I sat quietly on the exam table pondering my yellow skin. Turning toward the mirror hanging on the wall, I ran my blue fingertips up my slender arm touching the pale face that reflected. Too young for wrinkles I thought. I never liked doctors or hospitals. Maybe that’s why I waited. But after a year of treating my superfluous symptoms, well – it never crossed my mind that it would be too late. That time was limited and colors carried the secret. The doctor wasn’t comforting. My dark brown wide set eyes that glittered with life would soon turn dim.

From Guest Contributor Dana Sterner

Dana is a registered nurse and has written for regional and national healthcare magazines and has been a prior contributor to a A Story in 100 Words.

The monster looms down upon the invariable doom that has captured me. I hide in a little rock den, but it knows I am here. I try to blend into the decaying leaves and dirt that surround me, but its two spying eyes fall and focus on my abdomen and eight legs. The beast knows how to disable the shield and picks the rock up. Its meaty paws drop down hoppers for me; a peace offering to feast upon. I show the four-legger my fangs, and it drops the rock down over me. It must not know how to fight!

From Guest Contributor McKenzie A. Frey

The mustard-lustered staircase was slick with California rain. Loaded with bridal shower largesse, like some kind of Sierra-Sherpa goat, I lost my footing—and lost the water pitcher over the balustrade escarpment. The abysmal fracture at your feet flashed within your eyes; oh the silence, oh the rain. There must have been other gifts, but I remember this one only, and others: forgetting to set the alarm for the eclipse, going to the airport on the wrong day, and missing Sasha’s graduation. The mind adheres to misadventure like a stubborn sticker on glass. Even the dishwasher of time can’t dislodge.

From Guest Contributor David C. Miller

It got dark early. He said he would wait in his car since the apartment was hard to find. I put the twenty in my back pocket and even in the headlights walking closer I could see it in his eyes, this kid with a smudge of a mustache, and before that on the phone too something empty under his voice like might as well, like nothing else to do. He called me ma’am and handed me Guitar Hero. He said he hasn’t played in a while because the Xbox was his girlfriend’s, and she took it when she left.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

After graduating with a BA in English from Vassar College, Brook landed her first paid writing job as a reporter for a small-town Colorado newspaper. She left it to travel to India, where she fell in love, got married and canceled her ticket home. She and her husband Gaurav write freelance articles for dozens of publications, including Outpost, Ecoworld and Little India. In 2013, they launched www.BluePlanetJournal.com, which she edits and writes for. She also teaches writing at a community college, is earning her MFA in Writing at Lindenwood University, and is writing a novel.

I held her dainty hand, her fragile bones hidden deep within her withering skin. Her once cerulean eyes, now slate-grey from worries of not knowing, look at me longingly as if I had all the answers. Her time was slipping, and that’s what she wanted; to be with her Papa… her Mama… her Mamoo… I wish she could remember; the stories she told… her children’s names… me… I opened the photo album on my lap. She smiled down at the pictures. “What a beautiful family you have.” My eyes fixated on her, wishing she could remember… they’re her family, too.

From Guest Contributor McKenzie A. Frey

The audience sat, rapt, as the medium paced the stage before them, one finely-manicured hand cupped to his ear. “I’m picking up a name.” The crowd ooo-ed. “Does anyone here know a…sorry, can’t quite catch it.” He frowned in concentration. “Kuh- two…?” An impressed murmur swept the auditorium. “Too…too…Lou?” He scrunched his eyes up. A dimness began to beset the cheaper seats in the balcony. “Kuh-too-lou. Does anyone here, ladies and gents, have a loved one of that name who-” A rushing wind drowned his last words. The lights went out. Someone, or some thing, screamed.

From Guest Contributor Matt Thompson

One day a pretty forest nymph, who soundlessly slumbered in her woods, awoke to find a disheveled ape hovering above her. Sweating. Grunting. Drooling. About to dock between her meaty, leggy things.

Nereus’s daughter saw no other option but to ask a kinder god than Priapus for assistance. Not twenty seconds after, the nymph turned into a flowering pink lotus tree.

From Guest Contributor Eliot Gilbert

Jasper Bains had not meant to invent a love potion. He had an excess of macadamia nuts and fresh tarragon; it seemed a good idea to make pesto from them.

Jasper’s heart skipped a beat when Genevieve walked in, but he hid the pesto. That would be cheating.

From Guest Contributor Ross Clement

It started out from minimalism – a certain connection yet to be plowed. Hands touching, eyes linking, and smiles fleeting. A natural happenstance around the daily living.

You gripped my hand.

From Guest Contributor Matthew Burgos

He stood mesmerized by the depth and variety of the spice-stall’s palette; deep reds to yellows that hurt the eyes so much he had to close them, having to be satisfied with inhaling the melange of aromas.

Then he felt a piercing violation of flesh and fell forward, arms failing to move to cushion. The chain securing the briefcase was snipped. Bolt cutters, he thought as his brighter red smothered the fruit.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid