Danny watched Roberta carry an armful of her clothes and drive away. He watched until she was out of sight, then turned to look at the shoddy living room of his trailer and shrugged. He hadn’t hit her this time, just pushed her around a little. Maybe yelled and cursed her out.

Not that young or pretty anymore, he assured her no one else would have her and she was lucky he would. Three days was the longest she’d stayed away before. She’ll come back. Always did. Even so, something was different this time. She wasn’t crying when she left.

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.

My day wasn’t a wasted one after all, he said to the man in the mirror while washing the blood from his hands. He lifted his shirt and uncovered a nasty wound on his abdomen. His clothes were ruined, those stains would never wash out.

Not a bad day at all, said the Superhero.

From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé Suys (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing whilst recovering from a sports injury. He writes his disturbing fiction generally barefooted and hatless.

Three minutes before the meeting, I don my favorite blouse. It won’t pass the waft test, but I’m out of clean clothes. My flannel pants are ripped; it’ll have to do. My hair is in a bun because styling takes too long.

I rush to open the laptop and enter the meeting. Twelve baggy pairs of eyes stare back at me. I then remember that no one can smell my shirt or see my pants. But I wonder if anyone would mind if I went to pee.

From Guest Contributor Jennifer Lai

The apartment is bare of any ornament.

Hannah had expected to find a shambles, hence the bucket of cleaning supplies in her hand. It’s difficult to believe he’s lived in this studio for the past six months. The only sign that she’s in the right place is a stack of his clothes in the corner, neatly folded. Otherwise, there’s none of his personal effects, even in the wastebasket.

Her grief isn’t prepared for this. She’s a mother, long accustomed to fixing the messes of her children. Finding that his last act had been to clean his room leaves her devastated.

She waits at the bar every night, alone in the corner. Her eyes smudged with fine lines and tear stains from years gone by. Lipstick is applied to chaffed lips and she brushes harsh, greying hairs. Her wrinkled hands fiddle aimlessly with yet another glass of the only fluid that offers relief. Her clothes are worn, unchanged throughout the fashions of the last two decades. Every night she drinks in the corner. Every night she drags herself home, a cigarette slouching from her drying mouth. She remembers little else.

With heavy heart she waits for him. He promised to return.

From Guest Contributor Kerry Kelly

The flashing sign blinds Marissa’s eyes. The door says enter, and she pushes it open with a sigh.

Anxious and distracted, Marissa doesn’t see the car coming. She dies on impact.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

She was tired and had too much to drink. Her eyes drooped to provide the perfect screen for strange imaginings. Time passed.

She’d open late today.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

She hasn’t unpacked yet. The clothes still smell of Paris. No, not of butter and cigarettes. Of that indescribable smell that is the smell of the City of Light.

They didn’t tell her that you can carry a smell across 7,000 kilometers but there’s simply nothing you can do to make it stay.

From Guest Contributor Sheena Arora

Ben’s parents adopted him late in their lives. They fed him and encouraged him to make friends and planned elaborate birthday parties that no other children came to. They did their best to give him a normal life, but something just seemed wrong with him.

Eventually, Ben’s parents realized they had been wasting their time. What was the point of adopting a child if he wasn’t going to attract more children to their home in the woods? They could have just kidnapped him and baked him into a pie and saved a whole lot of money on clothes and tuition.