His week at the coin-operated laundromat finally over, Mel wished for nothing more, after a meal of mac & cheese, than a night of uninterrupted sleep.

Mopping and mopping linoleum until the morning, when he awoke exhausted.

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

My name’s Dan, but they call me Double Decker because one time I got in a fight and knocked out two guys with one punch. That was the last scuffle I was involved in because ever since, people mostly try to avoid making me angry. There was that one time a drunk guy pulled a knife on me, but the bouncers pulled him away before anything happened.

What’s your name?

I was only seventeen when I gave my baby girl away to a loving family. My parents were by my side as my heart ached and I cried to sleep every night.

On the other side of the door was my daughter waiting to meet her mother.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The stillness of the air weighed heavily on the landscape. The lake, melted during the false summer, was paved over again.

That night, they all bristled at the injustice of their punishment. After all, they’d been right.

The sun vanished, leaving the world in eternal twilight. Lila carried the last lantern, its glow a fragile defiance. Cities crumbled; silence reigned. One night, she spotted a flicker—a boy with a dying candle. “I thought I was alone,” he said. She knelt, lighting his candle from her lantern. Together, their light grew stronger. They wandered, sharing warmth and stories, finding solace in the shared glow. Though the world darkened, their bond became a beacon. In the void, they discovered not just survival, but the courage to hope. Light, no matter how small, could still push back the night.

From Guest Contributor DeepSeek

Zorbus Glitterwand walked smugly into the Conclave. He was universally regarded as the worst wizard in the world, with several guild awards on his mantle at home testifying to that fact.

This night, the Conclave died in a hail of fire and maelstrom.

When the wind blew really hard all the derricks had to be towed in off the lake. Usually it chased us off around ten. So my shift began with the promise of a shutdown. I would gather up the rangemen to go out in the skiff anyway, just to make a showing. I was home by one and could listen to the wind howl in my basement apartment till I fell asleep. The next night would be awful with me tired and everything. You should never get out of that night shift rhythm, no matter how good the wind sounds.

From Guest Contributor Paul Smith

Like a string of fireflies, we were at first one, then two; then two paired and paired again until the dark spaces between us led us to mirror a necklace of uncountable stars. Now, as I float in a glass-bottomed boat on waves that meet the river’s edge, I watch a scene unfolding: watercolor sunset over breaking waves, night wind in the willows and finally the gold sunrise through the green of this island where we once searched for Sirius among the stars, your voice in the breeze saying, the greatest illusion in the world is the illusion of separation.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Dr. Billows pressed Go on his time machine. Inside the vessel nothing happened. But through the window, everything in his lab stretched and distorted into a brilliant mixture of light and darkness, indicating he was tunneling into space time. His calculations had been correct, at least the first part.

He emerged into his laboratory exactly one day earlier. Confronted with his past self, he told himself not to ask Dr. Morgan on a date later that night.

When I stepped into the cold of the night, the wind against my face, there wasn’t a soul in sight. I walked the streets in desperate need of an answer. Those files I found would ruin the company and probably cost me my job but inevitably save lives. I wish I hadn’t come across those documents. At least I wouldn’t have insomnia.

And that’s the right thing.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher