Think of it as a substitute pump,” the surgeons encourage him. “Latest technology, stringent testing. Equally life-enhancing as the heart God gave you.”

Oblivious, his new heart pumps steadily.

From Guest Contributor Gary Thomson

No one had ever seen so many lawyers in one place before. It seemed their number was approaching infinity, but only because the sight was truly incomprehensible.

God shook his head regretfully. Maybe the whole creation thing should have been more carefully thought out.

If I look different, taller or fitter, it may be because a kind of prisoner swap has taken place. Somehow I’ve wriggled out from under the extreme judgments of a cold, tyrannical god. I’m still me but not the same. My failures suddenly seem less painful, viewable in retrospect as a series of valiant gestures against the authority of received narratives. Indigenous names for places have been restored, our pale winter bodies renourished. And so we lie down together, she and I, consumers of dreams, while angels dabble in the dark arts and the sniper kneels at the corner window.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is author of the poetry book, The Dark, available from Sacred Parasite, which will also publish his book, Akimbo, in 2025.

Matthew had always been steadfast in his faith. What appealed to him most about God was the need to believe, as opposed to some sort of certainty born of evidence or innate awareness. The fact that we were blessed with the choice and allowed to entertain doubt was the beauty of existence.

Except what if he was wrong? Oh shit…

“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

He remembers hating the formal dress of Sunday morning. Khakis and a button-down shirt felt so constrictive, especially compared to his Saturday uniform: shorts and a t-shirt. Even worse, no one ever gave him a satisfactory answer as to why they must dress so formally, when the Bible made very clear that God actually prefers the poor and the ragged over the richly attired.

Now every Sunday morning he spends much longer than he should selecting what to wear.

We hugged our children when they stepped off the bus, but they looked at us with vacant eyes, and when they spoke, the music was missing. They didn’t know who we were, or what they were doing on this street where they’d grown up. We brought out the brownies they loved, but they said no, our precious fifth graders, and stacked their suitcases up like a funeral pyre, as if to set fire to their childhood. The bus driver stood on the corner, a new god, calling them back to their new life, while we were left to wave goodbye.

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

I watched my daughter die.

I watched my daughter die.

The music thrummed and the people spasmed to the beat. They called it dancing. Martinez, observing from the shadows, thought it looked more like a crazed ritual or a medical disorder.

Her bosses at the enforcement authority feared the dancing would spread beyond the nursing home, but Martinez was certain no sane individual in the year 2045 would find pleasure in such deviant behavior.

Deja vu… To see something happen over again. What does it mean? If one believes in the Old Testament God, maybe a chance of salvation.

In a closed time-curved loop – people could change. And yet? If I am from the future, this is the past. And? Nothing changed. Just a time traveler ranting: do not use thermonuclear weapons.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle