Toniann held her infant daughter close to her chest. She hummed and rocked looking at her tiny eyelids, gently pressing her face against baby’s fragile skin.

She’d never feel the soft touch of her daughter again.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The most impressive thing Jesus has done recently other than walking on water and dying for everyone’s sins is buying that used turntable at a yard sale. From the moment his fingers graced the platter, he couldn’t stop himself from shredding sweet jams, morning, noon, night.

The evening he stood on that stage holding the Cincinnati DJ Superstar rhinestone-encrusted first place trophy, a tear streamed down his cheek. This one’s for me, Dad. This one’s just for me.

From Guest Contributor Ashley Jae Carranza

The wooden spoon has its many uses. Grandma used it to stir the pot as the sweet savory smell of her brown stew wafted through the kitchen door to the hallway. After a hearty meal, I was always waiting for the unknown. This caused all my childhood anxiety. Grandma’s mood – now dark. I winced as the wooden spoon landed on my bare buttocks, smack after smack. I couldn’t sit down. When my teacher found out, I ended up in care. It was very unpleasant. The wooden spoon left more than a scar. I panic each time I see one.

From Guest Contributor Ibukun Sodipe

There was a guillotine in the basement. People in the surrounding buildings reacted by hurling rocks and bottles. The whole thing felt suspicious, like someone was trying to send me a message. So I started cutting out images of crashes and mass shootings from the newspaper and transferring them onto the surface of prison-issued soaps. Then I figured out a way to do that onto the prison sheets. The residue that accumulated on the floor and walls took on a life of its own. Now what do we do? The window provides enough natural light to keep the snake alive.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Ken determined that martial arts would be his way of life and so set about training with both sword and spear. His intention was to practice until he was ready for mortal combat, and then square off against consecutively more difficult challengers. In this way, he would rise to become the greatest master of sword fighting.

His first would also be his last.

Gordon hated being measured. It wasn’t just the crinkled-paper hands running over his body, but also the implication that in the intervening months he had changed shape.

Let the old man fondle his buttocks, and the common folk stare at his unconventional wardrobe. He was one of the few people in the world that could claim he was truly one of a kind.

Gina peeled each layer of the onion back like it was a metaphor for her own life. That’s why she was disappointed to reach the center and find nothing was there.

Or maybe it’s not metaphors she’s thinking of, but clichés. There is, after all, nothing original about an onion with no meaning.

Having fallen asleep in one town, Thoreau woke up in another, intent on uncovering what had happened to the organ grinder’s monkey. He did everything he could, but with no electricity, there was very little he actually could do. Meanwhile, the police mistook a man in a green suit walking in the forest for Thoreau. The man confessed right off to visiting the pirate queen in her cave. When Emerson dropped in on Thoreau that afternoon, he had the same question as everyone else, “Is this even real?” which was yet another reason why Thoreau loved trees more than people.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of I’m Not a Robot from Tolsun Books and A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel from Analog Submission Press.

The crash jolted them awake, as they careened into the seats in front of them. Later, the doctors would say that the fact they’d been asleep upon impact is what saved them. 27 dead, only two survivors.

For Megan, it was the perfect escape. For Matthew, he’d forever regret not having died that night.

Genevieve stepped down from her jeep at the lonely fueling station, according to the sign the last chance for services for 200 miles, and smoked a cigarette under the half-dead oak tree. A litany of lizards scurried away as she approached.

The old man working the pump had skin as weathered as the geckos’ from too much sun. She decided to tip him an extra twenty.