The snow and wind pelted my face. The inclemency hadn’t started until I was half-way to the subway station, and people slipped across the pavement rushing to get home. Vehicles honked at pedestrians cutting in and out of lanes, so I had to be careful. I tried not to think about the numbing in my fingers after forgetting my gloves at home.

When the train arrived and I boarded, I knew it would be a matter of time before I’d be snug by the fireplace.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

She sits in a worn wheelchair, slightly swaying to the raspy and sultry melodies playing on the radio behind her. Drunkenly sloshing the dark brown liquid in the bottle she’s nursed throughout the night. Her eyes are as heavy as her heart, drooping with sadness and weeping with grief. Taking another sip, she sighs as the liquid scorches down her throat. She hums along to the music, reminiscing times when she played the same syncopated rhythms on stage. Her knobby and wrinkled fingers dance in the air on her ghost piano while swallowing sobs, thinking about her glorious old memories.

From Guest Contributor Sa’Mya Hall

My clammy hands make the number I pulled soggy. I roll the paper’s corner between my fingers until it looks like the twisted end of those poppers you throw at the ground. The chairs are ice cold and don’t warm up to me. Who am I waiting for to call my name? The slip is blurry. There’s no number after all. My skin is on fire. The paper disintegrates. Now I’ll never know when I’ll be called. The gift of creation is eating me alive. I really wanted to get that checked out. But I don’t think anyone is coming.

From Guest Contributor Madeline van Batum

Madeline lives in Colorado with her cat and hopes that one day she can go back to her home country of the Netherlands to finally meet the Flying Dutchman.

Almost every morning
it’s the same old ambient toss-up:
Susumu Yokota or Lazybatusu.

He’s stumbled onto something good;
he’s just got to keep at it
until it sings on its own.

From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette

Ron.’s debut chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press) is now available at all standard outlets. Many of his published works can be found at EGGS OVER TOKYO.

The king sits on his throne with a large and excruciating chest wound. The room is filled with blood and lifeless bodies, his men.

His Majesty will soon be replaced.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

All I had to do was suggest we are not alone. Victims and assailants kept dividing anyway, splitting like atoms, disappearing until there was nobody left on earth; so, when the tricksters from all over the galaxy turned off the stars, it was God who wondered where everybody went. The head behind the hands had never been afraid of the dark. If other fingers pulled the hands away from the face, the eyes, having rubbed off onto the palms, could only watch the skull nestle between them as they covered mouth and ears. I’ve seen enough anyway, he might say.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Cheryl’s new series is called Intricate Things in their Fringed Peripheries.

It wasn’t a new year; it was the new year. Margo watched the clock tick down to midnight with bated breath. Her hand tightened around the stem of her bubbly champagne flute until her fingers turned red. A fresh start; a new beginning. As the clock struck twelve and the ding sounded the glass stem shattered in her grasp, forcing crystal shards into her palm. Blood ran down her wrist. With a resigned sigh she flopped back on the couch and watched the red drops dripping from her fingers permanently stain the rug. Oh well. There was always next year.

From Guest Contributor Madison Randolph

Madison is a reader by day and a writer by night. Her works have appeared in Friday Flash Fiction, The Drabble, Bright Flash Literary Review, Spillwords, The Chamber Magazine as well as 101 Words under the name Ryker Hayes. She can be found on Instagram madisonrandolph17 or Twitter @Madisonr1713

The morning light was still dim, but the streetlamp sufficiently illuminated the permanent marker slipping down the glass door of my cafe like eels: STOP EATING DOGS.

A heavy sigh fogged the glass as I unlocked the door and tramped to where the cleaning supplies were kept. “The fact that I’m Asian doesn’t make me a dog-eater,” I muttered, but once again, there was no one to hear me.

From Guest Contributor Rina Olsen

Rina is a Korean-American teen writer living on Guam. Her work has either appeared in or is forthcoming in Jellyfish Review, Dreams and Nightmares, 101 Words, Nano Fiction, Friday Flash Fiction, and Mobius: A Journal of Social Change, among other places.

Sounds become muffled. All she hears is an echo bouncing off the walls. For an infinitesimal moment her soul levitates, detaching from the present. She looks at the doctor’s face as words grow inaudible. A silent scream explodes from her lungs into an invisible body spasm. A voice in her head continues unrestrained: ‘She’ll be alone” but her mind allows her to compose herself as she kisses minuscule freckles on her daughter’s face. As chubby little fingers wipe off her tears, she peers into the eyes of Innocence, so intrinsic, untainted.

The headstone inscribes: ‘RIP Innocence. Your life starts anew.’

From Guest Contributor Andrea Damic

Amateur photographer and author of micro and flash fiction, Andrea Damic, born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, lives in Sydney, Australia. Her words have been published or are forthcoming in 50-Word Stories, Friday Flash Fiction, Microfiction Monday Magazine, Paragraph Planet, 100 Word Project & TDDR with her art featuring or forthcoming in Rejection Letters, Door Is A Jar Magazine, and Fusion Art’s Exhibitions. One day she hopes to finish and publish her novel. You can find her on TW @DamicAndrea, Facebook or Instagram.

The Duke of Westland stared down from his portrait. Walter studied the painting, admiring the duke’s powdered wig and frilled cravat.

Walter called out and raised his hands but his glittering rings thrashed against the inside of the canvas, causing his powdered wig to slip.

From Guest Contributor Cate Vance

Cate Vance writes from the mountains of Montana where she is inspired by misty mornings, brilliant days, and starry nights. Her short fiction has been featured in Sky Island Journal.