There’s a knocking on the spaceship door when there shouldn’t have been. For Chris-sake, I’m umpteen millions of miles from anywhere and here’s this knocking. It’s deliberate, and it’s the all too common knock of: knock, tiddly-knock-knock, knock knock. Is this a space hallucination? I’ve heard of them, but hell’s bells, I’ve only been up here for 50 days, surely it couldn’t happen as soon as this. Oh, mother, it’s peering in the port-hole now and looks just like me. I do feel a bit lonely now, maybe we could get along. I’ve just got to get this hatch open…

From Guest Contributor Len Mooring

My mother went in the hospital for heart surgery and never came out. What would make someone leave all this? It’s a question I often ask myself when I get up in the morning or when I lay down at night. Take cleaning your sheets seriously; there’s sweat and drool and worse on them. (By the way, meat tenderizer and saliva remove bloodstains.) The old bluesmen had voices caked with blood and as scuffed and battered as their guitar cases. No one will believe you live the blues if you wear a suit – unless, like me, you’ve slept in it.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is on the pavement, thinking about the government.

There’s so much still to suffer that even tediously waiting for a train that’s hours late would be a grateful interruption. People are digging in the burning soil with bare hands. My wife’s there. My mother, too. I was going to join them, but now I can’t. It’s as if I’ve become, without my consent, a junk collector. Strange items keep appearing outside the door: a pamphlet, “Human Beings against Music”; rusted bedsprings; a bundle of pencils with broken points; feathers from random birds. Someday, I suppose, children will ask me, “What was it like, the end of the owls?”

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

The apartment is bare of any ornament.

Hannah had expected to find a shambles, hence the bucket of cleaning supplies in her hand. It’s difficult to believe he’s lived in this studio for the past six months. The only sign that she’s in the right place is a stack of his clothes in the corner, neatly folded. Otherwise, there’s none of his personal effects, even in the wastebasket.

Her grief isn’t prepared for this. She’s a mother, long accustomed to fixing the messes of her children. Finding that his last act had been to clean his room leaves her devastated.

Steve wasn’t one to believe in miracles. He understood too well the depravities of the human heart. More often than not he was victim to the world’s machinations. That’s how fate had led him to the streets.

So when the woman offered a hot meal, he expected some sort of catch, likely in the form of a lengthy sermon. When she offered a warm bed, he called to mind images of harvested organs and sexual servitude. When she claimed through phony tears to be his mother, he fled at the first opportunity, certain it was another conspiracy plotting against him.

Knife steadied, I proceeded to chop sweet pepper. Choppy chords of a Chopin prelude dominated the airwaves as the sound of an overhead chopper faded. “Anything else to add to our Chopin list? Sorry, couldn’t help it,” husband laughed. Lucky he’s not on my chopping block, I thought. “Don’t forget. Mother’s here for dinner tonight,” I said. Onions appeared next on my chopping board. “What are you making, Mom?” I turned around to answer: “Vegetarian Chop Suey.” “No lamb chops? That’s okay,” my boy surmised. “Don’t think grandma’s choppers can take anything tough. Does she know how to use chopsticks?

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

I smell the turkey as my father carves each slice delicately. My
mother’s homemade mashed potatoes steaming, the butter melting down onto
my dish, makes my mouth water.

It’s not the food I realize that makes me happy. It’s the faces
surrounding me at this table that I’m thankful for.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

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

Marlee couldn’t sleep, what with all that worry over her mother moving into the senior home down in Florida. So she sat on her Maine back porch, sipping hot cider in the wee October hours, watching falling stars while Bill slept. She stopped thinking about her mother when she realized that way more stars were falling tonight than other worried nights. And then she noticed many of those falling stars changing direction, hovering over the woods, and slowly descending. Then she yelled for Bill and grabbed her fancy new camera phone. The next day, of course, we all found out.

From Guest Contributor John Sheirer

John lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with his wonderful wife Betsy and happy dog Libby. He has taught writing and communications for 26 years at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield, Connecticut, where he also serves as editor and faculty advisor for Freshwater Literary Journal (submissions welcome). He writes a monthly column on current events for his hometown newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette, and his books include memoir, fiction, poetry, essays, political satire, and photography. Find him at JohnSheirer.com.

“Eat this, Mom,” she said, handing me a plastic donut.

The FBI waited below.

From Guest Contributor Bethany Cardwell