The Look Of Things

We were invited to a silent room filled with melting glaciers. I just stood there, part of the system, but vulnerable in a way peculiar to men who are naked except for their socks and shoes. I’m constantly creating problems that never even existed. I have to walk really, really carefully or there’ll be more cats than people around. After we’re dead, it’s another story: Cosimo de Medici once complained to Michelangelo, “That sculpture doesn’t look like me.” “Listen,” Michelangelo said, “you’ll be dead in 20 years, this will be around for 2,000 years. So, that’s what you look like!”

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Spooky Action at a Distance from Analog Submission Press.

Trick Or Treat

Drew wanted to play a trick on his young teenage neighbors. He dressed in an elaborate zombie outfit, blood dripping from his mouth, face and hands painted white. He’d wait for the boys and then make his move. It would be nice payback for toilet papering his car last year.

He peered out the window and there they were.

Drew limped down the block screaming. At first, they laughed and threw leaves at him, but then their eyes widened.

“Hey, it’s just me, Drew,” he said and removed the phony mask.

He turned and behind him stood an identical zombie.

From Guest Contributor Lisa Scuderi-Burkimsher

Reunion

Imagining their reunion had helped her do unspeakable things since the Collapse. The cold night crystallized her tears. Others might mistake the flicker on the mountainside for a twinkling star, but she knew it’s a candle burning in the window--their sign. Don’t worry baby, she thought, Momma’s coming.

By daybreak, she had reached their cabin. Its warmth draped itself around her like a blanket. Wiping her shoes on the mat (force of habit) a small thing flew out of a cupboard and pinned itself to her legs. “Mummy! I missed you!” David emerged; his face already crumpled with emotion.

From Guest Contributor Carla Halpin

Fall

The blanket of brown leaves, crisp underfoot before the overnight rains, were now a moist, organic mess. The wind was forcing entire sheaves of debris into clammy piles against curbs and hedges.

The water-logged corpse of one of the neighborhood's homeless lay in the street half-covered as well. A growling dog poked at an exposed leg, disturbed by a scent only it could perceive.

Mrs. Roberts waited at the corner for the paramedics. She didn't like the dog bothering the body, but she was unwilling to get any closer. She instead dragged from her cigarette and stared at her phone.

Arborists Cultivate Trees That Look Like Cell Towers

They are pollinated by wind, insects, and calls from former porn stars to their fathers. They disperse packets of data via winged and plumed seeds. They host mosses, mistletoe, birds, and full-duplex digital transceivers. Ultra High Frequency bands of bark, cork, geolocation, quinine, tannin, code division, salicin, syrup, microwaves, and tearful confessions. Across their collinear arrays of dipoles, clustered characters of fury, lust, and suicide notes are passed among their branches. And, late at night, handed over from tree to tree, lined along the Interstate, in streams of ones and zeros, the fathers forgive their daughters and invite them home.

Dale Wisely co-edits Right Hand Pointing, One Sentence Poems, Unlost Journal, and Unbroken Journal. www.dalewisely.com/literary

The Sickness Unto Death

I pulled up my shirt to show the doctor the painful rash that had appeared like stigmata on my front and back. He looked at it, then shrugged. “What do you think it is?” he asked. I decided at that moment to stop carrying my phone everywhere. Somehow disturbing news still managed to reach me. I was out of step with the times. My days were endless. I walked on the beach, took naps, tried to teach myself the guitar. There was a blue iris sitting in a bottle on my table. It would have made a lovely Hallmark card.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Spooky Action at a Distance from Analog Submission Press. He co-edits the journals Unbroken and UnLost.

New York Strong

I climb the subway steps into the abundant sunshine. The weather is warm and it’s just another September day. Or so I think…

Paper is floating in the air; the sky darkens and desks tremble. Nearby buildings disappear in clouds of smoke. I watch wide eyed from the fourteenth-floor window across from the World Trade Center. Screams are unbearable and angels fall with a thunderous thump to the ground. My heart pounds and I can’t breathe. I don’t comprehend the horror; the fire, blackness, death.

The towers collapse, but eighteen years later we're strong for the victims and their families.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Traveler

Curiosity turned into passion. A passion to explore the unknown.

Time. Space. Alternate history. I visited them all.

And my memories unfolded...

Worlds I explored.Arrakis. Gethen. Narnia.

Characters I observed.Zaphod Beeblebrox. Severian.Winston Smith.

Wonders I experienced.Clocks that struck thirteen.Monoliths that searched minds ofape-like men.Farm animals that spoke of revolution.

Gods of worlds that I was privileged to.Wolfe. Asimov. Lewis. Clarke.

But you wondered about how I made the impossible possible.

Inventor of faster-than-light travel?Navigator of black holes?Man familiar with alien technology?

I responded with three simple words.

"No. I read."

From Guest Contributor John Lane

Good News, Bad News

If it was up to me, I would be anywhere else but this waiting room.

I visit my Doctor as little as humanly possible. In fact, last Monday was the first time I’ve been here in ages. He told me to go to the hospital and take the tests. He said he’d call me back when the results were in.

I got the call an hour ago from the practice nurse. She said the Doctor could see me as soon as I arrived.

The news is not good. It’s twins and my husband has been in prison for two years.

From Guest Contributor Bernie Hanvey

Fuel For Thought

I miss him already.

Longing for his accommodation from my customary position on his lap. His immediate response to desires communicated with a caress of my foot.

This will be our last intimacy for some time. The intercooler died. The journey to the garage is an uncomfortable affair. Accelerating by exhaling, barely contacting the pedal. Still plunging the road behind into an apocalyptic black cloud of unburnt diesel.

Miles per gallon reading’s down to yards. Glares from other road users threaten to ignite the fuel trail.

“Go green!” They yell.

Jersey is green. Spruce Green. Says so on his logbook.

From Guest Contributor Frances Tate