A sweep of peach graced the western sky…maybe. Sleep deprived, he couldn’t really be sure. Vision might be compromised, eyes too bloodshot to discern the ambiguous purity of grey dragging the downpour along the horizon.

Duty called.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Dreams projected on a ceiling from a restless mind. A vision of a better tomorrow plays from the imagination onto the stucco. With pleading hope for happiness to join the rising sun, the reality of sadness can be temporarily cast aside. Muscles relax and the burden lessens with the promise. Eyes close and colors dance a firefly ballet on the back of eyelids. Fantasies and nightmares disturb the slumber but recede with the buzz of an alarm clock. Golden rays of butterscotch pour through the glass and warm the face. I rise, we all rise… with hope in our hearts.

From Guest Contributor Jordan Altman

Because you can see. It is other people who have the problem–flies cannot understand singular vision; pros and cons blink in unison. Suits and snoots on the train and even the grubs on the street shoot sideways sneers and whispers, feary scowls and snickers. The nothingness bothers them, the absence of the right, smooth as burned-off fingerprints. They are not convinced by your best prosthetic and toss you pity, a reward for your emulation of their normalcy. Dark glasses and patches insult the blind and pirates. Your final answer is the biggest lie by the bluntest knife: a wound.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University. She teaches college writing and is the co-owner and chief editor of BluePlanetJournal.com. Her nonfiction, poetry, and flash fiction have appeared in Creations Magazine, Little India, Outpost, Nowhere Poetry, and The Syzygy Poetry Journal.

The detective smoked on the cigar as he watched the new client walk in. The person was evidently from the lower rungs. Quite distinct from his general clientele. He wondered where did she get the reference, money, and the confidence to approach his office.

As he put down the cigar on the ashtray, he recalled the magazine stories about the secretive billionaire. The conspiracy theories on film raced across his vision as the client opened her lips to speak again.

From Guest Contributor Debarun Sarkar

Debarun sleeps, eats, reads, smokes, drinks, labors, and occasionally writes stories and submits them. Recent works have appeared or are forthcoming in Visitant, Off the Coast, The Opiate, Aainanagar, Rat’s Ass Review, Tittynope, and here at A Story in 100 Words, among others. He can be reached at debarunsarkar.wordpress.com

She was tired and had too much to drink. Her eyes drooped to provide the perfect screen for strange imaginings. Time passed.

She’d open late today.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Blue is a breeze blowing wisps of hair across my cheek. Red is juice running down my chin as I bite a sun-ripened strawberry. Green, the scent of freshly cut grass, blades rippling and tickling the soles of my feet. Purple is the fading warmth of a summer’s evening. White, a smooth window pane on an icy winter morning.

I feel these things because I was born deaf, and my vision melted away soon after. I sometimes imagine fleeting specks of color from my first glimpses of life, but those memories exist only in the moments between sleep and waking.

From Guest Contributor Megan Cassidy

Megan is an author and English professor currently teaching at Schenectady County Community College. Her first young adult novel, Always, Jessie will be published by Saguaro Books this spring. Megan’s other work has been featured in Pilcrow & Dagger, Wordhaus, and Gilded Serpent Magazine. For free excerpts and deleted scenes of Megan’s work, check out her website or follow her on Twitter

The light was dim and in the blue to purple spectrum, but he could barely keep his hands from shaking. There between trembling fingers, was the first synthetic bioluminescent bulb.

Then he noticed a reddish glow from one of the beakers on the bench: one containing a slightly different formula. The scientist chased the child.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

I plummet to the earth–the emerald field I stood upon moments before.

Instantly, tranquility engulfs me. Darkness eclipses my vision. I surrender, relishing the divine slumber that beckons me.

From Guest Contributor L. Michelle Corp