No Paradise

We left our gear on the shore and braved the jungle. Verdant, mossy plants, swollen fruits, normal snakes and spiders. All expected. But that smell. Like sulfur. Why? As earth and rocks piled up it permeated everything. It coated our hair and settled into the weave of our clothes. Warnings went unheeded. When we summited, it was too late. The crag gave way to a cavernous cleft. It glared a stony glare. Then the ground shuttered. Then it trembled. In those final fleeing moments, choked in smoke, death raining down, we understood the island's ancient name: The Great Giant's Buttocks.

From Guest Contributor Nicholas De Marino

Sunday Morning

Staying home sick from Church is the real blessing. The entire comics section all to myself. Mom leaves me hot chocolate with the hard marshmallows dissolving into pure sugar.

Sinking into the beanbag. Feet buried in the shag of the carpet, working knots with my toes. Sips of too hot chocolate that burn my tongue with sweetness

Calvin and Hobbes. Peanuts. The Far Side.

It's a perfect Sunday morning.

I don't hear my older brother come home early. Before I know it, he has me buried under the beanbag, smothering me so I can't breathe.

I hate my older brother.

Coffee?

Coffee? I asked.

Totally, you replied.

When I offered an invitation, you always accepted. You never extended one yourself.

Was this friendship a one-way mirror, a one-way road, a one-note song?

Over several years, I pondered what it signified. If a friendship is only one-sided, is it a friendship at all?

I waited. I didn’t hear from you. Months.

Lunch? I asked.

Can’t wait, you answered.

More months later.

Dinner?

Tomorrow? Your text read.

Your company was always innocuous, comforting in a way. Reliably benign.

I never messaged you again. After nineteen years, that was the last time we spoke.

From Guest Contributor Justene Musin

I Alone

Jim, Clark, Alex, and myself lined up before the principal like toy soldiers. We'd grumbled the whole way here, lamenting Grace Johnson's unforgivable sin of tattling. I could tell for the others the complaints masked an underlying horror of what punishments might await. They'd never been in real trouble and us regulars liked to tell stories to bolster our bonafides.

Dr. Wilson lectured us for a few minutes before demanding a confession and apology. I don't know what bravado took hold of me, but I stepped forward.

"I alone threw mud at those girls."

The others nearly cried in relief.

The Park

Since the death of my father, I made it a habit to walk in his favorite park every Saturday, something we always did together. Sometimes we had a catch, until one day his hand slipped, and the ball landed in the lake with a splash, and people chortled and pointed. That’s when I knew his Parkinson’s was getting worse. Soon after, he was unable to do the things he loved, gardening being one of his fondest.

I stood by the lake and listened to the children playing when I saw something float by.

It was the ball from our catch.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Sand In My Shoes

Time is an abstract concept. Yet the seconds, minutes, and hours are woven into the very fabric of existence just as surely as the matter around us. The matter inside us, for that matter.

Forgive me the pun. It may be the last one I have time for.

Understanding time is an integral part of the universe doesn't make it any more concrete. Time depends on where the observer is located.

My days as a young man passed by so quickly. Now, I look down and there's nothing but sand in my shoes. One breath of wind, and I'm gone.

July 25th

What a disgusting way to look at someone. Like you can not, so you do not. So what are you DOING looking at me if you can not? I can see it not happening for you.

Your reality will not let it happen, so you don’t acknowledgewhat is reflecting in your eyesgo back to what is yoursgo back to what is in front of youlet me slide into the backgroundI am nothingto you nowI am nothingI am the crowdthis strange nothing breathing nothingI am nothingnothingdon’t smiledon’tno

From Guest Contributor Nick LaSorella

Squabble

Up from clamor of Thanksgiving dinner, two voices drowned out the rest. Uncle Frank (Mom's brother) and Uncle Norm (Dad's brother), were at first pointedly not talking towards each other as they contradicted everything the other said. Then it was raised voices, direct, insistent, until they were shouting over everyone, ignoring their wives' pleas.

Then the fighting really began, first with silverware, then a carving knife versus a brass candlestick, then gunfire and light artillery. By this time, the two halves of the family had divided.

There would be no more Thanksgiving dinners until after the war was long over.

Teases

Sam is lying languid on yellow sheets. James will be home tomorrow which leaves little time for new lovers.

Sam reaches up and receives the glass and sips, as I drink from the bottle and look at scars on a wrist, tattoo marked and bled, bracelet often mislaid.

Bob Marley doesn't give a shit, while Sam Cooke looks dispirited at what yet will come. Joplin cries wild abandon from vinyl well-worn and well earned.

And James will return and for now Sam is here and I am here and the bottle is half full and Sam teases with a fingertip...

From Guest Contributor Michael Tyler

Michael writes from a shack overlooking the ocean just south of the edge of the world. He has been published in several literary magazines and plans a short story collection sometime before the Andromeda Galaxy collides with ours and...

On The Plane

Passengers on a flight from Dallas to Los Angeles reportedly freaked out when they spotted a rat on board. No one airborne wants to see a rat running around. And yet...

Mel, one of the passengers, turned to the man sitting beside him.

“Mel's the name. I'm going to a dry-cleaning convention.”

“Dry cleaning, huh?”.

Otto Franzblau had forgotten to pick up his dry cleaning before the flight. As he explained to Mel, he was giving a paper on medical laboratory experimentation in Los Angeles.

Dry-cleaning? Laboratory experiments? Could anyone blame the rat for trying to get off the plane?

From Guest Contributor David Sydney