When they jitterbugged with lithesome feet and flirted, Daniel gave Elizabeth a string of pearls. She wore them on Saturdays with plunging necklines and on Sundays with flowery dresses and nonsensical hats. After the divorce, she stored the pearls in a cotton drawstring bag for safekeeping. When her hair turned gray and she fell ill, Elizabeth presented the pearls to her daughter, holding them out with her reedy arm, hesitant to surrender them, even then. Her daughter preserved them in the cotton pouch, and took them out now and again, grateful her mother never knew the finish had chipped away.

From Guest Contributor Dana Shepherd Morrow

He held the rifle tightly. Looking through the scope, his target was approaching. Should he take the shot? The target was approaching slowly, allowing the opportunity to fire multiple shots before anyone would react.

With that thought, Lee Harvey Oswald pulled the trigger.

From Guest Contributor Matthew Kresal

In the beginning, I cried for it. Yet each night after dark, I threw up that sour formula, that fake milk warmed in glass bottles my mother tested on her wrists, so I wouldn’t burn my mouth.

It scares me to close my mouth.

From Guest Contributor Cinthia Ritchie

Cinthia is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee who writes and runs mountains in Anchorage, Alaska. Find her work at Water-Stone Review, Evening Street Press, Third Wednesday, Best American Sports Writing 2013, Sports Literate, The Boiler Journal, Cactus Heart Press, Mary: A Journal of New Writing, damselfly press, Memoir, Sugar Mule, Foliate Oak Literary Journal and other small presses. Her first novel, Dolls Behaving Badly, released from Hachette Press/Grand Central Publishing

“How are you really, dear?”

“I gave him your number. Have you had the chicken salad here?”

From Guest Contributor Jean Blasiar

The woman limped slowly down the street, a pained look on her face, looked twice, and dropped an envelope inside a mail drop box. She felt a vibration in her pocket, checked her phone, and promptly gave a one-finger salute to the overhead sun.

Incoming Text 2:36PM: Obscene gestures made to Patriot Security Surveillance Devices will result in a fine of $200.

From Guest Contributor Matt Turner

All I could say to my mother as she stood haggard over the sunken sink and washed the dishes; rattled the stainless steel pots trying to make some type of noise to fill up space that the silence had long held ransom was, “I don’t mean to be sad.” I gripped at the air as I said the words; tried to catch eloquence and understanding in my palms. I wanted to give her a better answer, a better reason. I wanted to appease. “I don’t mean to be sad,” again. Basic. All I could be…everything I could say. “I’m sorry.”

From Guest Contributor Endya Goliday

Endya is a fiction writer and playwright who resides in Saint Louis, Missouri.

The plum blossoms dance in the spring breeze like pink snowflakes across the yard.

After her funeral, floodlights illuminate wreckage of the fallen tree. A brittle heart splinters. Sobs erupt anew.

From Guest Contributor Eric Schweitz

Barbara fiddled with the hem of her shirt. Untucked, disheveled, fraying at the edges, the shirt reflected Barbara’s state of mind.

Barbara smiled as her mother departed. She knew she’d never be allowed any freedom, not while her mother yet lives.

“What’s this old vinyl record,” I call to Dad.

“Yes. After dinner with a bottle of good red wine, that was the record your Mother played…well, you know how these things end. You were conceived…seminal.”

From Guest Contributor Barry O’Farrell

Barry is an actor living in Brisbane, Australia. The acting experience has inspired a latent desire to write. Barry is enjoying the challenge of writing in 100 words.

It was agreed I would be home schooled, with my Mother as the teacher.

That’s how I flunked home school.

From Guest Contributor Barry O’Farrell

Barry is an actor living in Brisbane, Australia. The acting experience has inspired a latent desire to write. Barry is enjoying the challenge of writing in 100 words.