HUBRIS CONTEST:

Brave fish are always doomed.

From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri

Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. A native of Idaho, Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, and Ariel Chart, among others.

The suicide stopped drowning for a minute to pose for the art students sketching on the riverbank. It happened about the time Sartre claimed he was being followed through the streets of Paris by a pair of rare blue lobsters. The bearded lady sat at the window, beautiful in her own way, but struggling to decide whether or not she should start to shave. Even though Hitler was dead, the screams from the gas chambers went on. People in the surrounding area would later say they thought it was just the collection of apple-cheeked Hummel figurines above the fake fireplace.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of The Death Row Shuffle, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

The day after they were introduced to each other, the author sent a message.
“I’m planning on writing a story about a young, talented and beautiful female musician, thousands of miles away from home. But I’ve still got some research to do. I thought maybe you’d like to help me out.”

“Do you think it’ll have a happy ending? I love happy endings.”
​
From that moment on, they both knew her story also became his.

From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short fiction whilst recovering from a sports injury and hasn’t stopped since.

“Hurry up with those bricks!” the manager screamed.

They looked at him with contempt, and a man stepped forward before answering, “Learn our language and find out, then maybe someday you’ll be our equal.”

From Guest Contributor Caitlyn Palmer

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.

HUBRIS CONTEST

Jack rolled his eyes. Don’t these people realize my connections? He called his lawyer.

From Guest Contributor Janice Siderius

I cannot thank you,
little cat with serious eyes,
for your gift of a dead mouse.

I must appear to you: so huge,
so hairless, so hopeless a hunter. I am thankful
for what I cannot understand, this strange
love than can span species.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Caesar

Cheryl lived in Paris, Tuscany and Sligo for 25 years; she earned her doctorate in comparative literature at the Sorbonne and taught literature and phonetics. She now teaches writing at Michigan State University. Last year she published over a hundred poems in the U.S., Germany, India, Bangladesh, Yemen, and Zimbabwe, and won third prize in the Singapore Poetry Contest for her poem on global warming. Her chapbook Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era is now available from Amazon and Goodreads.

With the encouragement of family and friends, I adopted a retired bomb-sniffing dog. I called him “Flash” – after the flashing lights of a migraine, I would joke to anyone who asked. One day he discovered under the couch a severed doll’s head I didn’t even know I had. Next the piano stopped producing sounds when I sat down to play it. Then the tree outside my window appeared suspended like an astronaut in space. Now I often catch the dog lying on the couch studying me with cold, squinty eyes as if calculating exactly how much a person can bear.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of THE DEATH ROW SHUFFLE, a poetry collection forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

“I’ve always heard it.”

The psychologist wrote: persistent auditory hallucinations & delusions of grandeur. There might be a book deal in this; a construction worker who believes himself a composer. Hottest thing in ClinPsych since the man who mistook his wife for a hat.

From Guest Contributor Harman Burgess

Harman’s short fiction has previously been published in CafeLit and Friday Flash Fiction, as well as in the upcoming September edition of Scarlet Leaf Review.

Lucif turns to his friend Mi. “Let’s go.”

He is going home.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher