He received a large order to carpet an entire wall: that meant working late at the light tannery, in the other room. He looked at the skyscrapers at the far end of the room where he was now, but it could be done. He had to get to the other room, where the flowers grew: once the stem was cut, the stone inside reacted chemically with the local oxygen, then melted into spots of light whose original texture was much like a tongue’s. He sighed, thinking about his life. What he really enjoyed was preparing chlorophyll manually, on the piano.

From Guest Contributor Angelo Colella

I went to a market of oddities and curios. One hundred vendors and their jars of preservation liquids, mounted heads, spell jars, and crystal towers. Shoppers passed me with arms full of worn antlers and venomous plants. I weaved my way through the crowds until I stood in front of a glittering wall. Iridescent wings pinned in shadow boxes lined up like soldiers against black stock paper. I never knew something could be beautiful and sad at once. The stage lights did not do justice to the splayed things. Floating over flowers in the sun is a much better sight.

From Guest Contributor Madeline van Batum

Madeline lives in Colorado with her cat and hopes that one day she can go back to her home country of the Netherlands to finally meet the Flying Dutchman.

Meanwhile, Franz Kafka sells another piece of his dead mother’s jewelry to pay for his brothel visits. Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse go horseback riding together. Alma Mahler has just aborted their child. The police question Picasso, but he has an alibi and they release him after slapping him around. Summer is fading, and Rainer Maria Rilke feels it as a wound in his chest. Using an alias, Adolf Hitler boards a train for Munich to escape conscription in the Austro-Hungarian army. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is missing from the Louvre. Museumgoers lay flowers in front of the bare wall.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie’s latest poetry collection, THE HORSES WERE BEAUTIFUL, is forthcoming from Grey Book Press.

“Don’t call me that,” I, blue-in-the-face, scream at my grade school friend. The hallway is long and narrow, lit by one naked bulb, a beaded pull-chain hanging. I stand trembling at the edge of the basement stairs.

Ready or not.

From Guest Contributor Flo Gelo

She lies nestled upon the seabed, in the depths almost beyond the sun; she calls to me, drawing me in ever closer since I first saw her.

She’s waiting for me there.

From Guest Contributor Andrew Anderson

Andrew (he/him) is a writer of fiction from Bathgate, Scotland. His work has previously been published by National Flash Fiction Day Press, Sampson Low Ltd., Selcouth Station Press, The Drabble, Black Hare Press, Eerie River Publishing, Paragraph Planet, Steering 23 Publications, and Blood Song Books.

The showerhead above rains hot water hitting the skin hard with maximum strength, like it means it, sending a tingling current that pulls through every fiber. Having a powerful drowsing effect, these watery sounds mingled in heater noises fill the room like a warm blanket. A comforting scent of the body wash lifts the spirit up to a momentarily lightness of serenity. Back against the wall, I stare emptily at the floor as if I can see through it to the scornful world beneath. I think I still have some time to go…or do I?

“May I come in?”

From Guest Contributor David Chek Ling Ngo

David Chek Ling Ngo is a professor at a Scottish university in Malaysia.

“Tree looks unwell,” stated Dad.

“Grandpa would’ve loved this tree,” said Robbie.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. She resides in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, stuffed animals and many friends.

An ex-beauty queen has been found in her bedroom decapitated, limbless, a chainsaw nearby. On the wall, a decorative wooden sign says, “Breathe deeply and calmly.” How do you do that? We need a plan, an intervention, something. In Hiroshima after the bomb, they piled the bodies in the swimming pool at the college and cremated them with scrap wood. Last night when my mother finally managed to fall asleep, she dreamed she was walking through a ruined city in a hospital gown left behind from her cancer surgery, while, in the distance, sirens screamed. Assume the monster is everywhere.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of The Death Row Shuffle, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

Erik sat silently in the small attic, fatigued, and his legs aching from being crunched together in the confined space. His father had told him to stay quietly hidden until the birds chirped.

A gun was aimed at Erik’s head.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:

Quintus, uncomfortably warm, found himself staring blankly at the frescoes on his wall of intertwined naked ladies and men. Startled out of his daydream when the floor shook and the walls cracked, he ran through the atrium to the front wooden door and opened it. People scrambled the streets, colliding into one another screaming in terror. Mount Vesuvius had erupted into fiery lava, ash and pumice.

Quintus ran, but the roof collapsed and buried him in a pile of burning rocks. With shallow breathing, and his lungs collapsed, he bid farewell to Pompeii as the sound of dying screams faded.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher