Contributor: Ray Daley
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I'm sitting there alone on a park bench with nothing but the fading remnants of my thoughts and dreams for company when the bomb finally goes off. There are children who are still playing on the swings, people are walking their dogs too. A little way down the path a couple are walking, holding hands, probably on their first date.

On the pond, ducks and swans are competing for space with the model boat enthusiasts. Underneath the shady Oak trees a family is bonding over a picnic lunch.

And this is the way the world ends.

No countdown timer, no ticking clock, nothing visible to defuse. It's the ultimate weapon.

You can't disarm what you can't see.

When it happens it's the biggest bang since the first one.

***

And yet all around me they carry on with their lives as though nothing has changed for them, the kids swinging higher; determined to get over the top, sandwiches being passed around amongst friends and family, dogs refusing to let go of interesting sticks and ducks glaring at model yachts.

Because this is how my world ends.

Not with a bang, nor a whimper. The only victim of the fallout is me.

I sit alone on the bench where she just walked away, still holding the ring after she said no.

The bomb was dropped.

No.

The emotional time-bomb exploded. And this is how my world ends.

Wounded by rejection, death by broken heart.


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Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 yrs in the RAF as a clerk & spent most of his time in a Hobbit hole in High Wycombe. He is a published poet & has been writing stories since he was 10. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitch Hikers fanfic novel he's been writing since 1986.

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Author: Ray Daley

Contributor: Portia Dawn

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


- - -
I enjoy books.
I love to write.
I would love to meet all my heroes.

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Author: Portia Dawn

Contributor: Marian Brooks

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Every time Clara wears her black leather jacket she thinks of Joe Grimaldi. He purchased this jacket for her fifteen years ago. It’s missing a button now but otherwise, still wears well.

Clara graduated from an Ivy League university with a degree in English Literature. She loved ballroom dancing. She was quite tall, not really glamorous but classy and fashionable. She twisted her blonde hair neatly into a bun at the nape of her neck. Joe liked to kiss her there. It tingled for a long while afterward.

Clara categorized Joe as her first and only “true grit” boyfriend after the divorce. She was tired of academics and thought she might be missing something by limiting her mate selection to college graduates. Joe never finished high school, lived with his sister and sometimes drove a green taxi with several hefty dings on the passenger side. His grammar was deplorable. He took on construction work from time to time just to buy small trinkets for Clara. Joe had a blue lightning bolt tattooed on his right forearm. She’d never once dated anyone with a tattoo.

Joe loved to dance. In fact, that’s how they met, at the Summit Ballroom in New Jersey. It was an elegant venue with fine table linen and the customary mirrored ball rotating from the ceiling. Sometimes Joe would just jump up in mid-air during a swing number without any warning and land on the floor in a split. Clara laughed until she could no longer breathe. There was a glow on her face when they waltzed or tangoed. He made Italian spaghetti sauce from scratch. Joe thought Clara was beautiful. She was his “Uptown Girl.”

It took several months for the grammatical errors and lack of good manners to begin to grate on Clara’s sensibilities. He embarrassed her by greeting her friends with “Yo” and “Whazzup?” Eventually, all things conspired to reach the inevitable conclusion. She began making excuses for not being available and he began following her whenever he had the opportunity. He called Clara five times a day and parked his taxi outside of her upscale, high-rise condo, waiting and hoping. Ultimately, he gave up in frustration and, after a few choice expletives, drove away for the last time dragging his tailpipe.

Several months later, he discovered Sandy, a petite redhead, with a wild history. She helped him forget about Clara who was happy for them both and relieved for herself.

Clara met Ethan Granger, II at an art exhibit and, after a short courtship, married him. He knew when to applaud at concerts and could quote many Shakespearean sonnets. He often did just that. Ethan was grounded, handsome and refined, a gentleman whose decorum Clara could count on even though he had a weakness for outlandish bow ties. But he rarely kissed Clara and disliked dancing of any sort.

Two weeks ago, Clara’s friend called with the dreadful news that there had been an accident. Joe was dead. He had electrocuted himself at a hotel construction site. Although Clara had not seen Joe for over ten years, she felt an overpowering compulsion to visit his grave site. His tombstone read, “Joseph Grimaldi danced his way into this world on March 6, 1948 and split on June 12, 2004.” Clara reached for a tissue in the pocket of her black leather jacket and began to weep.


- - -
Recently retired, Marian Brooks has begun to write some short fiction. Her work has appeared in Curly Red Stories, Linnet's Wings, First Stop Fiction and others.

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Author: Marian Brooks

Contributor: Ray Daley

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A man comes to your house, he is wearing a grey suit. He pulls at his tie nervously as he speaks to your mother. She asks his name, "William Gibson" he replies. You later discover that he calls himself Twelve Bears, he is of the Navaho Nation. It is not a traditional name, he has not been named in the traditional First Nation way.

He was not named for the first thing his mother saw after giving birth to him.
He jokingly says "Otherwise my name would be Hospital Ceiling."

There are many other possible reasons why he calls himself this name. He may have seen twelve bears, he may have killed twelve bears. He may have even owned twelve bears at some point in his life.

You will later discover that none of these reasons are the correct one.

"My mother was a good woman" he tells your mother. He insists on speaking to you in person but you refuse to come down the stairs, he looks very scary, afterwards you can remember telling your mother that. "It doesn't really matter, there will be another day." he says to your mother and excuses himself, leaving your home as quickly as he had entered it.

The following week you see on television that he has been arrested by officers of the Oak Ridge Police Department for the crime of murder. He has killed a boy the same age as you, leaving his mother as the only witness that he "had to kill Baby Bear". He is still being called William Gibson by the news reporters. Only this time he is calling himself Thirteen Bears.

You will remember this forever.


- - -
Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 yrs in the RAF as a clerk & spent most of his time in a Hobbit hole in High Wycombe. He is a published poet & has been writing stories since he was 10. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitch Hikers fanfic novel he's been writing since 1986.

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Author: Ray Daley

Contributor: Matthew H Emma

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Over the last two years, Tim Emmer had seen 80 short stories and two novels in printed works that sold seven million copies. Success brought him critical notoriety, but also social duties. Eloise Branberry, Tim’s publisher and CEO of Year of the Tiger Books expected him to attend various Upper East Side social events.
Eloise somehow convinced Tim to host a soiree celebrating the signing of author Michael Stevens inside his Manhattan apartment. The gong show took place September 14, 2012. Beginning at seven o’clock, Branberry and her cronies descended. One complained about having to “rough it” by driving her Porsche because the Bentley was being serviced. Another bitched the Brie cheese was too strong for his palette.
He shook hands, pretended to be grateful for their half-assed praise and tried to smile while grinding his teeth. Finally, at a quarter-past eight, Belgian Countess Brigitte Vonyckx walked through the door. Revelers knew her, but not as Tim’s girlfriend. Brigitte was polite, extending her respects to all who approached. Tim waited 20 minutes before texting her.
“Hi,” he wrote.
“Be right there,” Brigitte typed back.
Tim let Brigitte work the room. He got up, went to the bar and downed a couple Heinekens. Ninety minutes later, his phoned beeped.
“Help me,” Brigitte jokingly declared in her message.
He glanced over and saw his better half speaking with Eloise, Michael and a few people he didn’t know. They made eye contact and waved to each other. Tim got an idea and grabbed his phone.
“You look so damn hot tonight,” he texted Brigitte. “I’m going to our room. If you love me, meet me there in 10.”
Tim left the bar and darted towards the master suite. He walked in and began to pace, while nervously hoping Brigitte would follow. Sure enough, exactly 10 minutes later, his wish came true.
“Did anyone see you?” Tim asked her, as she closed the door.
“I don’t think so,” Brigitte answered.
“Shit,” Tim said. “I wanted every last one of them to see you walk in here with me.”
“Tim,” Brigitte said. “We really shouldn’t do this. You’re the host.”
“Hon,” Tim responded. “Not one of them means a thing to me. Only you do. I am so madly in love and want you right now. If anyone notices, who cares? Please, just one hour. They have booze, fancy food and their shallow conversations to keep them entertained.”
“The writer again proves he has a way with words,” Brigitte said. “You persuaded me.”
They undressed quickly and made torrid love for an hour, first on the floor and then in the shower. After completing their tryst, the pair re-emerged.
Jane Litchfield, Tim’s publicist gave him a look and grinned.
“Did you do what I think you did?” she inquired.
“Absolutely,” Tim responded.
“Alright,” Jane said, as she high-fived Tim.
“Jane,” Tim said. “Tell me the truth. Did anyone notice?”
“Everyone saw Brigitte follow you into your bedroom,” she answered. “That is what you’re wondering I take it?”
“That’s all I needed to know,” Tim replied.


