Near dawn a rooster crowed.

John prayed the baby would die. His life would be worthless without Mary. Damn the child.

From Guest Contributor Catherine Shields

Just before dawn, the train barreled across the border. My carryall bag on the overhead rack contained an entire set of ant-dreams preserved in amber. Spies lurked everywhere, but, after the train pulled in, I evaded them by frequently changing my facial expressions. Later that day, I traveled by sampan and pedicab to meet my contact, an experienced agent posing as an English nanny. We met in a neighborhood playground beside a tree whose round fruit the children pretended were bombs. At one point I forgot the word “cremated” and had to ask her, “What’s it called – incinerating the body?”

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of The Titanic Sails at Dawn (Alien Buddha Press, 2019).

You shared your writing with me. An extension of friendship, like a handshake. More like the reaching out of hands with the chance to be held – or swatted – open palmed. Sharing…emptying pockets to reveal hidden things among the embarrassment of collected lint, is a dangerous proposition. Your shadows merged with mine, achieving the density of darkness that brings on the dawn. How can I thank you? For selflessly taking my hands and guiding me to an unknown resting place within the pages of you. I spoke in an attempt to reciprocate. My words: sandpaper to your beach of memory.

From Guest Contributor Keith Hoerner

My body wakes to join my mind in shock as scenes of a distorted world vanish, and realization sinks in. The darkness of the world I inhabit dissipates, and the light arises once more. Haunted by the past and present, but none so terrifying are they to the unknown of the future. That eldritch thing that lurks behind the veil of light, creeping across the land and praised by the Cult of the New Dawn. I lie here in fear, hoping and praying that I possess the strength to face it once more, to conquer the daemon of the day.

From Guest Contributor Michael Atherton

At dawn I am brought forth into this world, howling, crying. Mama, a girl hardly thirteen, swaddling my small frail body in a torn shawl. Oblivious that I am a load, or so I think.

By dusk I am an old man walking out of this world, soon. Mama, so long a spirit by now. Papa, a boy hardly an adult.

From Guest Contributor Troy Onyango

Disease shrunk his body to nothingness; pain drew up his limbs, tightening his skin until not even his love for her could stave off time.

It was his leaving hour; it was his four a.m. flyby.

From Guest Contributor Karen Sallee

The neighborhood still smoldered as much as the house’s charred remains. Hushed faces stared out from lawns, secretly cathartic. Firemen, and one woman, huddled in clusters, their whispers lingering like the smoke. Beside the black husk that used to be 4522 Westhaven Drive, memories were piled up like litter, tossed aside to make way for fire hoses.

Rebecca sat against the oak tree, numbed. The fire was probably her fault. Her mother had always warned her about those candles. But as she huddled against the dawn chill, all she could think about were the grass stains on her floral pajamas.