You know that FOMO feeling when you realize your friends have been hanging out without you? Every insecurity threatens to overwhelm as you fear never being invited out again and wonder what horrible things were said about you in your absence?

Of course, every time I awaken from a particularly delicious dream I must worry about what fantasies I’ve left behind.

Clocks are next to useless and no alarm cares what you think of it. Their noise is neither birdsong nor church-bell. It is measured by eye-blinks and muscle contractions. Clocks reflect anxiety when the big hand overtakes the little. Their seconds are like tickles of hair. Sometimes clocks are said to be buying time. But what happens when that time is only borrowed? Clocks stop without notice when their time is up. When their battery runs out, it sounds like the click of a tiny rifle; the tapping of a deathwatch beetle. No one hears it until it’s too late.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

There was a knock on the cabin door.

Her worst fears were realized. There was a man out there.

Christine clenched the sides of the arm chair to stifle a scream. She’d just broken up with Eric after three years of disregard laced with open disdain. For most of their relationship, she was expecting him to break things off himself for how little he seemed to care. The thought had both upset her and enticed her at the same time.

The worst part was she wanted to give him another chance.

Millions of years ago, this desert lay at the bottom of an ocean. The sand I’m walking on is the crushed bones of our ancestors, lost to time except for the polynucleotide chains twisted inside of us. Their collective memories have been encoded inside me. Had they not lived and died, I would not exist.

The desert stretches out of sight in all directions. It might never end for all I know. Even if I could arrive at the other side, how would I know I was there. You never know when you’ve reached the end. You can only guess.

I know only one enemy in this world, that person who holds power over me. No matter how slight the exercise of authority, how minor the inconvenience, any attempt to coerce me in any manner, even if I would have otherwise been inclined to act in the desired fashion, will be met with the strongest disagreement within my power.

You insist I should eat more vegetables. I will only be eating meat from now on. I am a rebel. I am the rebellion. Tell me what to do one more time, and I’ll be the leader of a third-grade revolution.

There’s no spark of recognition in her eyes when we pass. It’s as if we’d never met before.

Now I’m the one flying.

Thomas was excited to see Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre. President Lincoln would be attending, and he was overwhelmed with contentment that he’d be there on the same night.

That would be the one and only time I’d see Lincoln.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

He’s seeking to please, down on his knees, when everything freezes.

It just goes to show: nothing truly matters, when nothing ever lasts.

Brother declared himself ‘nonconformist,’ deciding back in grade school that rules and rituals mattered not.

Mother stopped making his bed. No one slept in it again.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes mainly short fiction and poetry.