Even in your tight orbit of busy and work and home there are moments whose skin slips, crumbles like the dry shell of a red onion, and a person is laid bare in your hands. It stains your fingers, stings your eyes: your sister, a stranger. A student, mother of four, six-month chip in her pocket, stepping off the cliff edge of giving up
but you catch her hand just in time
and you hold the sphere of this moment,
paint it, polish it, and keep it safe
in your pocket
to show to someone
who might give up tomorrow.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, and other journals and anthologies. She is a founding editor of Blue Planet Journal. She is the 2020 winner of A Story in 100 Words’ nature writing contest, and the 2021 winner of Loud Coffee Press’s microfiction contest. She is an assistant professor of English at Pikes Peak Community College and is writing a novel. Her poetry collection, Only Flying, is due out Nov. 16, 2021 from Unsolicited Press. See the book trailer, read her work, and find out about in-person and virtual book launch events at https://brook-bhagat.com/.

Three miles, under moonlight, over the dark bay, a long bridge over troubled water. Aside the Sawgrass swamps. The Doors’ low groan hypnotic. New Orleans is waiting for you. Look, I’ll drive, your friend says when you start swerving sideways. You’re slipping under, you are fading down to dreams. Yes, you say, stab your fingers into the packet of American Spirit, wave them at the pale pomelo half-plate in the sky, the sliver of moon that is lighting your way. You are on your way to meet the Devil you don’t believe in, but neither of you know it yet.

From Guest Contributor Lorette C. Luzajic

Lorette is a widely published writer of flash fiction and prose poetry, with recent or forthcoming appearances in Tiny Molecules, The Citron Review, Ghost Parachute, Dillydoun Review, and more. She is the founder and editor of The Ekphrastic Review, a journal of literature inspired by visual art.

Her eyes flashed with mischief in the warm street light. Green, full of longing, on a young fall night. Her hand merged with mine and then her breath drew short–and I felt nothing.

I had missed it.

From Guest Contributor Caleb Woodman

Caleb is an aspiring spiritual writer studying at Pikes Peak Community College.

Other residents would cradle baby dolls, designed to match the heft of a newborn. But for Grandpa, who’d been one of America’s top reporters, only a typewriter would do. It didn’t even need paper; as the nurses discovered, simply sitting at the antique Olivetti was enough to quell his nightmares. Though his mind was gone, his fingers retained echoes of his memories, shaping them into the staccato sound of clacking keys.

He would sit there, morning to night, at his little utilitarian desk. And while he never produced a single page, we still cherished each and every word he wrote.

From Guest Contributor Keshe Chow

Mow lawn with toenail clipper; count sand. Invite spiders to tea party; pretend you’re the Mad Hatter.

Time killed, savor moment without end.

From Guest Contributor Michelle Wilson

Michelle’s words have appeared in 50-Word Stories, 101 Words, Literally Stories, The Miami Herald, and elsewhere. She lives in Miami Beach, Florida.

She had sun-streaked hair. I told her we could have a quickie after the show but she just looked blankly at Murphy, the doll. That night I jerked off with Murphy and cussed him for missing my chance with her. He looked on with the wooden smile, his wooden fingers clenched tight by his side. Murphy said cute things that day. People laughed at the stale jokes about slavery. I saw her reach out for the tip. And then she walked past me, with sad the ruffle of notes in her bodice. A little girl came up and hugged Murphy.

From Guest Contributor Sreemanti Sengupta

Sreemanti writes fiction and poetry (Losing Friends – Alien Buddha Press 2.0) while occasionally dabbling in collage art. Some of her haikus have been translated to French and a poem read out at City Lights Bookstore, NY. She runs The Odd Magazine and Odd Books.

I lean into my chair holding the book by its bind, learning to read what I did not as a child, but now with gray in my stubble. Flipping through the pages, feeling the paper crease between my fingers, I fumble to link it all together.

The exercise ends with a whistle, as I close my cookbook and taste the pepperpot burn my overeager tongue.

From Guest Contributor Eric Persaud

Eric is an Indo-Guyanese American living in New York City. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation in Public Health and writing stuff in his free time.

The bright light of the dawn greets him with a cheerful glow, sneaking lies between the buildings.

Children laugh in the distance. The rumble of snowploughs begin, pushing the salt-weakened snow into heaps of black slush.

From Guest Contributor T.W. Garland

Annika Dagmar, skilled with a violin, had dreamed of playing on stage with other musicians entrancing the audience. That would’ve been possible had there been no war.

The violin would never be touched by Annika’s fingers again.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

You can open your eyes now. The walls are covered in scribbled physics equations. Nothing wrong with that, but someone has to get on that rocket and get blown up, maybe. Take it from me, you don’t want to overlook product warnings (“Do not insert in rectum or vagina using fingers or mechanical device.”). Awareness is just so important. Everything happens too fast, as if hurled in irrational anger by the hand of God, though it’s really fluid dynamics. Even a momentary lapse in concentration can result in the sky cracking, dripping, burning, and the blue of night remaining unsolved.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.