lot of wetness on my fingers – so the cut shouldn’t be that bad.

The tire iron is wedged under my ribs – pressing into my side with each bump we hit. He was on paved asphalt for the longest time, but somewhere in the last five minutes he must have turned off. Now it feels like we’re on some kind of unpaved dirt road - one with an obnoxious amount of potholes. His speed is reckless. I can tell from the roaring thunder surrounding me. If only it wasn’t so dark...

I never saw him approach me. June and I had just checked out and were heading back to the car when she told me she’d forgotten to pick up her pads (the whole reason we’d even gone to the convenience store in the first place – I was always forgetting things, so was she – that’s why we were meant for each other). I climbed behind the steering wheel and gulped away at my Slushee. The tiny rocks of ice peppered my teeth and almost hurt with the chilled bite. I watched through the window as June thoughtfully selected the proper size, and made her way to the bored looking cashier. He never even looked up at her while he rang her up. I just sat in the car and watched and worked on my Shushee, as happy as an eight year old.

I never heard the breathing. I never even thought to turn around and check the backseat like they warn old ladies to do. I guess I should have, but it’s a little late now. If I ever escape from this guy, I’ll check my backseats from now on. I swear.

A particularly large dip in the road sent the iron tools below me clanking together. I gasped; the jolt had rocked the air from my lungs and sent it exploding out into the darkness like a sour burp. He couldn’t hear me. He couldn’t hear anything over that music. How someone can listen to German marching songs at full blast while driving down the interstate is beyond me. All of the tracks sounded the same to me. Heavy, driving drums and cheers in a foreign language where every word sounded hostile. I closed my eyes and tried not to panic as the car purred around me.

The thin, coarse carpeting mashed into my face and left an itchy imprint. The smell of oil and antifreeze was suffocating, but I kept quiet and thought about my next move.

There was nothing I could do lying here in the dark listening to the gravel of the road crunch a foot beneath where my head was positioned. I had to move fast when the trunk opened – I knew that much. He had not had the foresight to tie me up, which was my one and only hope. Knocking me unconscious hadn’t done anything to render his plan effective. I was crafty and as soon as that lid popped up, I’d be ready. Somehow.

I picked and pulled at the tiny, curling lip of carpet. I struggled to get it loose. Held in place and glued down by years of accumulated spills and pinned against the ground by the weight of my body – I tore and pulled as hard as I could and finally a tiny strip came loose. Being blind made things much harder.

Finally I felt the car bank to the right and then swoop off to the left. The sound of gravel disappeared. There was suddenly no sound at all – but I still felt the car moving, so we must be on grass. I struggled to find something to use as a weapon as we slowed down. The marching tunes died. The only sound was my breath.

The engine cut off like a roaring lion being shot in the face. Instantly the silence was overwhelming as I lay there listening to the muffled sound of footsteps coming my way.

The jingling of keys came through the heavy steel lid, one grinded its way into the lock and a tiny sliver of night peeked through. I’d had no time to pry the tire iron from under my ribs. I thought I had more time. I had to get up. I had to spring now, as soon as the lock released.

With my free legs I kicked against the bottom lid of the trunk as hard as I could and the sheet of metal flew up. Instantly I saw what lay in store for me. Framed by the edges of the car’s trunk, four men waited quietly behind the man that had appeared in my back seat. Standing there grinning and looking ominous; I’d seen enough of their faces in that fleeting glimpse to know I was in trouble.

My kidnapper stood there looking down on me like I was a particularly nice stuffed animal he had won at the fair.

“Told you I’d find us a nice ‘un,” he said over his shoulders to the others. “Now hand me the rope. We gone show this here boy how we do things down South.”

A triumphant murmur escaped the onlookers as the one furthest from the car tossed an old, dried bundle of rope to the man from the backseat. It landed at his feet with a thud but he never took his eyes off of me. Squinting and mouthing words I couldn’t hear, he sneered and his broken teeth glistened in the moonlight.

Suddenly I realized this wasn’t a game. It wasn’t some hate-crime-prank carried out by the local frat boys – this was serious. I saw the men behind him clearer again. My bloodshot eyes searched around looking for any chance I could cling to for hope – but there was none. Parked alone miles off the road in an abandoned, fallow field I was all alone. I was outnumbered. I was blocked from leaping from the trunk. If I tried to run, they could just overtake me in the car. There was no hope.

He ushered me out of the trunk by my throat with another ignorant slam about my religion spewing from his whiskey-cracked lips. As I stepped over the rim of the car’s boot – I looked off across the field. Plowed lines lay parallel, tilled and churned and ready to take the seed of another year, they covered the ground like corduroy in every direction.

I turned and faced my five attackers. I didn’t see men, I saw only the weapons they carried. As I pulled my right leg out of the trunk and stood up – the only thing I saw coming was the rope, a crowbar, a baseball bat, a short-stubby carving knife and a dirty old pistol.

The land shimmered in front of me and my feet suddenly felt like lead. I panted. Air choked off in my throat and tiny blue fish swam around everywhere, toying with my vision. I fainted and landed face down in the cool earth.

The last sound I heard were the footsteps approaching; and that heavy, lustful breathing from the five men.


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Some of my other work has appeared in Deep South Magazine as well as Dew On The Kudzu.

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Author: Ward Webb

Contributor: Chris Leek

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People didn’t come from Las Vegas, not in the same way as people came from Baltimore or Jonesboro County, Idaho. Joe had decided Las Vegas was a place to go to, not come from.
He sat swilling coffee from a fresh white china mug and idly surveyed the casino's gaming floor. The slots restless and chattering even at this late – or was it early – hour. He watched a plump woman at the nearest machine relentlessly feeding in quarters. Her ample backside attempting to swallow the stool on which she perched. Time and again she yanked on the lever and stared intently as the reels spun, clunking to a halt one by one. At last a bell rang, a light flashed and the machine spat out a tray full of change. She didn’t break stride, just fished again in her blue plastic cup and continued to worship at the temple of the slot.
Beyond her, a lone black jack player rapped on the table and cried “Hit me again Dougie!” The weary dealer flipped him a card along with a look that said he hated the guy just for being born.
A waitress breezed past Joe, handing him a flyer that showed the variety and delights of breakfast cocktails. Two weeks ago it had never occurred to him that such a thing as a breakfast cocktail could exist let alone entertain the thought that he might order such a thing. He felt his stomach would probably handle one but he wasn’t sure that his conscience could. He was a new fish; road dust fresh on his shoes. A Bloody Mary or a Palmango Mimosa at 6.30am was still in his future, he didn’t doubt for a moment that he would get to it, just not quite yet.
He spun lazily round to face the bar and wordlessly indicated his need of a refill. The bar tender broke off from studying form at the track and slid over, seamless in his retrieval of the coffee pot on route. Joe nodded his thanks and sipped gratefully at the black-brown sludge, marveling again at its restorative powers.
From what he had seen everyone in Vegas was a gambler of sorts; they all played the game. The hooker out on the strip rolling a dice on every trick, hoping for a clean one, an easy one, one that wouldn’t knock her around. The not-so-high roller at the tables nursing his desperate, diminishing pile of chips (hit me again Dougie!) And Joe himself, still not sure what game would be his or how big to bet, but like cocktails for breakfast he would get to it soon enough.


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Author: Chris Leek

Contributor: George S. Karagiannis

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Of vital significance for your narrative is and will always be the way you visualize the futuristic and utopian or dystopian world where real action is taking place, along with its very details. Just to toy with the idea you are on the safe side, you may describe ‘your world’ as a philip dickish setting with post-apocalyptic, totalitarian surroundings or with humanity drawn to its endmost humiliation suppressing any specified freedom all along. The philip dickish environments render flexible access to shifted realities, sociopolitical hysterias, religious inconsistencies and paradoxical behaviors by authority-doubted human entities, thus yielding a user-friendly framework to build up the most non-comprehensive, deteriorated, knotty or psychopathic character you’ve ever imagined.

Of course, there could be numerous alternatives in the world you might envision for your story. For instance, you may purely formulate it as peter hamiltonish if you tend to describe events with their consequences in large scale impact; however in this case, avoid generating dramatis personae of more than two-hundred characters, should you wish your audience being able to follow you through your warily-crafted, space opera pages. In yet other cases, you might seek for a brian aldissish surrogate world, whereby you describe strange prospective fates for humanity, with human leftovers typically struggling for survival in a hostile plant- or insect-dominated planet; however in this case, avoid establishing cliché tribal organizations living in caves –or obsolete nuclear stations they are unaware of– and deploying cliché myths and prophecies that one divinely chosen man –usually naming him or her as ‘the light-bringer’, ‘the plague-hunter’, ‘the child of the dawn’ or something relevant– will bring an end to this wretchedness. Also, unless you keep in possession a far better idea than internet obtaining some level of self-consciousness, artificial intelligence coming into conflict with human neuroethics, and virtual realities intermixing with the present so-called human realities in a Matrix fashion, do not attempt to give your story a william gibsonish or tony ballantyneish tone. Finally, unless your mind shovels up a fascinating medical thriller, or at least a thought-provoking and dogma-challenging biological premise –almost to the level of integrating Darwin’s evolutionary theories with genetic bioengineering– it wouldn’t be advised to adopt a robin cookish, greg bearish or nancy kressish technique.

Improper character development that would not serve the purpose of your story would be an added constraint for a successful outcome; therefore, implementing the finest characters in your given world should not be circumstantial at all, but thoroughly designed. To avoid stereotypic ‘implants’ in your story, you may have to create characters that will question the unquestionable on a –preferably– paragon bureaucratic State, haunted from the ghosts of a previous or potential socioeconomic rupture or perhaps female characters seeking for their sexual orientation in a philosophical perspective; in such case you should concentrate on an ursula le guinish pattern. Upon wishing to involve characters that will deal with a crisis or dilemma in your story, guided by scientific rationales, research-based hypotheses and address the questions as reasoning-oriented puzzles –who are most probably also involved in academia– then an isaac asimovish character profiling is the most suitable fit. But, unless you have to offer a fresh challenge for the three laws of robotics, do not even bother to consider a robot character encompassed by bioethical issues. If your character personalities are tailored as interstellar spies, mercenaries, detectives or even lovers, then a lois mcmaster bujoldish style could efficiently do the job for you. If you are inclined to develop charismatic leaders followed by slavish human cohorts, then a frank herbertish milieu could easily be applied to your character panel; however, in this case, try to avoid positioning these leaders in deserted dune-resembling planets with lack of water, because you will end up repeating the story all over again. Finally, are you in need of a superhero for your story? Just bring into play the orson scott cardish spirit, as long as it is at least an adult one this time!

If the perspective of your story will be first-person, then it should always follow a gene wolfeish method of development, for it will be safeguarding reader’s suspense throughout. For the rest narrative modes or in cases of attempted literary experimentation, you should always keep to the robert heinleinish and theodore sturgeonish paradigms as they have fairly defined the existing standards for the science fiction school.

Salt and pepper is an essential evil for a good science fiction story! So, never ever forget to also introduce diminutive amounts of douglas adamish elements, since spicy or satiric humor is always highly-appreciated in a broad sci-fi readership. It is not highly-recommended, but upon your own volition of spreading an aura of bizarro in your story, you may attempt to provide a carlton melick IIIish texture in it; however, you should steer clear of the Satan’s successful attempts of conquering Earth, Jesus figures participating in porn movies, excessive descriptions of sexual orgies ending up in abdominal penetrations with splatter-like consequences, and attacks of highly-intelligent zombies flying with helicopters and jumping out of them with parachutes in case of an imminent crash.

Last but not least, you should always bear in mind to bring into context a personal signature in your work –in my case to allow for a george karagiannisish color to be penciled all over my novel– or else your story will be accused of being in fact non-authentic or even worse a stolen concept. And as an amateur author, you wouldn’t want that happening, now, would you?


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George S. Karagiannis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece at 1984. He finished the School of Veterinary Medicine and is currently a PhD student at the University of Toronto in Canada, studying the molecular mechanisms of cancer metastasis. He enjoys writing science fiction, mainly in the sub-genres of (1) hard science fiction, (2) bizarro and horror sci-fi and (3) apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, but more often blending all those, together! His favorite science fiction author is Philip K. Dick, whom he has been reading since he was introduced in the field. He is also an abstractionist/surreal artist and his blog can be found here: http://abstractsur.blogspot.com/

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Author: George S. Karagiannis

Contributor: Jerry Guarino

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    “I’ll take a Venti hot chocolate, raspberry scone and one of those new holiday cups,” said the man as he flirted with the beautiful girl behind the counter.  The Latina barista took his money, winked and prepared his order.  Meanwhile, the line was back out to the doorway, not uncommon at this time of the morning.  

California coffee houses were a little different than those back east.  Sure, they still have their share of serious bankers, lawyers and business professionals, but you can tell by the way they order.  On Wall Street, it’s a lot of black coffee, maybe with a Danish.  In D.C. it’s a croissant and latte and in Boston, it’s black tea and “that’s all thanks…I have my Dunkin Donut.”  

    But the prices were still high.  $3.25 for a hot drink, more if you wanted anything special.  Not that any coffee shop is taking change anymore.  More likely, people are scanning their debit card across a laser, totaling $11.25 or more.  But it’s a new day.  Coffee houses are as important as showers for the fortunate few and almost as much for the 99%.  Thank goodness for debit cards.


    Fortified with coffee and a superior scone, they go off to conquer the world, knowing that the working Joe can’t compete with his home brew and store bought donut.  The right breakfast separates the haves and the have-nots and creates confidence.  If you’re sitting down to a $39 breakfast buffet, you’ve already impressed your potential client.  He/She will go along (thanks to expense accounts), ignoring the cost, demonstrating that they are as comfortable in this venue as the mechanic getting his meal at McDonalds.


    That’s why this latest trend will catch on.  It’s a natural marriage, the combination of all that is required in today’s society with the convenience of starting the day off right.


    The Latina barista took off her apron and walked over to the man she had served.  “Well, it’s almost 9:00am, time I got to my day job.”  She kissed her husband, coming on for the day shift at the cafe and walked across the floor to take her place behind the bulletproof glass.  An older woman with a cane walked up to her, handed her a paper and smiled.  “Dear, can you put this social security check in my savings account?”  The Latina looked as beautiful behind the teller counter as she did at the café inside the bank.  “Certainly, Mrs. Wilson.  When you’re finished, you should try the Italian roast today.  It’s very good.” 


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Jerry Guarino’s short stories have been published by dozens of literary magazines in the United States, Canada, Australia and Great Britain. His first collection of twenty-six critically acclaimed stories, Cafe Stories, was released in October, 2011. It is available as a paperback on amazon.com and as an e-book on kindle.

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Author: Jerry Guarino

Contributor: Samuel Cole

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Tires crush gravel beneath me until brakes squeal and a muffler vibrates wildly. Power windows buzz down, up, down, up, down; soulful whispers of acknowledgment pierce my well-polished ears and mended face, permanently smiling at a giant rose blooming before my marble-threatened eyes.

Hands clutched across my heart as if hovering for surprise, the clock inside my head ticks on and on and on. I can’t see my fingernails, but I trust they’re not painted bright red like some third rate whore, but French-tip-pink like a woman of good-standing means.

Somewhere my daughter is biting the corners of her fingernails; my cousins, damn moochers, likely licking their chops; my two sisters shaking their hands and heads complaining, oh, it’s so hot out, oh, that boring service, oh how long, how very very long; my grandson sticking his fingers between his armpits making that funny whoopee cushion noise; my granddaughter waving her hand over her nose, no doubt scowling at the farm yard smells of this eerie calm place called Reflections II. Believe it or not, even I can smell it. Reflections I, across the street, my first choice, filled up six year ago. Reflections III, beside the pond, begins construction next April, but I couldn’t wait that long.


Suddenly, my mother’s auburn-flip-style-hairdo and see-through-me-eyes find me in the dark, her pucker skin floating above me like a shadowy screen, her bile index finger pointing deep into my chest until my heart implodes. She pokes fun at my weakness, as she knows I have nowhere else to run and hide.



--Where have you been? she screams, judging me, like before, like now, like forever.

But I can’t close my eyes or dream her away.

--I have been here waiting, she screams even louder. --I have kept my word, my promise, my end of the bargain.



I hear men breathing, marching toward my cold, marble slab. The wind shifts me to the right, left, hands down, spectacles falling between my nose and upper lip. My back is breaking, but I can’t resist one final stretch.

--I’m right here. I yell. --I am lying right here. I lose a finger; two toes; the end of my tongue.

She seems pleased. Like a smile before gutting an enemy.

Oh, how her darkness admires me now, to bully, allot, damn, razor.

I am hers.

Hers.

Her.


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Samuel Cole lives in Woodbury, MN. He loves to run, STEP, photograph bowls, hang with friends, boo bad movies, and of course, write.

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Author: Samuel Cole

Contributor: T. M. Black

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Santa loaded the ammo belt of candy canes into the machine gun and cocked it. After a long night delivering presents, he hated the idea of facing the forgotten presents, but like every year they waited for his return, and so he readied for the frenzy.

The full moon sprayed enough light over the barn-style workshop to reveal the wooden doors were open, revealing a gaping, black mouth. While no alien toys were built by the elves that year, or mad hatter tea party sets, any toy was capable of brutal attacks. He knew that well, and rubbed the scar on his hip through his red suit.

The night had flown by without a hitch, and he thanked the cloudless skies. Even when they hit England, where a gale tugged at the sleigh, the reindeers didn’t grumble. But once he landed the sleigh, things felt very wrong. Someone was watching him.

