A city thrives and a city dies, from village to metropolis to graveyard. Now, the desert rocks hide secrets of millennia past, lives long forgotten, dreams of glory faded to black.

The city endured longer than the man and woman. It endured longer than the grandchildren. But the city didn’t live forever. The family still endures.

“Ed, I can’t go on.”

“Thank God… You know, Ed, I always get a little nauseous when I swallow seawater.”

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

Millions of years ago, this desert lay at the bottom of an ocean. The sand I’m walking on is the crushed bones of our ancestors, lost to time except for the polynucleotide chains twisted inside of us. Their collective memories have been encoded inside me. Had they not lived and died, I would not exist.

The desert stretches out of sight in all directions. It might never end for all I know. Even if I could arrive at the other side, how would I know I was there. You never know when you’ve reached the end. You can only guess.

Which way do I go? Delirious, I have no idea. Lost, walking in the desert, hot, tired, and thirsty, my lips dry and cracked, I crumble to the ground from exhaustion.

I’m home.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Flat earth society originally was created to scoff at technology. To challenge the idea that technology was superior. This I thought what a neat concept. Then? I noticed something. I could see thing much farther away than 3.7 miles. Example? Chicago to Michigan Shore Line. I went farther and saw in desert mountain 100 miles away. Making me think. Think? This age of technology to rethink reality and come up with absurdity that technology and science is lying to me? I started questioning a lot. Evolution? No proof after millions of bones. Think before it is too late to change.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

They found the capsule buried in the desert. Its outer shell consisted of some unknown material, a shiny metal that was alien in origin. Opening it with their bare hands proved impossible and smashing it against the rocks barely left a scratch.

Crispus Attucks Elementary School Class of ‘25.

Blinking like a stunned mole against the harsh white light of the desert sun, the last of the angels steps out of his winged chariot onto the hot tarmac. Little girls in braids present him with bouquets. Jeers erupt somewhere among the hundreds of people solemnly watching the ceremonies from behind a security fence. The plainclothes police officers mixing with the crowd club everyone within reach rather than try to identify the actual culprits. On the tarmac, meanwhile, a military band strikes up a brassy tune that has long been a favorite of dictators around the world. Birds hum along.

Howie is the author of more than a dozen poetry collections, including most recently Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing) and The Bad News First (Kung Fu Treachery Press).

The birds of appetite circled the spot below them on the desert floor. Inkblots against a sky cloudless and blue. They wheeled in decreasing concentric circles. Always, the spot the center of a bull’s-eye.

Slowly, the spot resolved itself against the haze and became the figure of a man. He had stopped to rest after walking for hours. He stood now, indifferent to temperature and to thirst. Indifferent as well to his destination.

From Guest Contributor James C. Clar

“You ordered the wrong humidifiers, Eckersley. We’re letting you go.”

Sealing the doors behind him, his elusive promotion finally at hand, he sprinted confidently into the dunes and vanished—smiling—into a quicksand pit.

From Guest Contributor Thomas Fitzgerald McCarthy

We both said we meant it, your hands in my hair. In the end it didn’t matter, you looked out across the desert like you were already crossing it, a dehydrated camel hell bent on pushing yourself towards purple sunsets no matter how rough or dangerous the terrain. I sat in the barely shade near a towering saguaro and braided spines and blossoms intermittently, blood flowering on the waxy white petals. I watched you go until the heat rising from the sand turned you into a wavy haze. I sighed when both hands dropped the struggle to hold you near.

From Guest Contributor Sarah Reddick

Sarah is a writer, editor, and a writing professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her work has previously appeared in The Local Voice, The Mid-Rivers Review, and Salt Journal.