“Our regional cows have been highly productive,” beamed Norm, supervising an employee unload dairy products for customers.

Sales accelerated. Many shopping carts left the grocery store with dairy. Late comers found the refrigerated section emptied out.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

The engine gives out and we’re about to crash. I guide the plane as best I can and brace for impact. Then there’s blackness.

There’s a crackling noise, flames and then nothing.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Apprehension accompanied me to my car. How would they react? With sadness? Indifference?
I placed the bouquet lovingly into the trunk, holding back tears.

I set the vase onto my desk in the classroom, for my art students to observe, interpret and present their creativity onto canvas—of a life stilled.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

He has a fear of hot Danish. When the bakery shop opens its accusing awning in the morning, he retreats to avoid notice by the shop’s pastries. Open-air breakfast shops infuriate him. In his infrequent sleep, he is haunted by the idea of smothering icing, steam welling into a wall of baker’s avenging anger. The syrup run-off loitering in the pan. He wakes with his cheeks and tongue burning, the rift of his nose aflame, a gooey lump of heat assaulting his eyes from the backside. He tells himself: they will cool. When they do, he will conquer them all.

From Guest Contributor Ken Poyner

I’m spending New Year’s Eve with my Shih-Tzu Millie, sitting on the couch with a novel, sipping wine and eating crackers. I’ll turn on the television when it gets close to midnight. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the last few nights of the Christmas tree and its decorations. Millie tugs at my sweater since I’ve been ignoring her, so I rub her stomach. I check my watch and turn on the television. The ball begins its descent.

As I sit and wait, I reflect on the many mistakes I made and hope the new year will be a fresh start.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

My family sings and we eat ice cream cake, the crunchy bits dancing across my tongue. We shovel sugary forkfuls into our mouths, laughing and sharing kindred stories. We are warm. We are comfortable. We are sheltered.

Whistles for justice pierce the air before biting clouds of pepper spray surround the faces of protestors fighting for their neighbors. There is a shove, and all the world sees a cell phone raised in a clenched fist; a lifeless body sprawled in the street.

From Guest Contributor Brigitta Scheib

It was pouring rain, but I just couldn’t leave on his birthday, Christmas Day. I placed the pine cone wreath against the headstone, the red bells I added for the holiday chiming.

“Happy Birthday, Georgie.”

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

An old woman and a boy. Both walking on opposite sides of the same busy street; her with a bag full of groceries. She enters a crosswalk, stumbles over a crack, falls, her groceries scattering. The boy gasps watching vehicles swerve around her, none stopping. He scurries between them to her side, helps her to her feet, collects her groceries back into her bag, leads her carefully across to the sidewalk on the other side. Their eyes meet and hold. The old woman pats her heaving chest and points to him. The boy smiles, nods, then continues on his way.

From Guest Contributor William Cass

William has had over 395 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies such as december, Briar Cliff Review, and Zone 3. Winner of writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal, he’s also been nominated once for Best of the Net, twice for Best Small Fictions, and six times for the Pushcart Prize. His three short story collections have all been published by Wising Up Press.

All six-year-old Charlie wanted for Christmas was a baby brother or sister. When he sat on Santa’s plump lap, he asked him for that wish. His response to the young boy was: “That’s out of my control little one.” Charlie sighed, slumped off his lap and walked in silence back to the car with his mom.

The wish for a sibling faded away.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Cartoon fishing is bloodless but the one who landed on the bodies of trees that was a good excuse for a sweating can of beer in the red hand of Uncle John was a body, eyes peeled and gasping, flapping, slapping, impaled with rusting violence and the lie about the free lunch of the worm and I also stopped chewing, not because of my seven-year-old wiggly tooth but because of the hook in the ham sandwich my mother’d given me, the hook in the wooden deck of the boat, the hook that cartoon fishing is bloodless

and then she died

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat