Bad Journey

Rob drove down the back road at excessive amounts of speed. After losing his job, his fiancée, Felicia, broke off their engagement. He swerved into the next lane and an oncoming car approached.

“Watch it, nut!”

“Screw you,” Rob yelled.

Those few seconds his eyes were off the road, he came head on with a tree. His head slumped on the steering wheel, horn honking.

Several hours later he awakened handcuffed to a hospital bed with a policeman standing next to him.

“Once the doctor releases you, you’re coming to the station with me.”

Could Rob’s life get any worse?

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Final Act

Scott stared at the blank screen and pondered how to begin his obituary. Prone to bouts of depression, solitude, and introspection, Scott Beeker lived a quiet life filled with anger, passion, and, most importantly, love. Yes, that sounded nice, he thought. During the final years of his life he traveled the country in search of romance and adventure. He found both one night last May in the basement of a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. There was so much to tell, wasn’t there? So many stories that were more interesting than he’d first thought. If only there was more time.

From Guest Contributor Dan Slaten

The West Wing

We’d barely set down our suitcases when Vic said he wanted to leave. “Let’s wait for a Howard Johnson. This place is a dump. Look, cockroaches!”

And there they were, pausing to look at us as they strolled across the bed. “Yes,” I said, “but they’re dressed to the nines.”

They were stunning, her in a lacy ball gown with puffed sleeves and a train, fashioned from the iridescent wings of flies, and him in his coat and tails and tiny top hat.

“Let’s stay,” I said. “Maybe we can learn something.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Roaches are roaches.”

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook’s nonfiction, poetry, and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in dozens of publications, including Little India, Outpost, Nowhere Poetry, The Syzygy Poetry Journal, and Rat's Ass Review, and she is the co-owner and chief editor of BluePlanetJournal.com. She holds a B.A. from Vassar College and an MFA from Lindenwood University and teaches creative writing at a community college. She has completed a full-length hybrid manuscript and is writing a novel.

Zip Bombs

Six nuclear bombs head for Russia. A short time later the world’s arsenal is launched. Life on the planet changed overnight.

Jon is hiding in a barn with other civilians. As soldiers break in Jon transforms into a pile of hay bales. Soldiers gather the civilians and escort them to camps. Julie, still in the barn, escapes detection because she‘s covered in hay bales. Jon saved her life. Jon changes back to human form.

Afterwards Jon and Julie become best friends. Months later, Jon tells her his secret. “Those six nuclear warheads, they weren’t bombs, that was me,” says Jon.

From Guest Contributor Denny E. Marshall

The Night's Hope For A Better Tomorrow

Dreams projected on a ceiling from a restless mind. A vision of a better tomorrow plays from the imagination onto the stucco. With pleading hope for happiness to join the rising sun, the reality of sadness can be temporarily cast aside. Muscles relax and the burden lessens with the promise. Eyes close and colors dance a firefly ballet on the back of eyelids. Fantasies and nightmares disturb the slumber but recede with the buzz of an alarm clock. Golden rays of butterscotch pour through the glass and warm the face. I rise, we all rise… with hope in our hearts.

From Guest Contributor Jordan Altman

Grief Group

“It’s only been eleven months,” said the other woman afterwards.

“This’ll probably surprise you.”

“You’re attracted to one of the guys in our group?”

“Ha! No, what I miss most is the comfortable, predictable ways Ben and I had. But real love? It disappeared years ago.”

“Real love? You don’t know how lucky you were!”

“Yeah. Part of me likes being on my own again. Still...”

“So you’ll go for the passion next time?”

“Next time? My libido’s semi-retired. So I think it’d be more like us both coming home from work, and just drinking wine together at day’s end.”From Guest Contributor Gerald Kamens

Unfamiliar

It had been three years since Lea admitted her mother into the nursing home for Alzheimer patients. Sometimes she knew Lea and sometimes she was just a stranger visiting.

“Mom, wouldn’t you like to get some fresh air outside. Let me take you for a walk.” Lea pushed the wheelchair to the door.

“Where is my daughter? I don’t know you!” She struggled to break free from her wheelchair.

“I’m your daughter. It’s me, Lea.”

The nurse came in and helped Lea’s mother back into bed.

“I raised a nice girl.” Lea’s mother said.

It wasn’t Lea she spoke of.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Last Call Before A Trek

He woke up early that Sunday morning excited to go on a trek. His friends had been calling since morning, planning the route, discussing apparel. He was enthusiastic. It was a perfect getaway from the usual day-to-day stress. Chirping birds, a cool breeze, and serenity!

Last night had been disastrous. His wife was not satisfied with their sex life. She was adventurous and experienced. He had made bad decisions at work. To top it all off, he'd brawled with a friend.

He was about to leave when his phone rang. His ex-girlfriend said, "I love you". He skipped the trek.

From Guest Contributor Manmeet Chadha

Manmeet is an Alumunus from the London School of Economics & Political Science. He works in India as an Economist & Writer.

The Untimely Demise Of A Teenage Rebellion

Heather relaxed into the sofa. The best word to describe her sessions with Dr. Goldstein was therapeutic. She especially took pleasure in the way her stories shocked the old man.

Today, she was relating a particularly scandalous dream, one involving a milkman and a silk robe.

"I must interrupt, Heather. Isn't a milkman rather anachronistic for a teenager's dream?"

Heather tried piecing together an explanation that involved vintage reruns, but it eventually unraveled. Still, the umbrage her therapist took when he learned Heather had been sharing entries from her mother's diary all along made up for her deception's untimely demise.

Plague

First little Amy was stricken, taking three days to die.

After collecting the body, the wardens painted the black cross on the door.

Then her husband and son Mark sickened. She could do nothing for their agonies.

A cart collected them to be buried in the pit.

Now the street is sealed off. No food arrives, and the water is almost gone.

She sneezes twice. She knows this is the end. But what is there to live for?

Thus the pauper Mary Wells died alone in London in 1665, with no priest to console her, no caring God above her.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

Born and raised in Cardiff, Wales, Ian has an MA in English from Oxford University. He has had poems and short stories published in The Ekphrastic Review, Tuck Magazine, 1947 A Literary Journal, Dead Snakes, Schlock! Webzine, Short-story.me, Anotherealm, Under the Bed, A Story In 100 Words, Poems and Poetry, Friday Flash Fiction, and in various anthologies.