- - -
Matthew H Emma is a freelance writer currently pursuing a career as a fiction author. His short story "Mutual Satisfaction" was published in the December 2012 issue of Skive Magazine. Mr. Emma resides in Valley Cottage, NY.

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Author: Matthew H Emma

Contributor: Joshua Dobson

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"What do you do?" the bar slut asked in an absurdly affected doll voice.

The question used to make me wince and gnash my teeth, that dismal afternoon in the dingy dive bar it made me giggle dementedly. The sound of my desiccated cackle disturbed even my jaded self, the bar slut was so stunned she stopped prosti-jecting, the flawless porcelain of her carefully controlled facade cracked for the briefest of seconds and she regarded me with utter revulsion in her dead doll eyes. She caught herself slipping and jerked immediately back into "sell" mode, twinkling her dead doll eyes twice as hard.

"I am a waiter," I said hollowly.

"Oh really, that's kewl. Where at?" she asked, back on script, but noticeably creeped out by me.

"Near here . . . the big black glass domes down by the highway."

"I didn't even know that was a restaurant and I love eating out . . . tee hee," she tinkled.

"No," I said, "I am not a restaurant server, I used to be, but now I am a waiter. I made the same mistake when I first read the ad headlined, Waiters Wanted. But when I interviewed with the man who is now my superior, a nondescript black man named Mr. Blackman, I learned that the opening the Black Dome Limited Liability Corporation sought to fill was that of Waiter, whose job description is nothing more nor less than sitting motionless, though an exception is made for blinking, yawning and the occasionally involuntary twitch, in a black chair, in near total darkness under one of the seven identical black domes for seven hours a day. I thought the whole thing sounded absurd, but when Mr. Blackman told me what the Black Dome Limited Liability Corporation paid Waiters, I . . . "

"What does it pay?" she demanded in her real voice, which didn’t sound the least bit like a cartoon bunny.

I told her.

"Wow! That is crazy. So you get paid for doin' nothing?" she asked incredulously.

"Essentially,” I said, “I get paid to wait."

"For what?" she asked.

"I don't know, and I don't think any of the other Waiters know either, though I can't be sure as we aren't allowed to fraternize or even speak to one another, however when I occasionally lock leprous eyes with another Waiter, they seem as clueless as me. But I do know that I will recognize that which we waiters await when it comes," I said.

"Must get pretty boring," she said.

"It gives me time to think." I gulped down my shot of rotgut. "There are things I think about only in my black chair, #327, one of seven-hundred-sixty-five identical black chairs in black Dome #7."

She arched an eyebrow as if intrigued.

"While I wait in the darkness, I have extremely vivid daydreams about faceless grey humanoids with no genitalia building some sort of huge irregular tower of ashy grey volcanic rock, it's getting bigger and bigger, stretching higher and higher into a grey sky that grows slightly darker with every block that is added. There are millions of the faceless grey things crawling all over each other like writhing maggots. They smash themselves between the rocks to make the mortar for their chaotically designless tower. They’re full of grey sludge inside. There’s something inside the crooked tower, something living and horrible, and it’s growing bigger with each second that passes."

"That's pretty weird, but it still sounds better than this," she said wearily in her real voice.

"What is this?" I asked disinterestedly.

"Oh, I'm not supposed to say . . ."

"What is this?" I asked disinterestedly.

"Okay, I guess I can tell you, but don't tell anyone," she said, glancing over both shoulders to see if anyone was listening. "I work here, well, not just here, but all kinds of dives like this. I work for Pine Barrens Vodka; they pay me to flirt with losers . . . no offense, in dumps like this to sell their shitty booze."

As my buzz was sufficient to clock in and start my shift in chair #327 under black Dome #7, I donned my sunglasses and made to take my leave from the gloomy confines of the dingy dive bar, but before I did, I set on the bar before the weary professional bar slut a black business card that read in red:

Mr. Blackman

Server

The Black Dome Limited Liability Corporation

- - -
Joshua Dobson likes to make his own fun.