He stepped closer to the shed, snow crunching beneath his boots, and stopped when a white teddy bear, sporting a red bow around his neck, spilled out from within the darkness. In one hand, the plush toy gripped a whip and in the other a whistle. The bear cracked the whip by its side, causing a puff of snow to loop about its feet. The toy pressed its hand to its mouth and a high-pitched shrill screamed through the silent night.

Santa’s finger twitched from the sudden sound, and released a round of candy canes into the bear. Bam, bam. The toy’s body was thrown backward into the blackened shadows of the workshop.

“Ho Ho, to you too, little bear.” Santa lowered the weapon.

The repetitive thudding from within the barn made Santa tense. Tens, if not hundreds of teddy bears, in a rainbow of colors, dressed in every manner of costume from a catsuit to a Spiderman outfit and even a blonde Marilyn Monroe bear, poured out from the building. They were all newbies. Santa would never leave behind so many toys. He stumbled backward.

Unlatching a mistletoe grenade from his belt, he pulled the ring and threw it into the mass of bears. A pop sounded, and a thin layer of green vapor enveloped the toys. Bears stopped their march and instead turned to a nearby toy, kisses each other, over and over.

But when another throng of bears emerged from the workshop, Santa gasped aloud and pulled the trigger, projecting a shower of candy canes into the toys. That did little to stop them. He recoiled, and hit the wall of the reindeer stables, fumbling with a new ammo cartridge. But the bears poured around him too fast.

They tugged at the hems of his red pants, climbing up his legs. Their tiny sharp teeth found skin. He kicked, whacked them with his gun, shouted, but nothing helped.

Then he spotted Rudolf sauntering from the workshop, his chin high in the air.

“Rudy, buddy, help me.” He threw a zebra-colored bear off him.

The reindeer grunted and flashed his white teeth. “Maybe you shouldn’t have left me at home on the most important day of the year.”


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I am a marketer by day and storyteller by night, which means I make up a lot of things. When not with my family, I’m writing or reading.

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Author: T. M. Black

Contributor: Sydney Boles

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Ngöbe girls don’t wear shoes, Mama tells her.
What do we wear, then, Mama?
We walk the way our ancestors walked, with their dust between our toes.
Mama strokes the girl’s dark hair, runs a finger down the wide, dark flank of her nose.

Ngöbe girls don’t speak to White Men, Mama chides with her finger.
What if it’s important?
Don’t play their game, Little One.
But what if a White Man speaks to me?
They came to our land and took everything, Little One. Don’t let them take your voice, too.
Mama smiles at the little girl’s wide lips: my mother’s lips, she thinks. My mother’s full-moon eyes.

Ngöbe girls weave rope bags out of plant fibers.
But Mama, did I tell you about this white girl I saw with this pretty blue bag?
Hush. Our way is the way it has always been.
Mama guides the girl’s fine-boned fingers through the ancient process.

The parade is coming!
The little girl flaps out of the mud town and slogs through the formerly-a-river and crosses that cranky old man’s farm and hurries into the White Man’s City. Cars here, and sidewalks, and telephone poles, and advertisements for bottled iced tea. Buen es Bien, Muy Bien es Mejor. The little girl can’t read. Everybody must be so smart, with all those signs and information everywhere.
The parade is coming!
The music! The drums! The people! Everybody is wearing beautiful tight clothes. So many pretty shoes! So many wonderful hats and bags! Vendors sell freshly cooked meats, shaved ice, even cotton candy! The little girl wonders if you can beg for cotton candy like you can beg for coins.


But there, coming into view, are the white girls, their hair clean and curled, lips darkened, cheeks rouged, skin smooth and clean, no pimples, no scars, eyebrows like birds silhouetted on the heavens, matching white outfits, hips tipping, inviting, youthful breasts thrust out, feet arched like swans in shiny high heels, batons twirling. Here they are, these paragons of youth, these bright lights of our future, Panama’s joys, these glistening, smiling, perfect little ladies, march on! Dance on our streets and bless them with your presence, you queens of tomorrow, let us clap and cheer for you as your pass in your elegant heels.
The little girl smooths her dirty hand-made tunic.
But look! How lovely the Panamanian girls, watch them! Lust after them, men, their small waists, their thighs, even their youthful, noticeable knees. Lust after Panama, because these white-clad girls and their batons, they are Panama!
The little girl licks her fingers and scrubs dirt from her dark-skinned cheek.
Their glistening cheeks, men, their shining eyes! Do you see how proud we are of Panama?

Ngöbe girls don’t wear their hair like that, Mama scolds.
But Mama, how will I ever be beautiful?


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Author: Sydney Boles