A tap on the shoulder a jolt back to reality, not reality to an abyss. Weary as someone falls on the ground blood everywhere. Running and screaming in vengeance. The puddle grows sticky I melt into the floor, watching time slow down. Put on a pedestal not to adore or admire but to pity. Voices behind me question our reality. Time slowly tick-tocks by. A car ride later, bright lights and people dawned in blue hovering over me. Green silk and glowsticks draped with fresh blood dripping on the expansive white linoleum floors. Going back, I see a molded reality.

From Guest Contributor Bandit Taylor

Bandit is a student at Pikes Peak Community College. He Is only 16 and is loving going to college for education. He is currently working on a novel based in Leningrad, Russia during the Cold War.

They sit on your bed, on a shelf, or maybe tucked away in a confined box collecting a musty smell. Once you cared for them and kept them neatly stacked up…but now they are forgotten and dusty all alone. They are full of memories of the smiles from old relatives who placed them in your arm. Or maybe the memory of wishing on their heart before their stuffing was sealed up, hoping it’d work like a charm. Think back to the stuffed animals that you held so closely as a child. Where are they now? What do they mean?

From Guest Contributor Madison Rutkowski

Madison is a student of literature and the sciences at Pikes Peak Community College.

The Colonel finally got mail, Platero. He has been waiting for this letter for such a long time: his daughter will finally visit him, after all those years. And he will meet the granddaughter he didn’t even know existed.

Her as well as the fruit in her womb.

From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short stories whilst recovering from a sports injury and he hasn’t stopped since. Generally he writes them hatless and barefooted.

When the sun finally set that evening, it was as if someone was turning off a faucet. The water ran clear and cold, then stopped running altogether, leaving behind a long, jagged-edged stain on the pavement that slowly grew into a pool of blood on the street below, like a wound left open too long, growing wider.

Clouds pressed down hard against the earth while the sky darkened. The townspeople began dying in great numbers. The river never once turned red with the blood that flowed through its banks. Nothing could change the truth of who and what I’d become.

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

“I felt a lurch.”

“Maybe!”

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Linda’s stories and poems have appeared in BOMBFIRE, The New Verse News, Microfiction Monday, Six Sentences, and others.

The second hour of the sweat lodge was conducted in total silence and reflection, as was the first.

“I lost a grandchild as well, but your path leads to darkness and solves nothing. Keep searching, the answer will come.”

From Guest Contributor N.T. Franklin

NT Franklin has been published in Page and Spine, Fiction on the Web, 101 Words, Friday Flash Fiction, CafeLit, Madswirl, Postcard Shorts, 404 Words, Scarlet Leaf Review, Freedom Fiction, Burrst, Entropy, Alsina Publishing, Fifty-word stories, Dime Show Review, among others.

I’m very excited to announce the winner of our Robots flash fiction contest is Two Hearts Beating by Marcelo Medone.

If anyone has any suggestions for contest themes, please let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter

I led Lisa through the maze of underground corridors. We had no time to waste; the exterminator robots were on our trail.

Back in the vault, I gave my best artificial smile and was thankful that Lisa was pregnant.

From Guest Contributor Marcelo Medone

Facebook: Marcelo Medone / Instagram: @marcelomedone

Robots Contest Entry:

I was born in the rain and dark. “Cure me or kill me,” I begged the doctors in attendance. But apparently only when silent was I able to be heard. I’d been assembled by someone who couldn’t be bothered to read the assembly instructions. Seventy years later, I look in the mirror and see bits and pieces of a stranger’s face – a long, fleshy nose, protuberant eyes, a domelike Shakespearean forehead. My now grown children stand well off to the side, uncertain whether to huddle or flee. As I tentatively approach, I clutch a rose, shoulder high like a dagger.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie’s books include the prose poetry collection THOUGHT CRIMES, scheduled to be published in fall 2022.

Robots Contest Submission:

“Granddad, were robots once different from people?”

Yes, it was around that day when everything changed.”

From Guest Contributor David Lowis

Robots Contest Entry:

One day everything stopped. I remember the terrible silence that followed the constant humming we were used to. Our beloved machines were made redundant, years of technological progress erased in an instant. We had become lazy and were set back decades. Over half the population couldn’t drive, (car accidents skyrocketed), people went hungry, (they had forgotten how to cook) and some left their homes for the first time in years. Then scientists said they found the cause, a virus, and soon the machines were back online. But the new hum sounded wrong, like a swarm of bees waiting to attack.

From Guest Contributor Paula Henry-Duru