“I love you,” she whispered. She felt guilty. Part of her wanted to yell for the entire world to hear, but she shrank from revealing herself in front of so many of her peers. Whispers would have to do.

“It’s time for your nap, dear.”

Time is my mortal enemy.

In an effort to boycott time, I never wear a watch.

From Guest Contributor, Kristen Lum

“Once you can get by the smell, you have it licked.”

This sign was posted on the blue-veined cheeses in Uncle Kenny’s delicatessen. Other signs adorned some of the exotic cheeses and meats in the shop. “Check out our rump,” “Squeeze this pork butt,” and so on. Kenny thought he was a comedian, but he made his customers uncomfortable. He vowed to lighten things up a bit, and quit using the coarser texts. He made some signs and posted them above the cheese: “What happened after an explosion at a French cheese factory? All that was left was de brie.”

From Guest Contributor, Thomas Pitre

Hey there, readers of short fiction! If you like these stories, then you’ll love my collection of 100 100 word stories, entitled Picasso Painted Dinosaurs. You can purchase it from Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Noble and pretty much anywhere else you might want to buy an eBook.

*This has not been verified by science, but neither has global warming.

The neighborhood still smoldered as much as the house’s charred remains. Hushed faces stared out from lawns, secretly cathartic. Firemen, and one woman, huddled in clusters, their whispers lingering like the smoke. Beside the black husk that used to be 4522 Westhaven Drive, memories were piled up like litter, tossed aside to make way for fire hoses.

Rebecca sat against the oak tree, numbed. The fire was probably her fault. Her mother had always warned her about those candles. But as she huddled against the dawn chill, all she could think about were the grass stains on her floral pajamas.

Some morning, early, no sound from worrisome bees, refugees from last summer, moved twice, days after we decided to keep going, to lie, to lay together near the buzzing, pretending a world away from this one:

If I welcome you into my kitchen, to turn one of my forks over your fingers, flipping the metal into your palm, against knuckles, as you talk, too quickly, about what it means to leave her, what we can do with this freedom, I’ll mark the time, exactly, in quick numbers carved into the sink’s rough porcelain, unable, quite, to let the knife go.

From Guest Contributor, Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, from John Gosslee Books (2012) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

The tears stung as they traveled the well-worn grooves on her cheeks. Susan swore her wrinkles were his fault, her aging caused by all the grief he brought into her life.

“It seems to me that if you really trusted me, it wouldn’t matter how bad my lies were.”

I fell hard for Johnny Carvello. Dagos got me wet. He preferred strippers, ringside tables, hand on crotch, watching them work the pole. Called it “happy dick.” We were the perfect pair, the ex-Mafioso and the car crash cripple. Both, second rate goods. He had a thing for my still-perfect feet, bathed them in rosewater, sucked the toes, jacked himself off all over them. He’d pose me naked, on the bed, do tai chi by candlelight, his eyes on mine. Months into it when he tried to fuck me, I broke it off. The relationship, not the dick.

From Guest Contributor Alexis Rhone Fancher

Alexis is a member of Jack Grapes’ L.A. Poets & Writers Collective. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in RATTLE, BoySlut, The Mas Tequila Review, The Good Men Project, Gutter Eloquence, Cultural Weekly, High Coupe, Tell Your True Tale, Downer Magazine, Bare Hands Anthology, Ireland, The Sun Magazine, The Juice Bar, and elsewhere. Alexis was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2013. She is the poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. Hotnovelist@me.com/alexis@culturalweekly.com

Test day had arrived. Paul entered the arena with overwhelming trepidation. Failure today would mean death.

In any case, he looked forward to graduating to middle school.

You tell them you don’t want to hold her, you tell them this four times, then you fade, replaced of self by softness, sudden. When you wake, they are placing her on your chest. You cannot see her face, rather one primitive, pink hand, waving something uselessly away. But you can smell her. Her smell is yours, as if your body were turned in, then out, as a glove worn far too long, the wax and weight of you heavy, older, and they have made a wick of that youness and it has been lit for the first time now.

From Guest Contibutor, Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, from John Gosslee Books (2012) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.