Value

No one understood the value of something as well as Mr. Henderson. He pushed his shopping cart up and down Jamaica Hills, watching everything with the eyes of a raven. He could spot a scrap of discarded metal from 200 yards away.

Mr. Henderson would never let you litter. He'd eat your bread crusts or use your cigarette butts to line his jacket. And he could fix anything. Nothing was ever too broken for Mr. Henderson.

I always wonder what happened to Mr. Henderson. The last time I saw him, he was unconscious in that storm drain, surrounded by paramedics.

Her Biggest Regret

She had an ex-boyfriend named Carl. She regretted him more than those leather pants or that weekend trip to Trenton. He was her worst mistake in a lifetime of blunders.

Carl still stalked her intermittently. She always knew when he was nearby because of the hamburger wrappers in her stairwell. These occasions should probably have frightened her more than they did, but she knew Carl was essentially harmless. He had a hard time with letting go.

Years later she realized that she had never actually broken up with Carl. He wasn't stalking her. He simply thought they were still dating.

Rivals In Romance

Carl loved Savannah with true devotion. Unfortunately, his rival for her affections had much more to offer in the way of money, stability, looks, and sexual prowess. Sebastian, however, had no understanding of true love.

Carl and Sebastian hated each other as true rivals do. They contested everything, from golf outings to strong man competitions. Carl always lost. Even at endeavors that one might consider of a sensitive nature, such as poetry readings, Sebastian proved the better man.

In the end, Savannah wed the town haberdasher in an arranged marriage. Still, Carl and Sebastian continued their feud well into January.

Hopity Hop Carl

Hop. Hop. Hop. He was always hopping. Carl’s favorite thing to do was Hop. Sometimes he liked to swim. Or get food. But he was tired of living his life without meaning. He wanted to get a job.

Carl wrote up his resume, thinking of things that would get him employed. He wrote about how he was good at hopping.

The bosses of The Jump Company read his resume and decided he would be a good fit for their job opening. So they called him in for an interview for Monday.

Little did they know, Carl was really a frog.

Guest Contributor Zoey Zozo

Manufactured

The murder scene was wiped clean long before the police arrived to trample it in their carelessness. It didn't matter. Their best evidence was always manufactured.

Carl would maintain his innocence until the day he was executed. Most non-biased observers believed him. He was a convenient fall guy to take the blame for a crime that couldn't be solved. Yet no one dared leap to his defense. If the court system officially concluded Carl had murdered a family of seven while at the same time driving his taxi on the other side of the city, who was anyone to argue.

Carl

The windows to Carl's apartment were always closed. Summer heat and cancer-causing insulation made the one-bedroom flat in the still unseemly section of Brooklyn stink of rot and turpentine.

Carl sometimes paced about with a listless gait. He was married to the apartment, having been outside it only once or twice in his entire memory. There was nothing worth exploring that hadn't been explored years before. The bulk of his time was spent gazing out the window.

But as far as New York City house cats went, Carl had it better than most thanks to the corpse in the bedroom.

The Bronze And Beige

Autumn had descended over the valley with all its bronze and beige. Solomon found clinging to the days required more vitality than his chronic fatigue would allow. He sat his jeep with the same listlessness he sat his arm chair. Neither the work nor his TV could keep his attention.

His life was fading. Even patriarchs come to an end. His family would live on without him, but Solomon wished, in a secret part of his soul, he could take all this land with him. He was ready to die, ready to leave his family, but not ready for nothing.

The Hell Cow

She was no ordinary cow. You could tell immediately by the indecent way she chewed her cud. She almost licked her lips with anticipation. She understood it was wrong, but she chewed anyway.

No heifer had ever embraced all seven deadly sins with such fervor. She had long ago discarded her pastoral virtues, no longer content to play her role of milk-giver. She delighted in corrupting others from her herd. There was no possibility of redemption, and woe to anyone who crossed her path.

And there she was, the infernal bovine, munching the grass in my front lawn. Damn her.

Cliffhanger

Ben strained with all his might. It had been an errant throw, despite Rodney's insistence it was on purpose. Now here they were, poised on the edge of a cliff, literally hanging on with their fingertips, trying to reach Ben's coin. A stiff breeze would blow it over the abyss.

It wasn't that there was anything particularly special about the coin--no magical powers, it wasn't even that lucky--but he must retrieve it. The way it was poised there like an unanswered question made it impossible for Ben to give up.

Finally he had it.

“Tails. I go first.”

Holding It In

Hannah’s entire life has been spent looking for the perfect bathroom. It goes without saying it needs to be clean. Spotless. No untoward odors or any hint of fecal matter. It would be best if the toilet had never been used. A virgin toilet made just for her. Someone might suggest a secluded spot in the woods but it’s probable that sometime in the history of the planet a creature had at least urinated on the spot. Diapers, as someone mentioned, are completely out of the question.

Someday, Hannah dreamed, she would finally be able to stop holding it in.