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Author: Joshua Dobson

Contributor: David Elliott

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‘One year.’ He’d clicked on the link, entering the website for the first time in his life. ‘One year, and it’s come to this.’

Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days ago, Brian had come up with a plan. He’d decided to spend the rest of his life online; no more human interaction, no more disastrous relationships, no more work, no more physical activities. Brian was going to become a fully-fledged virtual person, a cyber-hermit, and how wonderful it might have been, if anything about his plan, his scheme, his anxiety-avoiding blueprint for a better way of life, had actually worked.
     

And maybe it could have worked, if circumstances had been different; if he hadn’t accidentally stumbled upon lonelysouls.com.
     

Brian wasn’t a lonely soul, of course. The idea was completely absurd. How could people assume such a thing? Just because Brian happened to have a less stimulating sex life than Pope Benedict the Sixteenth, did that automatically classify him as being a lonely soul? No, it did not. He was insulted by the Google adverts inference that he would be even mildly interested in that kind of service.   

His index finger was still trembling with suppressed rage, as he clicked the link.
     

Why did I ever click that link? Why, God? Why?
     

He’d met a girl on lonely-souls.com. Hot-lips 22. At first, they simply chatted. After a few days, their chatting had developed into laughing-out-loud. Before long, they were rolling-on-the-floor-laughing. Eventually, they were laughing-their-fucking-asses-off, and occasionally, to Brian’s delight, even pissing themselves laughing.
     

It was a match made in cyber-heaven.
     

Despite only knowing each other for a short while, they decided to dispense with the cyber-courting, throw caution to the wind, and become E-man and  E-wife. Hot-lips 22 accepted Brian’s proposal, and after a brief virtual engagement, they were cyber-married. A beautiful old virtual chapel, StAndrews.com, was booked for the big day, and everything went off without a hitch. The cyber-caterers were the very height of professionalism, the virtual band had all of their cyber-friends boogying until the early hours, and the cyber-minister, Reverend Meat Rocket 37, brought a much-needed touch of gravity to the event.
     

For Brian, it was a perfect but unexpected start to his new life. He was thrown out of the library for spilling champagne over their only internet computer, but otherwise, everything went swimmingly.
     

But, as with many modern marriages, after the initial excitement had faded away, things started to unravel.
     

Hot-lips 22 gradually lost interest in cyber-sex, and began filling up her time with various Brian-excluding activities; cyber-shopping, cyber-tupperware parties, cyber-Zumba, anything to avoid online contact with her new virtual spouse. Without the love of his life, Brian went into a downwards spiral. He withdrew from cyber society, sometimes hardly going online at all, and once, during a particularly low month, even started to interact with the real world again; engaging in small talk with other human beings, walking to the local shops, making phone calls, sending letters, a collection of bizarre activities usually only associated with the diseased mind.
     

Rumours of his eccentric behaviour finally made their way to Hot-lips 22, who, after much online soul searching, decided to file for cyber-divorce. It was this that, inevitably, led to Brian’s cyber-depression, cyber-self-loathing, and cyber-eating-disorder. Hotlips 22’s virtual lawyer, Scumbag 52, bled him dry. She gained possession of the cyber-cottage, the cyber-car, and was awarded full custody of the cyber kids.
     

Brian was alone. Within a year, his online life had been completed then destroyed, like the creation of a temperamental artist.
     

And then, one night, this very night, on the anniversary of their first meeting, Brian, in a fit of despair, had logged on to slash-your-wrists.com, with the intention of committing cyber-suicide.
     

‘One year,’ he said. ‘One stupid year.’
     

Brian browsed through the catalogue of virtual destruction, chose an appropriate method for his cyber-execution, clicked the ‘Yes’ tab under the legend: ‘Are you sure?’, and erased himself from the cyber-world.
     

Brian no longer exists …


- - -
David Elliott is a writer and musician, living in Cheshire UK. His short fiction has appeared in Linguistic Erosion, MicroHorror, Flashes in the Dark, Twisted Tongue, Whispers of Wickedness and Delivered.

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Author: David Elliott

Contributor: Marian Brooks

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Joyce watched her mother disappear, slowly.

Now she’s doing the same thing. She is certain of it.

When she walks down the street, no one even notices her or nods Sometimes people bump into her without so much as an “excuse me.” At one time her appearance was dramatic. Joyce loved exotic hats, expensive shoes and colorful, tailored clothing, always in good taste. Now she feels invisible. Men stare right through her, eyes like lasers, scanning the field for young, healthy women. Her reproductive equipment is thirty years past providing a viable home for anyone.

When she looks in the mirror, she sees someone who “cannot possibly” be her. She sees a woman with jowls and frown lines. Joyce notices age spots and gray hair and wrinkles at the corners of her blue eyes. Her skin is dry; it flakes and floats in the air when she brushes against it.

Sometimes she thinks her own children forget who she is. In their defense, she’s not the mother they once knew who could jump out of a chair in a fraction of a second to catch them before they fell. She’s perplexed when it comes to electronic correspondence. Joyce neither tweets nor twerps nor texts. She does have a Facebook account to keep track of the children’s comings and goings and to see photos of her grandchildren, Ben and Sally, along with their menagerie of dogs, cats and birds. She doesn’t think her cellular phone has any “aps” at all.

Sometimes Joyce and her husband, Bradley, don’t exchange more than four hundred words in a day. They lead parallel lives, reading, walking and sleeping. She does the laundry. He vacuums. She wonders if they really see each other after all of this time. She asks Brad about this. He’s half asleep in the recliner and waves his hand dismissively. “You worry too much, Joyce. We love each other, the kids are fine and we’re healthy. Isn’t that enough?” He drops his bifocals from the top of his head, grabs a pencil and turns his attention to the daily crossword puzzle.

They watch the talking heads on CNN and disagree about politics. On those days, their total word count might be five hundred, some of those words, heated for a change.

Her friends are disappearing too. Some have died. Others have too many doctors’ appointments to schedule lunch or husbands with broken hips and heart attacks to care for. When they do meet, their discussions revolve around diabetes, cholesterol and back surgeries. It’s been some time since they talked about men and sex and career aspirations. They’re not even sure what the “glass ceiling” is all about. It sounds like something that might be striking but difficult to clean.

Joyce is disappearing, melting like an ice sculpture, but slowly. It’s OK because no one’s watching.


- - -
Marian Brooks lives in Pennsylvania with her husband. Her work has appeared in Curly Red Stories, Short Humour, Linnet's Wings and elsewhere.

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Author: Marian Brooks

Contributor: Rohini Gupta

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He is late at the supermarket and almost all the fruit is gone. Many trays are empty, leaving only out-of-season mangoes and a few sad pears. At the end are apples: the small, orange ones, and the green, imported ones. In the last tray he finds what he seeks. On the dark red paper are six golden apples, round, shiny and polished, reflecting the ceiling lights.

A big woman is bearing down on them, followed by a small boy. She is heading for the last tray, but he is ahead of her and scoops them quickly up.

“Surely you don’t have to take them all,” she says.

“They are mine,” he snaps at her so fiercely that she steps back. She looks at his face and leaves hurriedly, dragging the child by the arm. Other people turn to look at him, but he ignores them all and makes off down the aisle with his prize. He will not give up his apples for any price – why can’t they just understand that?

There is a line at the counter but they let him go past, stepping nervously out of his way. He lays the six apples on the cashier’s counter and adds a banana. He has no other shopping.

“You must really like apples,” says the cashier who has seen him before, and always seen them in his basket.

“My wife loves them,” he says. Then he avoids any more questions by insisting she pack them carefully, separately, so that their waxed perfection will not be bruised. It’s a slow procedure and the people in the line behind him are shifting their feet and murmuring but they do not protest.

--

He leaves the supermarket carrying his groceries.

He has been doing all the shopping for quite a while, ever since his wife, Sita, became too weak to get out of bed. He always buys her apples. Even when she cannot eat, when only the tubes feed her, even then she craves the golden apples. She grew up among them, in her family orchard high up in Manali, under the Himalayan snows.

“My favourite tree,” she always told him, “Every year it grew the sweetest apples.” Her face is gaunt from her long illness, but her eyes are still bright when she remembers those happy years.

“There is no misery in the orchard,” she says.

The orchard is long gone. Her father gambled and drank it all away. After he died her mother was forced to sell more and more of the land, but she kept the apple trees. Every year she put the first fruit in her daughter’s hands, “A special apple for my golden girl,” she said with a special smile.

In the end it was Sita who had to sell the orchard. The debts had to be paid, and she did what she had to, but she has never forgotten. The orchard is still home and sometimes, when the pain is a dark shadow in her eyes, she forgets “Take me home,” she whispers, “Take me to the apple trees.”

He opens her hand and puts a golden apple into it. She smiles. Her fingers close, her breathing eases and she sleeps. He had plans once of taking her back to the hills but she is too weak to travel. So all he can do is sit by her bedside and remember.

He remembers how they met, at a party. He was new to Mumbai. No job, no money for food, but he had friends so he attended their parties and lingered by the food tables. She was there for the food too, a starving actress. He saw her joyous smile from across the room and then there was no looking back.

They married and found a house. He got a job, she got a part. They both worked hard and met late in the evenings eagerly, as if for the first time. They had three happy years together until that terrible day at the doctor’s office.

Malignant, the doctor said, and growing.

After that, it had become a nightmare. He hardly sleeps or eats.

He lives from day to day, moment to moment.

No one eats the apples. She cannot, and he will not.

--


He walks home with the bag of apples and one banana.

The house is in darkness as he puts his key in the door. He sits in the dark sitting room and eats the banana.

He looks out at the streets outside, at all the passing people and he wonders where they are going and why they are so cheerful, what they can possibly have to laugh about. Laughter is extinct in his world, for more than a month now, since that terrible day when he lit her funeral pyre.

The black moods, which she had dispelled for him, claim him again. He feels like a straw in the ocean, lost in a tidal wave of darkness. His heart begins a painful thumping, his throat tightens and he suffocates.

But, from somewhere deep, resolve comes. No, he thinks firmly. He has promised her that he will never go to that black place again. He intends to keep his promise.

He holds a golden apple in each hand, clutching them desperately, as if they could save his life. Holding them he feels her close. Is she walking in her bright leaved summer orchards again? Is she laughing under the fruit laden trees? He likes to think that, from wherever she is, she is looking down at him sitting here, and she is smiling.

The suffocation eases and he relaxes a little. For tonight he has won the battle. He will fight it again, but for now, he can sleep sitting in the dark, holding the fruit.

He has nothing else, nothing but that one thing which is left to him now, and for that he will always buy the golden apples.

For her smile.


- - -
I am a writer from Mumbai, India. I have published non fiction and poetry books. Writing flash fiction is keeping me happy while I work on longer stories. My story Dream Keeper was published in Yesteryear fiction in November 2012.

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Author: Rohini Gupta

Contributor: Michael Plesset

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He lay in the hospital bed, not in pain, but knowing that the time he had left was short. “What can we say with our last breath,” he thought, “when we have to say it all, when it really matters what we say. We can let go and drown in sadness and fear and let out a scream of anguish. That would give everybody a scare they’d always remember, but that’s not enough. Or we can say things that we should have said to people before. Or we could talk about the big things that happened over the years.”

Then a nurse came in, the one with the pretty face and great body. He felt his heart beat stronger, he could always see his pulse rate and blood pressure go up on the monitor when she was in the room.

He watched her move around, straightening things and checking the IV bottle with its tube leading into his arm. When she started to leave he made a sound and pointed to the tube that was in his mouth. She asked him “Do you want to say something?” He nodded. She took the tube out, and he had to swallow a couple of times before he could speak, slowly, but with a clear, strong voice, “I’ve been wanting to say, you have the most gorgeous ass in the world,” then, smiling broadly, he died.

A little while later a group of relatives arrived, to take a last look at him. They stood quietly for a few minutes. “Did he just pass away in his sleep?” the older lady asked. “No he was awake and we spoke.” “What did he say?” one of the women asked. “He said `Tell my family I love them all very much.’”

They looked surprised, looking at each other. “Wow,” the older lady said, “that’s the nicest thing he ever said.”

As they were leaving a younger man stayed behind and asked her “Are you sure, he said the whole family?” “Yes, I’m sure.” she said. He nodded slowly, smiled, and looked as though a great weight had been lifted from him, ”Thank you so much” he said.


- - -
Michael Plesset has published poetry, short fiction, non-fiction, and wrote material for a stand-up comedian. He did graduate work in mathematics and philosophy, worked in high technology, and teaches English to Chinese students.

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Author: Michael Plesset