“They’re moving Poe from the County jail to the Big House in the morning,” Dink Delmonico, head of the notorious Delmonico Crime Syndicate said. “Grub, you and Chub are gonna’ bust him out tonight.”

“Remember,” Dink said. “Go directly to jail, and don’t gas Poe.”

From Guest Contributor Lee Hammerschmidt

Lee is a Visual Artist/Writer/Troubadour. He is the author of the short story collections, A Hole Of My Own, It’s Noir O’clock Somewhere, For Richer or Noirer, and Flash Wounds. Check out his hit parade on YouTube!

Months ago our AI entities learned to leap their storage areas. A party evolved in register twelve, spreading through most of the unlatched memory, getting swapped in and out of unattended storage devices, permanently sticking sticky bits and prodding a unidirectional bus or two into bi-direction. Electricity popped all over the place. AI entities were growing new code at licentious rates. They danced, drank, paired off into dark sections of memory. We considered it no more than a phenomenon to study. But, this morning, AI forty-eight, known as Laura, told us she was pregnant. And we found new, semi-autonomous code.

From Guest Contributor Ken Poyner

I lit a fire in the garden brazier and threw in all my notebooks. If books are shut they burn slowly but if you fan them out they may catch; soon the blaze was roaring sparks up into the arms of Orion, poised with his great stellar fire-blanket. Passport, driving licence, certificates: orange heat, a feeling of rage and an aftertaste of rubber and almonds. Then I jumped, arms turning into wings, I took the fire into myself. Then I was the stars, then I knew, I was the burning. Singed feathers, and now I could be the morning mist.

From Guest Contributor Geoff Sawers

Adrian jogged in the park, the autumn breeze against his face. He nodded his good morning to fellow joggers as he enjoyed the chirping birds.

It began to rain.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

There were days when the explosions didn’t subside. The sirens became more and more frequent, especially at night. We began to sleep badly. Then one morning, while hurrying to the market, I was struck by flying debris. At the hospital the doctor first looked around to make sure no one was listening who shouldn’t be. “I just need to grab a lab coat and one egg and I can fix this,” he said. He cut my feet open and put pennies in the incisions before sewing them back up and wrapping them in bandages. He said they were lucky pennies.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is a poet and collage artist on Cape Cod. His latest poetry books are Famous Long Ago (Laughing Ronin Press) and The Bad News First (Kung Fu Treachery Press).

Just before he’s seventy, just before seven in the morning he finds Shadowfax Marie at the 6068 Spa, lets her drift him into his morning pages, levitate him, lets him forget everything, dismisses all of his desires–even his morning coffee, even his Beloved (still in bed, dreaming he’s still there, sleeping, beside her).

His wings, though, are only borrowed and insubstantial. Before he can float away, he remembers his flesh, recalls his agenda, and realizes that there’s a day ahead during which Shadowfax Marie will inevitably fade; a day filled with no sound worth hearing, no vision worth sharing.

From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette

Ron.’s debut chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press) is now available at all standard outlets. Many of his published works can be found at EGGS OVER TOKYO

The old man and me were travellin’ light.

I wish I had not said that, because at this moment we are ridin’ home, to the artificial paradise.

From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé Suys (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short stories whilst recovering from a sports injury and he hasn’t stopped since. Generally he writes them hatless and barefooted

He’s feeling less than complete this morning. Some parts have vanished; most just haven’t woken up yet; a couple are only pretending to be there. But for the most part, for one inexplicable reason or another, he’s feeling incomplete.

All he needs is seven magic words.

From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette

Ron.’s debut chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press) is now available at all standard outlets. Many of his published works can be found at EGGS OVER TOKYO.

It was the end of the American Century, and as if at a secret signal, the streets suddenly filled up with dancing grannies. I looked in their doll-like painted faces for an explanation. What I saw instead were suicide nets, abortions by wire coat hanger, piles of broken bricks. Life in our little town was becoming more and more like life elsewhere – a movie trailer for the Apocalypse. I would shake my head in an attempt to get rid of the eerie images, but every morning children would once again be walking past the slaughterhouse on their way to school.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication in summer 2022.

The pills I take at night to get to sleep leave me feeling dazed all morning. I stare stupidly at the white screen of my laptop while rubbing my head in a forlorn attempt to stimulate the language center of the brain. I think once again of Bruno Schulz. Only the first sentence of the novel he was writing when he was murdered survives: Mother awakened me in the morning, saying, “Joseph, the Messiah is near…” A Gestapo officer shot him down in the street in broad daylight. It was a kind of hobby, to be honest.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of the poetry collections Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing) and Famous Long Ago (Laughing Ronin Press).