The little girl stomps the yellow rain boots through the puddles, scattering the water that bled from the ground and collected in the damaged parts of the cement road.

Once the puddle has disappeared, the patch of ground loses her interest, and she moves down the street, searching intently for another.

From Guest Contributor Caroline Meek

At age eleven I begged to travel to Venice, to see those water streets.

“We’re lucky,” Mama whispered. “Italians don’t even dream about seeing something like this.”

From Guest Contributor L.L. Madrid

Why such sorrow for the swan on the water? Why is it her head is hung with such woe? The moonlight lines her with silver as she glides ripples atop the placid pond. And there are banks of passionflowers that glint their crimsons through the night. Had I been that swan, never would you see my nape so weak and crestfallen, so inwardly curved like tendrils at winter’s start. Because there are other swans on the pond with dispositions just the same. And if I swam my sadness to theirs, perhaps our troubles would combine like violin strings and bows.

From Guest Contributor Man O’Neal

The mustard-lustered staircase was slick with California rain. Loaded with bridal shower largesse, like some kind of Sierra-Sherpa goat, I lost my footing—and lost the water pitcher over the balustrade escarpment. The abysmal fracture at your feet flashed within your eyes; oh the silence, oh the rain. There must have been other gifts, but I remember this one only, and others: forgetting to set the alarm for the eclipse, going to the airport on the wrong day, and missing Sasha’s graduation. The mind adheres to misadventure like a stubborn sticker on glass. Even the dishwasher of time can’t dislodge.

From Guest Contributor David C. Miller

Joseph lived in the trenches. The others came and went, firing weapons at the enemy location before marching elsewhere. Joseph always stayed.

Joseph had a reasonably comfortable spot. He mostly just lay in the soft mud. It no longer mattered if he was face down in the pool of water at their feet. Breathing was no longer necessary.

Still a little queasy, she stepped out of the ‘Beach Hut,’ glad the temporal capsule was not constrained to contemporary hygiene amenities.

She hadn’t expected to cry.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Barbara and Dave fought more on vacation, and much more intensely, than any other time in their marriage.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. They just bobbed quietly in the water, wishing the other one wasn’t there. It would have been better to die alone than to endure each other’s company a moment longer.

This is a 101-word story I wrote for 101 Words. You should check out their site.

I sit and think.

In ways of harnessing this cursed gift, since frustration foreclosures many of them before they leave the pen. In a sense I’m the hopeless poet I so ironically created. The oxymoron of a poet’s life sitting in a empty parking lot.

From Guest Contributor UInk Poetry

Raymond stared across the horizon. Where Denver once stood, there was just a huge crater lake beneath a shimmering mist. The black water reflected the sunlight like a dark twisted mirror. There was no sigh of any survivors.

Staring down at my bloody teeth, I vowed this would be the last I had this nightmare.

Dr. Lawson was the next victim to pay the price for my own cowardice.

Happy Halloween