Traveller

As soon as Aarthi could walk she had toddled off to the nearby railroad crossing and plopped herself down under the sign to play in the dust with whatever curios escaped from the trains’ wakes as they slowed.

Her skinny brown legs had quickly lost their natural skin-glow as she had sprawled in pursuit of imagination. She’d found a shiny dollar once. Mam had taken that. Aarthi had got ice-cream.

***

Sixteen long years ago. Now, she eased her battered body to a sitting position and placed her hand on the rail. It was coming to free her from her abuser.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Paul

Paul was proud of his bike.

When Mabel walked home after school, he sped past her, throwing some sly remark. Showing off. His grin stuck with her and played havoc with evening homework.

Sometime later, Mabel didn’t see him riding his bike. She didn’t see him at all in school.

Curious, she decided to walk a different route home; past his parents’ house. In the garbage put out for collection was Paul’s crumpled bike.

“Your mom told me about the accident.” Mabel said at the hospital.

“Thanks for visiting,” Paul answered. “No one else from school did.”

They exchanged smiles.From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published at: Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, 100 word story, 101 Words, Boston Literary Magazine, From the Depths (Haunted Waters Press), ShortbreadStories, SixWordMemoirs, and Espresso Stories.

Drum

There is one bright dancer among them. Her hands trace the music onto air. The “U” of her hips sways, telling bedroom stories. Melodies float her toward the youngest doumbek player, barely bearded.

She bends to him, smiling, flirting even, to the ululating tongues of all her watching sisters but as the hafla pauses to draw a collective breath, I see the truth: her focus is not the boy drummer. She shines for the pulled-skin drum.

An elderly man leans near me. “It is all that remains of her husband.”

“He played?” I am confused.

He shrugs. “He had enemies.”

From Guest Contributor Laura Lovic-Lindsay

Public Poems Built On Public Property

Public poems built on public property are, as they say, asking for it. When you use such flimsy bread, eating away at holy Wonder until such thinly-sliced letters remain, every one meant to be swallowed, not whispered; when you hold them down with found rocks in a stream that is not a stream, just a concrete ditch void of the hand of God; when you slip out the window in the night like a Sufi thief or an idiot child, praying the wrong way, dancing naked, licking vowels in your own nonsense languagedon’t expect to get anythingexceptarrested.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

After graduating with a BA in English from Vassar College, Brook Bhagat landed her first paid writing job as a reporter for a small-town Colorado newspaper. She left it to travel to India, where she fell in love, got married and canceled her ticket home. She and her husband Gaurav write freelance articles for dozens of publications, including Outpost, Ecoworld, and Little India. In 2013, they launched www.BluePlanetJournal.com, which she edits and writes for. She also teaches writing at a community college, is earning her MFA in Writing at Lindenwood University, and is writing a novel.

Walter

Walter was one of those fellows that if you saw him putting a nickel into a beggar’s cup you knew it was just a blind for taking out a dime or quarter. So when he offered to take care of everything for me and another friend we didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know that he was scheming.

Walter was living proof that friendship between two people depended upon the patience of one. Some friends aren’t really friends at all, just a good actor. Even with all his faults, the most difficult thing I ever said to him was goodbye.

From Guest Contributor James Freeze

The Promise

They were seated in the sitting room of the small hospice apartment. The cloying odor of disinfectant hung in the air. Fading twilight filled the space. Somewhere in the hall a pneumatic door opened and then whispered closed. An outside chill passed into and through the room.

“Look at me,” she said. "You promised me eternal life. Now just look at me.” She ran her withered fingers through what was left of her wisping gray hair. She could feel strands breaking loose.

“I am looking at you,” he whispered. “I promised you eternal life. I didn’t promise you eternal youth.”

From Guest Contributor Reynold Junker

Missing

He felt he’d been travelling. Couldn’t be sure. His memory was as misty as the panorama. It looked like Kiev: all those domed churches. How would I know that? The question hung there, unspoken. The answer ignored it.

He looked down at shapely legs and high-heels. What the–

The world spun. Elise was a woman: always had been. The last thing she remembered was the headache at Lloyds. Oh God...work. Did I walk out?

She reached into her handbag. Passport, cash, credit cards...no tickets.

She determined to make a doctor’s appointment the minute she got home.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Forgetting Redwoods

There are trees on the west coast you can drive through. Ancient monoliths built by thousands of years’ work: rain, floods, winters, dry lightning fires. Our grandfathers’ fathers’, storytellers gone silent over the ages, tales forgotten, archaic aching fallen into disuse, a dead language. Even the wind cannot communicate with these trees anymore.

Wander beneath their canopy, sniffing soft bark with noses pressed to red fur, hoping to draw life form the redness; to taste green needles under tongue, run thick sap through veins. But they are sealed.

And all I smell is the distant salt water licking wet sand.

From Guest Contributor Jon Alston

Jon has an MA in Creative Writing. Good for him. He writes things from time to time, and sometimes people publish them. Good for him. On occasion, he will photograph things (or people), and maybe write about them; sometimes there is money exchanged for his services. Good for him. He is married and has two children of both genders. Way to reproduce. He is the Executive Editor and founder of From Sac, a literary journal for Northern California. How about that? Currently he teaches English at Brigham Young University, Idaho among the frozen potato fields and Mormons. Good for you, Jon.Websites: www.fromsac.com www.jaawritter.blogspot.com

Hospital Song

They need to run more tests but Dad pleads, "I want to go home." This man who built houses can't stand by himself to pee.

I sit two hours with him daily, passing my sisters or brother in the hall on either end of the visit. We touch hands, squeeze.

A curled little old man under layers of cabinet-warmed blankets, he's shaking, all ice-blue eyes and Viking-white beard under sunken cheeks.

Television is election chaos. No help there. I realize what's on my iPad, close his door, crank its volume: Dad and Bob Dylan, gravel-throated friends, a hospital bed duet.

From Guest Contributor Tjorven

Imperfect

Some say handwriting is an art form. Practice makes perfect, the preschool teacher said. If it were true, I would have the handwriting of an exquisite 14-point Arial. Instead, my wastebasket overflows with paper balls of failure. Black smudges across my skin like dried blood from the words I’ve killed with imperfection. Sweat seeps over pores as I seethe at my incompetence. When the flawless blue lines of loose leaf repulse me, I succumb to technology. Every keystroke delivers proportional consistency, yielding blissful pride as my fingers connect. Only then am I free from the curse of my obsessive mind.

Laura Widener

Laura is a wife, mother, and coffee addict living in rural Georgia. She holds degrees in Sociology and Human Services, and completed her MFA in Writing at Lindenwood University. Her forthcoming work will be found in Riding Light and NoiseMedium, and her previous work can be found in TWJ Magazine, Morpheus Tales, and Life in 10 Minutes. Visit her blog at: http://incessantpen.wordpress.com