The forest had darkened with overgrown conifers. At a fork the man made a guess taking the less trodden trail.

He raised a bottle of water to her memory, vowing to try again. He’ll find that bench. The place of memories. Where he took restful breaks and she, his retriever, would wait at his feet.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

The sun was shining for once, and I was sitting out on the patio with a book, Clare Carlisle’s Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Soren Kierkegaard, open on my lap, while I stared off into the middle distance, trying to think of a specific skill my angry beautiful workaholic father had taught me growing up – how to change the oil in a car, for example, or restring a steel-string acoustic guitar, or make sourdough starter from scratch – and I couldn’t, I couldn’t think of one, unless, that is, you consider being a yellow bull’s eye a skill.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

Robyn rolls down the car window and breaths in the fresh air. It is warm, but not enough to sit on the beach and take in the sun, or swim in the water.

The woman on the dock is gone.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

I bring her diamonds. My hands are full of them.

Every full moon I come to her porch at midnight, to show her how they shine in my open hands. But every time she only holds her head and softly cries.

From Guest Contributor Eric Robert Nolan

Walking forever through corridors of art, that’s the fate I sought. If I were doomed to resurrect, as everyone was, why not wander eternally around beauty?

I’ll create art too.

From Guest Contributor Eric Robert Nolan

He said to me, “I am dying.” I said, “How is that my fault?” but sat down on the bed and held him and rocked him. Somewhere out there the lake was being strangled. I was frightened the fish would die, and that this would instigate the death row shuffle for everyone. The sound of endless wars in far-off places is still buzzing in my head. I stop, I look. The boy and the car are gone. It’s just crying and anger here, and farmers who make less than a dollar a day having an arm or leg blown off.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

I’m tramping through the parking garage, briefcase in hand, searching, again, for my car. Stopping at a sign that says “Level 3”, with the word “Remember” under it. As if that’s an easy thing. As if by putting “Remember” there that will make me remember where the damned car is. First or second time maybe. But, after that, it’s like all those other things that you filter out and forget. The trick is to remember to remember, otherwise you’re lost.

As I am. Staggering up the parking ramp, wondering where all those things went that I can no longer find.

From Guest Contributor Mitchell Waldman

Mitchell’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The MacGuffin, Fictive Dream, Corvus Review, The Waterhouse Review, Crack the Spine, The Houston Literary Review, The Faircloth Review, Epiphany, Wilderness House Literary Magazine, The Battered Suitcase, and many other magazines and anthologies. He is also the author of the novel, A Face in the Moon, and the story collection, Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart (originally published by Wind Publications), and serves as Fiction Editor for Blue Lake Review. (For more info, see his website at http://mitchwaldman.homestead.com).

My mother used to talk to herself, still does. It’s more muttering than talking. My sister, when I ask her, says that of course she talks to herself. My niece, the one who feels connected to me through the umbilical cord, says she also talks to herself. My daughter talks to other car drivers, but that is something I see men do. My self talk is more like my mother’s, my sister’s, my niece’s. It’s silenced talk, cowering, frightened talk, defiant talk too, but quiet, subterranean defiance, crawling, hushed, vigilant, raging, hungry to growl and bite, make men swallow words.

From Guest Contributor Edvige Giunta

Drew wanted to play a trick on his young teenage neighbors. He dressed in an elaborate zombie outfit, blood dripping from his mouth, face and hands painted white. He’d wait for the boys and then make his move. It would be nice payback for toilet papering his car last year.

He turned and behind him stood an identical zombie.

From Guest Contributor Lisa Scuderi-Burkimsher

Chuck entered the car in a hurry and drove off, tires screeching. His wife, Hallie, was in surgery and he promised to be there when she awakened. He sipped his Starbucks coffee and wondered when the traffic would let up, cursing and punching the steering wheel.

Chuck would be at the hospital, but not for Hallie.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher