Delusion

As he nailed the boards over his windows one by one, each pounding of the hammer reinforced his decision. The world was about to die.

The sad part about reality is there can never been any ironclad certainty. Civilization was coming apart at the seams, an obvious fact if you just looked around. But people said he was crazy and chose to ignore all the warning signs.

He felt sorry for them. They had fallen under the mass delusion, and they would not be prepared for the end times. Perhaps his pity would be some solace as they all burned.

The Hold-Up

Standing in a long bank line that isn’t moving makes M itchy. The dog controller, sloughed in front of her, smells of stale tobacco. M stands too close, and her nose begins to run. In time to her sniffles, the line of gritty workmen shifts its weight. M looks ahead and sees the hold-up—the town collector, cashing her social security. At last, she steps away. The line glares at her. On her way out, red velvet cupcakes catch her eye. She stops, takes napkins, and stacks a tower inside her oversized purse—smiling, this is what she came for.

From Guest Contributor M.J. Iuppa

Change

On the working class tube filled with out-of-work laborers, gangs and students, Reyva hugged her backpack on her lap and gazed at the ads above her head. 

“Change your Life! Travel with Distant Horizons!” 

She ditched her unfinished schoolwork and went. 

At Distant Horizons, she lied about her age. She wasn’t afraid to make adult choices.

They strapped her to a table. Fear gripped her, but they stripped it away. Gave her a new body, a new purpose.

Within the storms of Thacyline, she rode the winds on golden wings and avoided looking towards Earth. 

She could never go back.

From Guest Contributor Tyrean Martinson

The Rights And Duties Of A Mother

The apartment is bare of any ornament.

Hannah had expected to find a shambles, hence the bucket of cleaning supplies in her hand. It's difficult to believe he's lived in this studio for the past six months. The only sign that she's in the right place is a stack of his clothes in the corner, neatly folded. Otherwise, there's none of his personal effects, even in the wastebasket.

Her grief isn't prepared for this. She's a mother, long accustomed to fixing the messes of her children. Finding that his last act had been to clean his room leaves her devastated.

Patience Is The Hardest Virtue In Life

Blessed be the Gods that bring forth the life I’ve longed for in this grove I thought I’d decay in. Even Warriors have weakness—an Achilles' heel. Mine: the matching Fates tread to be woven with my golden strand.

The battle, memorable, left me stripped of my armor and shield. Broken and defeated. Among bare trees. Their roots burrowing down constricting me, but I learned to live with the pain.

Over a decade, I’ve waited for destiny to come home. Embrace me with open arms and a genital kiss. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, you knew he’d come back for me.

From Guest Contributor McKenzie A. Frey 

A Rational Rebuttal To The Philosophy Of Futility

Eric got up from his table, leaving his philosophy books sprawled across the surface. Cramming for the test at this juncture was a futile gesture. He was certain Paul Nystrom would agree, but it wouldn't help him ace this test.

He'd heard of one student from several years back who aced his finals with a single sentence. "What's the point?" He'd gotten the only A in his class.

He also knew of at least two students who tried the same trick last year, and they'd both failed.

Philosophy professors love all ideas, except the one that questions their own validity.

Perhaps Just An Innocent Woman

Maybe they were tears or could be a shining in the eye. He was weak and had a fragile walk, while waving at his daughter. His ex-wife looked on with a miffed face. Her long-time affair waited for her, across the road in his Ferrari. She pushed her daughter towards the car. The poor child kept on looking at her father till her last gaze. Both of them separated by destiny and bound out of pure love. She was a gold digger and he a humble professor. Why didn't he give her some life lessons? She looked deprived of learning.

From Guest Contributor Manmeet Chadha

Sophie's Voice

It got to the best of them.

“Yes, I went to that movie, have those boots, test-drove that car just the other week,” Sophie would yipe.

There was nothing she had not lived, owned, eaten, worn, dated, or experienced by association: no conversation – however private or surreptitious – she didn’t inveigle her way into.

They decided to invent something to teach her a lesson.

“Went to that gig you recommended, Gloria. Buttinskis? Wow!!”

“Nosey can fairly play that bass, eh?”

“Oh yes, I went to their debut last month,” Sophie interjected.

Their shared smirk soured at her gormless need to belong. 

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

The Gift

Today the mailman came with a special delivery package. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and bore no return address. I was required to sign for it, which I did, and watched the mailman jump in an unmarked black van and speed away. I took the box inside and set it on the kitchen island. I wondered who might have sent it. I have no friends or family. It's a peaceful life. Then I heard the screaming—a man's screaming. Hard to make out at first, but once you keyed into it, you couldn't stop hearing it for anything.  

From Guest Contributor Meeah Williams

The Swans On The Seine

“O ugly ducklings grown into beauty, are ye homesick too?”

Thus I, standing in the shadows of the House of Quasimodo, watching you glide upon these placid waters, O snow-winged sisters of my soul!

“Swans fly south for the winter” You, of whom I first read in the sun-baked plains of my homeland, a world soaked in the scents of masala and mangoes – in this city of eternal Autumn, you have made yourselves a second Spring.

You know not my home, O Daughters of Winter. I know not yours. Yet here the twain shall meet, Once Upon a September.

From Guest Contributor Hibah Shabkhez

Hibah is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, a teacher of French as a foreign language and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Studying life, languages and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.