HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:

The three sisters couldn’t spend their summer at home because of smallpox in the town. Their parents acquired the old farmhouse close to the boarding school and their favorite teacher agreed to spend her vacation taking care of them. She told them why the house was empty, of the little girl, who drowned in the cow pond. In time, the spirit came to each: in a dream; as a light over the field at dusk; and to the third sister, as the woman she spent the rest of her life with, from the age of twenty-eight, in a Boston marriage.

From Guest Contributor Jon Fain

Thus far in 2020, Jon’s fiction has appeared in 50-Word Stories, Fleas on the Dog, City. River. Tree., and Blue Lake Review.

Rain blackens the windows, dime-sized water balloons of toxic ash. We haven’t had sun in months, and now this. You look up and say, Think it’ll stop? I love how you still look up, that instinctive angle of hope, of God.

We stand on the porch and watch the rain. Our last neighbors emerge from their house, wave, then slow dance down the street. By the time they reach the corner they’re convulsing like punk rockers. I ask you to dance but you pull me back inside.

From Guest Contributor Charles Duffie

Auntie asks my mother and I to move out of her house. She says I make too much noise when I sleepwalk and my rock albums are causing Uncle Herman more brain damage from his tour of duty in Afghanistan. Upstairs, I take down my posters of Geronimo, John Lennon, and James Dean from the finely cracked yellow walls. Exhausted, my mother sits on my bed and breaks down. “It’s all your fault,” she says. As if I had the power. At night tiny policemen march into my ears. I’m not sure it’s a dream. They say come with us.

From Guest Contributor Kyle Hemmings

Kyle’s latest collection of text and art is Amnesiacs of Summer published by Yavanika Press. He loves street photography, French Impressionism, and 60s garage bands that never made it big.

Thelma raced to the door when she heard the clang of the mailbox. She looked forward to the mail. It gave her hope on these bleak days. Only one envelope today. It was from PFC Herman Davis, dated July 14, 1944.

Jesse instantly knew what it was. This was Freeman’s last letter before he died.

From Guest Contributor David W. Cofer

Through the fog and overgrowth that chokes the front yard, an eruption of tulips grows on either side of the doorway, an invitation to visitors that stopped visiting decades ago. They are the only splash of color on the otherwise gray facade of the crumpling structure that used to be a house.

Tulips once required cold weather to survive. Somehow these plants learned to adapt, and are now in flower nearly year round. A stark contrast to the failure of civilization all around them. Were anyone still alive who could understand, there’s a metaphor to be found in those plants.

Sally spent most of her days cleaning. She polished and buffed and wiped her way through every room in the house, until it was time to start all over again. The dwelling wasn’t that cluttered either. She was just extremely thorough in her routine.

Sally took more care with her possessions than she did with herself. Perhaps because she knew they would someday be all that remained.

Charles Delany stepped off the horse and buggy. In front of him a white
shingled wood house with a porch, surrounded by an abundance of trees,
overlooked the ocean. He removed his hat and walked slowly up the
pathway to the porch. He sat on the wooden bench and took it all in,
listening to the waves slapping against the fishing dock.

“Okay, son, this’ll be your home for the summer. The doctor said the
fresh air and trees are good for your condition.”

Charles nodded and when his father walked away, he coughed clumps of red
into his handkerchief.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Stephanie didn’t know who else to call, so she called the exterminator. She was vague over the phone, preferring him to see the infestation for himself. His condescending tone annoyed her.

Stephanie wasn’t paying attention to his diagnosis. She couldn’t get over the fact he kept pronouncing fungi with a soft gee.

The girls play hopscotch, the one sister’s hair bounces in rhythm to her skips. She giggles and bends to pick up the rock, balancing her leg in the air. She wins, and they play again and again, until the sky opens, drenching them. Hand in hand they run home with their mouths open tasting rain drops. Entering the house, their mother yells for them to take off their wet sneakers and leave them by the door.

Eighty-five-year-old Cindy smiles at the memory.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Toxic chemicals from a nearby factory contaminated Mr. Williams farm. Every year sixty-foot tall corn would grow. The farmhouse and barn are not affected and deemed safe.

“It’s a unicorn,” says Ruth.

From Guest Contributor Denny E. Marshall