A friend says he thinks of Andy Warhol and his pop art when he sees Campbell’s soup cans. But when I see Campbell’s soup cans, I think of my mother.

Now an old man, I still sip Campbell’s soup and remember my mother’s radiance lighting up the room and her deep blue eyes sparkling under the overhead light in our old kitchen. She’s been gone years, but I feel her presence.

From Guest Contributor Lisa Scuderi-Burkimsher

“I often find myself laying still in bed with the ceiling fan on and windows cracked. I’ll wait for the cold air to shrink the tissue in my joints, for my nerve endings to cool, and to feel the agony of hypothermia even though I am perturbed by all things cold; snow, door knobs, the hands of people with poor circulation. I am fazed by freezers; and those stainless steel stretchers that will latch the cold onto my body.

I don’t think I’ll mind dying as much as I’ll mind sleeping in a freezer—my brumal body boxed beside strangers.”

From Guest Contributor Shanique Carmichael

Memories surfaced as the woman on the balcony leaned against the balustrade, her young daughter beside her.

She gently hugged her daughter and watched the young girl’s red hair blow in the breeze. The same color as his.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

HUBRIS CONTEST:

Beaming at her son, she said, “Now that’s a man!”

From Guest Contributor Jody Lehrer

“Who’s that little girl over there?”

She shrugs. She’s over it, as if this happens all the time.

From Guest Contributor Amy Bracco

Suddenly aware that he might at any moment glance down at her waist and thereby notice the steely tip of the long-handled knife that was peeking out of her shoulder bag, not truly obtrusive, but visible enough nonetheless, with its dark, coagulated blood and a few long strands of blond hair clinging stubbornly to the blade, she deftly angled her lithe body so that the sheriff’s green eyes bore rather unmistakably into the depths of her cleavage, swaying and full of promise, beneath the silky crimson blouse she had tossed on in the morning as a now greatly appreciated afterthought.

From Guest Contributor Jody Hart Lehrer

I said to the doctor, “I’m dying.” He said, “How’s that my fault?” I had been shedding parts for at least a week. The doctor said it was my body attacking itself. “It’ll scald you,” he said in the same confidential manner, “peel the skin and muscle right off your bones.” The exam room then filled with people I didn’t know, one a crying toddler, her face all red and sweaty and scrunched up. Apparently, serious preparations for horizontal descent were underway. There was nothing else I could think of that would explain why this murdering old world trembled so.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of THE DEATH ROW SHUFFLE, a poetry collection forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

He was a firm believer in the order of things; a conscious universe. He was well versed in Newton’s 3rd law and the law of ‘what goes around comes around.’ He had reduced life to a mathematical formula.

He died with hurt confusion in his eyes, his pain-wrecked body mangled and torn. Had he gotten the formula wrong? Was there even a formula?

From Guest Contributor Minerva Athena

Amira’s mother quickly pulled the floorboard out, placed her daughter in the hole, shut it, then heard a loud bang. They kicked in the door.

Amira held back tears as the Nazi’s laughs and footsteps faded from her ears.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Mary attached her life vest to her body, squeezed through the screaming crowd and made her way to the lifeboats. The cold air chilled her body and numbed her feet; she could barely walk. Frozen in fear, she waited. After being placed in the lifeboat, panicked passengers tried to jump in as the deck hand began lowering them down. He took out his gun and started firing at no one in particular and shot a poor elderly man.

Titanic began to sink, and the lifeboat collapsed into the ocean.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher