Walter was one of those fellows that if you saw him putting a nickel into a beggar’s cup you knew it was just a blind for taking out a dime or quarter. So when he offered to take care of everything for me and another friend we didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know that he was scheming.

Walter was living proof that friendship between two people depended upon the patience of one. Some friends aren’t really friends at all, just a good actor. Even with all his faults, the most difficult thing I ever said to him was goodbye.

From Guest Contributor James Freeze

They were seated in the sitting room of the small hospice apartment. The cloying odor of disinfectant hung in the air. Fading twilight filled the space. Somewhere in the hall a pneumatic door opened and then whispered closed. An outside chill passed into and through the room.

“I am looking at you,” he whispered. “I promised you eternal life. I didn’t promise you eternal youth.”

From Guest Contributor Reynold Junker

He felt he’d been travelling. Couldn’t be sure. His memory was as misty as the panorama. It looked like Kiev: all those domed churches. How would I know that? The question hung there, unspoken. The answer ignored it.

She determined to make a doctor’s appointment the minute she got home.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

There are trees on the west coast you can drive through. Ancient monoliths built by thousands of years’ work: rain, floods, winters, dry lightning fires. Our grandfathers’ fathers’, storytellers gone silent over the ages, tales forgotten, archaic aching fallen into disuse, a dead language. Even the wind cannot communicate with these trees anymore.

And all I smell is the distant salt water licking wet sand.

From Guest Contributor Jon Alston

Jon has an MA in Creative Writing. Good for him. He writes things from time to time, and sometimes people publish them. Good for him. On occasion, he will photograph things (or people), and maybe write about them; sometimes there is money exchanged for his services. Good for him. He is married and has two children of both genders. Way to reproduce. He is the Executive Editor and founder of From Sac, a literary journal for Northern California. How about that? Currently he teaches English at Brigham Young University, Idaho among the frozen potato fields and Mormons. Good for you, Jon.
Websites: www.fromsac.com www.jaawritter.blogspot.com

Some say handwriting is an art form. Practice makes perfect, the preschool teacher said. If it were true, I would have the handwriting of an exquisite 14-point Arial. Instead, my wastebasket overflows with paper balls of failure. Black smudges across my skin like dried blood from the words I’ve killed with imperfection. Sweat seeps over pores as I seethe at my incompetence. When the flawless blue lines of loose leaf repulse me, I succumb to technology. Every keystroke delivers proportional consistency, yielding blissful pride as my fingers connect. Only then am I free from the curse of my obsessive mind.

Laura Widener

Laura is a wife, mother, and coffee addict living in rural Georgia. She holds degrees in Sociology and Human Services, and completed her MFA in Writing at Lindenwood University. Her forthcoming work will be found in Riding Light and NoiseMedium, and her previous work can be found in TWJ Magazine, Morpheus Tales, and Life in 10 Minutes. Visit her blog at: http://incessantpen.wordpress.com

Matt got the news in time to break up the wedding. Did people actually do that, he wondered, or did that only happen in the movies? Speak now or forever hold your peace. Matt couldn’t remember ever having heard that line spoken at any of the many weddings he’d been to.

Against his heart’s desires, Matt decided to sit the wedding out. Who was he to stand in the way of Carla’s happiness? Instead of attending, he returned to the site of their first date and sat quietly as a piece of the world moved on with his silent assent.

From Guest Contributor Dan Slaten

Things had been bad: misfortune compounding until he just couldn’t face going home. He’d stopped the car near a wooded area; pulled a handgun out of the glove compartment; and started walking, not even bothering to lock up.

The revelation of his resolution brought him to a halt and heightened his senses. The colours of the foliage throbbed like an LSD trip, contrarily grounding him.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Between classes, Hollie and I liked to sneak over to the coffee shop across the road. The trouble was, it was a busy intersection with no crossing points; what a relic! So imagine how frightened I was when she just took off into the busy traffic. Between the perils of angry horns and fast-paced steel she somehow made it to the other side.

“It’s ok,” she said as I caught my breath, “they are not allowed to run you over.”

From Guest Contributor George Aitch

It started with his touch and before that the way he looked at me; clear blue eyes that knew how to take me in, how to see through my quiet, my fear. We explored city streets that summer, always attached, love-linked. A goodnight kiss turned couch tumble—hungry hands searching, lips and teeth crashing, his weight pinning me down. And then that surprise on the back of my neck: sweat, tears so sweet. Surrender, yes, maybe even love; but later, and better, trust and understanding, an intimacy that allowed regrets to be shared, my darkness to escape, a homestead staked.

From Guest Contributor Holiday Goldfarb

Holiday is currently enrolled in the MFA Program in Writing at Lindenwood University, Saint Louis, MO. If all goes as planned, she will graduate in December 2016.

Blue is a breeze blowing wisps of hair across my cheek. Red is juice running down my chin as I bite a sun-ripened strawberry. Green, the scent of freshly cut grass, blades rippling and tickling the soles of my feet. Purple is the fading warmth of a summer’s evening. White, a smooth window pane on an icy winter morning.

I feel these things because I was born deaf, and my vision melted away soon after. I sometimes imagine fleeting specks of color from my first glimpses of life, but those memories exist only in the moments between sleep and waking.

From Guest Contributor Megan Cassidy

Megan is an author and English professor currently teaching at Schenectady County Community College. Her first young adult novel, Always, Jessie will be published by Saguaro Books this spring. Megan’s other work has been featured in Pilcrow & Dagger, Wordhaus, and Gilded Serpent Magazine. For free excerpts and deleted scenes of Megan’s work, check out her website or follow her on Twitter