“She sells sea shells by the seashore.”

“Nobody.”

From Guest Contributor E. Barnes

Dealing with young people at work, Carson experienced flashbacks to his own sometimes turbulent adolescence. He recalled vividly his occasional intense suffering, not from outside influences, but from his own changing body. In particular, an unanticipated growth spurt when he shot up several inches in height in a short period of time. He even got stretch marks around his knees. Growing pains are real.

Who’d have thought growing a clone army would be so noisy?

From Guest Contributor John H. Dromey

John’s short fiction has appeared in Mystery Weekly Magazine, Stupefying Stories Showcase, Thriller Magazine, Unfit Magazine, and elsewhere.

Five naked women had been lined up against the wall. Something about the one in the middle caught the captain’s eye, whether a tattoo or the way she shyly covered her breasts with her hands. “May I offer you some candy?” he asked. It was only then she remembered that Kafka was buried in a plain wooden coffin, a stray fact that under other circumstances might have been interesting to share. That’s just the sort of place this is, no time for a chat, not even about who it was that tracked in blood on the bottom of their shoes.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of What It Is and How to Use It from Grey Book Press. He co-edits the journals Unbroken and UnLost.

I went on my own because I couldn’t get anyone to come with me. What had once been an orchard was now a graveyard for old tires, sprung mattresses, rusty paint cans, even broken microwaves, scattered over the slope like the indecipherable wreckage of some puzzling event. The trees, untended for years, had long since stopped producing apples and been twisted into painful shapes by time and storms and then overwhelmed by creeper vines and opportunistic birds and insects. I just stood with my head cocked to one side as if trying to catch every single word the crows said.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie co-edits the journals UnLost and Unbroken.

I was the kid who sparkled when they walked in the door. The bookish brat who would make her father chuckle while balancing a mountain of literature above her head.

Until it was gone.

From Guest Contributor Alexandra Sullivan

The only time I thought I’d seen a fairy was awakening with a hangover and propped up by the television set playing a Disney channel. But now I’m sober, standing upright, and engaged in talking to one that’s lost her way. She had proved her credentials with a wave of her wand and producing a glass of some mixture she said would quell the aftereffects of over-imbibing, but her wand wasn’t up to the GPS instrumentation. I didn’t tell her that her mob lived at the bottom of my garden. She’s tall and beautiful, and now shacking up with me.

From Guest Contributor Len Mooring

On her death bed, Jennifer’s thoughts don’t dwell on her husband, despite several decades of marriage and two children together.

It was only two weeks, but that was enough time to know Mateo was the love of her life.

Chuck entered the car in a hurry and drove off, tires screeching. His wife, Hallie, was in surgery and he promised to be there when she awakened. He sipped his Starbucks coffee and wondered when the traffic would let up, cursing and punching the steering wheel.

Chuck would be at the hospital, but not for Hallie.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

There are always more volunteers than available spots on the firing squad. But the really terrible part isn’t how cold it is out. It’s how much I tremble. The I Ching advises, “Wait in the meadow,” meaning caring for a cow will bring luck. I can remember a time when everyone wasn’t in such a hurry to fuck off to somewhere. Now, whatever phone number I punch in, the suicide hotline picks up. I think about mentioning this to someone. And then I get distracted by the wind and the rain and the loud kissing noises they seem to make.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Gregory Corso was sitting in the window of Allen Ginsberg’s East Village apartment – two, three hours, just sitting in silence. He had vowed to himself not to be a willing participant to any further chaos. Just to be every day, it took everything. You could be having a really nice time at the beach or the park one minute and in the next minute there could be cops with meaty red faces gassing and clubbing you. Once at a reading some lady asked him, “What’s an id?” and he waited a bit before answering, “Eighteenth-century sea captains carousing in Surinam.”

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of The Titanic Sails at Dawn (Alien Buddha Press, 2019).