Hands full of bees, Alice screamed at the sky. Sitting in the grass, blades tickled her thighs. Bee by bee, Alice lined them up. “I’m sorry,” said the speaker at a funeral attended only by the dead.

Alice lay down, tears falling into her hair. She didn’t want the bees to see her cry.

From Guest Contributor Michaela Papa

She hung the dress on a hook and shoved it all the way back in her closet, past her pink winter coat and communion dress. This was where outfits went to die.

She crawled into bed in full surrender. She looked at her cell phone on the table and thought of calling Janet, but she likely wasn’t home yet. The fact she hated that her friend was enjoying herself made everything worse.

The doll sat dirtied and broken, ripped from the hands of the little girl, as they took her parents away. Screaming and reaching for her parents’ hands, the guerilla yanked them away. The young girl, Naba, cried out and ran after them, blurry eyed from tears.

But the truck was long gone leaving nothing but tire marks in its haste. Naba, alone and frightened, picked up the doll, the only present her father was ever able to give her, and walked the dirt road in hopes of finding a home.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Tom and Ruth had been married forty years. The heart monitor was beeping with every breath Ruth took.

She closed her eyes quietly. A bird took off and flew high into the clouds towards the sun. Its counterpart sat pensively, wondering where to go.

From Guest Contributor Steve Colori

Steve was born in 1986 and during undergrad he developed schizoaffective disorder. Over the years he has worked hard to overcome the disorder and help others while doing so. Steve has published thirteen essays with Oxford Medical Journals, he has written freelance for Mclean Hospital since 2011, he writes a column with The Good Men’s Project titled “Steve Colori Talks Mental Health,” and he has a memoir available on Amazon, “Experiencing and Overcoming Schizoaffective Disorder.” A quote he has come to live by is “To Improve is to Change; To be Perfect is to Change Often.” (Winston Churchill)

The mist glistens with false promises. The canopy drips blood of myriad misled bards vanquished by the Mediocre tribe.

Cathbad rises from the straw bed. “No, Carolan, a warning of ignorance.”

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Mouth agape, eyes widened with fear, I looked on to what my world had been. Everything I lived for was swept up in a distant array of mud, debris and…corpses. Even through my grief, I knew the landslide had chosen me, to avenge everyone’s lives that came to an end in this short, devastating moment. This was my calling, which I would live through for the rest of my life, bearing their dreams.

Standing strong, even until this day, I recall this distant memory. With tears beginning to well in my eyes I see hope glimmering from the future.

From Guest Contributor Danielle Simpfendorfer

Robert and Rebecca arrived home to find a dead mouse on their kitchen floor.

Robert could only think about the mess that must have attracted the mouse, and began a thorough cleaning.

Todd places a bouquet of red roses on his wife’s grave. The rain pelts down and the flowers wither. He sighs and kneels on the muddy ground, tears filling his eyes. Drenched from head to toe, he doesn’t care. It’s been two months since Maria died from cancer and his chest aches. He has no family, only his job to keep him company.

After several minutes, the rain stops and the roses return to their natural beauty.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

She consoles the dust for being lonely. The rust for being needy. The rot for becoming unstitched by rain. It is easy to whisper these things on the day of rest. When even birds decline seeding and bees stay inside hives. There was little moving in the sparse outside, save a cat prowling between an empty peach bucket and a splintered fish pole leaned against fence rails, its frayed point vanishing in the tale’s middle.

She sits with tears on her cheek. Cheek on her hand. Pinkie finger tracing glass. Watching her three level acres all forlorn, infertile, sour, outworn.

From Guest Contributor Catherine Moore

Catherine is the author of three chapbooks including “Wetlands” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her fiction appears in Tahoma Literary Review, Illinois Wesleyan University Press, Tishman Review, Mid-American Review, and The Best Small Fictions of 2015 anthology.

Tears flowed down her face.

She nodded. “Death.”

From Guest Contributor Larry Sells