I parked across the street and put the car in park. I had the radio low and gulped a beer, hoping a cop wouldn’t catch me in the act. Fortunately, no cars were in sight.

I knew then what I had to do.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

I loved the way Chloe licked her lips after an ice-cold drink, and when her long black hair blew in the breeze. When she tilted her face backward, she looked beautiful.

It thundered, then rained.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

When my parents told me the news that I was adopted, it didn’t shock me. I knew that I was different. I have black hair and deep brown eyes, and both my parents have hazel eyes and blond hair. I was told I took after my grandfather who died before my time. Conveniently, no one had pictures.

I turned and left.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

How many years since your hand found her knee? She will never leave you. Your voice is her background music, her dance. Smile at her from across the kitchen, her hands sorting knives and forks. Her smile is for you, but her thoughts are there, with him. That day. Cold wind pulled them close. Her hand on his neck, his hands in her hair. She knows by now she’d have tired of him as well. Forgotten how she spent afternoons in his freckled arms. She’d gaze across a room not seeing him, not feeling more than this slow, quiet day.

From Guest Contributor Beth Mead

People stared as my white wedding gown dragged along the pathway to the motel room, my head piece barely hanging on. I shut the door and removed the pins from my hair shaking the curls loose. That snake cheated on me with my best friend on our wedding day. I snuck to the house and packed a bag as soon as I saw them together. Now I’m in this dumpy motel, my wedding gown thrown on a chair that has cigarette burns, while staring blankly at the television.

They’ll find that out soon.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Every part of my body ached; and my hair was pasted to the pillow from sweat. My lips were dry, yearning for water, but I couldn’t drink with the tube down my throat. I’m in the hospital, but what happened?

Slowly I’m being moved and sedated into a deep slumber.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

We left our gear on the shore and braved the jungle. Verdant, mossy plants, swollen fruits, normal snakes and spiders. All expected. But that smell. Like sulfur. Why? As earth and rocks piled up it permeated everything. It coated our hair and settled into the weave of our clothes. Warnings went unheeded. When we summited, it was too late. The crag gave way to a cavernous cleft. It glared a stony glare. Then the ground shuttered. Then it trembled. In those final fleeing moments, choked in smoke, death raining down, we understood the island’s ancient name: The Great Giant’s Buttocks.

From Guest Contributor Nicholas De Marino

Clocks are next to useless and no alarm cares what you think of it. Their noise is neither birdsong nor church-bell. It is measured by eye-blinks and muscle contractions. Clocks reflect anxiety when the big hand overtakes the little. Their seconds are like tickles of hair. Sometimes clocks are said to be buying time. But what happens when that time is only borrowed? Clocks stop without notice when their time is up. When their battery runs out, it sounds like the click of a tiny rifle; the tapping of a deathwatch beetle. No one hears it until it’s too late.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

She flips her glasses onto her hair where the shine is slippery. It falls back down to her nose, plastic lenses smudging. She goes for a drive wearing the blurry wedge and thinks she must be imagining the sight of two moons in the sky. One higher than the other, they supervise the intersection. “That was just Mars approaching Earth,” her husband says tartly. He’s quite the mansplainer but she knows a defunct theory when she hears one. She’s seen for herself that it’s possible for the sun to set while the moon rises on anything else, anything at all.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Cheryl’s recent fiction has appeared in Gone Lawn, Necessary Fiction, Pure Slush, and elsewhere.

“She was attractive. Cute face.”

“We can let you go this time,” the other scolded. “Go home and make up or see a marriage counsellor.”

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction regardless of the season or location she finds herself in.