Sally spent most of her days cleaning. She polished and buffed and wiped her way through every room in the house, until it was time to start all over again. The dwelling wasn’t that cluttered either. She was just extremely thorough in her routine.

Sally took more care with her possessions than she did with herself. Perhaps because she knew they would someday be all that remained.

She replayed his voicemail message. ‘Sorry I missed you, I’m just catching the plane now.’ Then an airport announcement sounded in the background and almost drowned out the next words. ‘I left a note on the kitchen table. Read it when you get home.’

Now she picked up the note and read it for the umpteenth time: I love you. See you next week. I’m counting the seconds.

It may have been only words, but they were important. Especially now. How she wished she had gone too, then she would not have had to listen to news of the crash.

From Guest Contributor Henry Bladon

Henry lives in Somerset in the UK and writes all types of fiction. He has a PhD in creative writing and runs a writing support group for people with mental health issues. His work can be seen in Writers’ Forum, MicrofictionMonday, FridayFlashFiction, 50-Word Stories and Writers’ Forum, amongst other places.

The next time you’re caught in a really bad place – the kind of place where people are always asking each other, “Oh why can’t they get that baby out of the ground?” – take some frequently used verbs and combine them in a bowl with Hindu magnet incense, a bit of forgotten history, brain fluid, and warm dog’s breath, and then let the mixture sit for 20 minutes, after which you should be able to see a faint glow up there, see it coming over the hill, women wearing sky blue T-shirts that say “Quaker” and waving signs that say “Love.”

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie’s latest collections are I’m Not a Robot from Tolsun Books and A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel from Analog Submissions Press.

A new year. Time to make new, exciting changes.

Shall I spend more time writing, or perhaps make time to relax with a cup of coffee next to the warmth of the fireplace with a good book. I could clean out the basement and get rid of old Christmas ornaments I never use. How about jogging or enrolling in a paint class. Joining a book club could be fun. I would love to discuss “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Skydiving, snorkeling, traveling the world. Maybe.

Or maybe this is all wishful thinking, since I only have a short time to
live.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Armed agents conceal themselves in doorways and behind lampposts and newspapers. You just passed by one and didn’t even know you had. Time to electrocute your thinking. They’re paid to spy, and they spy on people like me – an old man walking a dog on a rope – who’ve done nothing wrong. I can’t sleep through the night for worry that they’re building a dossier against me by twisting something I said. Is it becoming a grass armchair? A black wall? A crying mirror? If it is, I’m finished. One day I’ll squeeze into a crowded elevator that’ll disappear between floors.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie’s latest collections are I’m Not a Robot from Tolsun Books and A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel from Analog Submissions Press. 

There was an emptiness to everything. Even the space between the minutes lacked connective tissue, so that time no longer flowed with any regularity. Josey was left with nothing but her thoughts to fill the void that descended upon the convenience store after midnight.

She’d divide each 15-minute chunk into 91 cents. That’s how much she made, after taxes and withholdings. It hardly seemed worth it, and she’d stare out at the empty highway and live an entire lifetime during every span, dreaming of a life where she’d never married, had never given birth.

Until even her imagination was empty.

With a slipknot on the hole of you. Look at him, all owl feathers and magic tricks, costumes and dreams, a liar in the land of the living walking on the ceilings of time. Beauty boots and poison peaches work on your weaknesses, blackmail your truth with your vanity, measuring you for fitting. He sings to things you think you are, illusions orbiting colors you can’t see with eyes so wide. The crystal ball rolls up the stairs, bait for your monstrous desire. He wants his woman to fear him. You must be starving: beautiful or not, that’s not love.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Empty Mirror Magazine, Little India, Dămfīno, Nowhere Poetry, Rat’s Ass Review, Peacock Journal, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She has completed a full-length poetry manuscript, is writing a novel, and is editor-in-chief of Blue Planet Journal. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University and teaches creative writing at a community college.

I watched the child in the blue sweatshirt jump in the leaves, laughing. What a delight to have heard the echo of his chortle as I sat with the cool autumn breeze against my face. I had my novel opened at the same page for the last fifteen minutes, my eyes focused on the fair-haired boy.

That boy was me.

From Guest Contributor Lisa Scuderi-Burkimsher

Hurricane season is upon us. Heat is the agitation of molecules. Today it’s raining, and my car is lonely as an empty swimming pool. Like a lost pilot, I drive myself around and around, although I don’t know where I’m going. All I can hear is black and white noise. Yesterday, I combed my hysterical hair, so I looked like someone based on real events. When I applied for the lifeguard job, I told them I prefer select flesh, and I never let the weather bother me. Was Amelia Earhart’s body ever recovered? I’m pretty sure there is still time.

From Guest Contributor Brad Rose

The clock tower, situated in the center of the town square, afforded views of the entire valley. No shadow could hide from its rapacious stare.

When the clock resumed, Rebecca and Victor, despite being certifiably sober, returned to their homes after once again awakening from a stupor under mysterious circumstance.