Dandelions

Passersby might have been forgiven for thinking the playground was host to a psychedelic staging of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but it was just Cassie and Bobby, who'd rubbed dandelions on their skin until their faces were streaked with yellow. They wanted to camouflage themselves like the soldiers on TV, but all they had was mud and flowers and imagination.

When the real life soldiers came, Cassie and Bobby hid in the drainage tunnel as they'd been taught. The gunshots echoed like firecrackers in the air around them while they waited in vain for their parents to find them.

Kelp

Life as a kelp farmer meant eating a lot of kelp. They said it was the most efficient source of nutrition known to humankind, but that did nothing to offset its blandness. If anything, knowing how healthy it was for you made it worse.

An entire industry had opened up around making kelp palatable to consumers. There were kelp salads, kelp chips, kelp sandwiches on kelp bread, even kelp burgers.

If it were up to Monica, she'd be doing just about anything else. But these days, there was only job, and that was harvesting kelp. So that's what she did.

Three Imaginary Boys

Three imaginary boys followed her everywhere. The one she called Whitey was the nicest. He would help her with math and comforted her when she was sad.

Churchill never had anything nice to say. He criticized her for crying too much and called her stupid whenever she made a mistake. He said the reason no one loved her was because she was a girl.

At least Churchill never hurt her, not the way Stephen did. He pinched her, or burned her with cigarettes. Sometimes worse.

She knew all three boys were imaginary, but the scars Stephen left were frighteningly real.

The Longest Honeymoon

Their friends joked they were going to have the longest engagement ever. Others whispered the wedding was never going to happen. This seemed to bother Sophia even less than it bothered Gabriel. They were both extremely happy the way things were.

The wedding had become something they almost never talked about, only when their parents brought it up. These moments occurred less and less frequently as it became obvious Gabriel and Sophia weren't interested. The suspicion became that one or both of them was getting cold feet.

Everyone was wrong. This wasn't the longest engagement. It was the longest honeymoon.

Why Do I Lose My Voice When I Have Something to Say?

Jo cleared her throat. She'd prepared for this moment from the instant an audience had been granted. This was a safe space to share her story, to give voice to all the degradation she'd suffered at his hands. She would finally see justice done.

Instead, when her time arrived and the judge called her to the stand, Jo found she was unable to speak. It was everything that she feared. Just like during the interrogation. At the inquest. During the trial. The truth was they'd arrived at this moment despite her many failures.

Maybe she didn't deserve justice after all.

Book Launch

“Congratulations,” I said. “I’ve been following your development.”

The honored author uttered an inquisitive “Oh.”

“I mean, as an author,” I clarified.

A young twenty-something giggled placing a copy of the new novel between us. She begged for a signature. I turned around to mingle with others.

“Wait, I would like to talk with you,” the author insisted. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

“Nice line,” I responded.

“I admit, not original. But say...”

“We met an hour ago.” I smiled. “You’re the new next door tenant at Argyle Road. You handed me an invitation to this event. Remember?”From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. She resides in Edmonton, Canada with her husband and stuffed animals.

Girl In Nature

I read a story once about a girl in nature. A man was watching her ride her bike through a field of flowers. She was beautiful, so he stopped her. He frightened her, her fear frightened him, he panicked. He raped and killed her, strangling her in perfectly-rendered fragments, snippets of sun-burnished green, pale skin under cobalt sky, a tale of flushed mania and hazy recollections of doomed resistance. A beautiful life snuffed out in beautiful prose.

I don’t ride alone through fields. I’ll never taste the freedom that killed the girl. Another beautiful life snuffed out in beautiful prose.

From Guest Contributor Tara Campbell

Tara is a fiction editor at Barrelhouse and an MFA candidate at American University. Prior publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Jellyfish Review, Booth, and Strange Horizons. Her novel, TreeVolution, was published in 2016, followed in 2018 by Circe's Bicycle. Her third book, a short story collection called Midnight at the Organporium, will be released by Aqueduct Press in 2019.

Especially In Alabama

The water's chilly for late August. My biology teacher says the lake retains the cold air from the night before, but I wonder why it doesn't soak in the heat of the sun during the day. Nature doesn't make sense.

Rebecca and Claire are arguing over whether bras and panties count as skinny dipping. It doesn't, no matter what Rebecca says. Claire decides I'm brave because I'm already in the water. But if the boys come they won't be able to see anything.

I've decided I don't care if they do. I wonder if that makes me a bad person.

Wear Me Down

The shavings scattered as he coughed, revealing how little actual progress had been made in the last thirty minutes. The brace still protruded from the floor enough to be noticed.

His wife's admonishments occupied him as he filed. It was always her way, whenever she made a mistake, to look for any way to shift the blame elsewhere. Better still if she could pin him as the culprit. So when she'd tripped on the uneven joining between the foyer and kitchen, she yelled at him. Who cares the house had come that way.

He'd given up fighting back decades ago.

The Bodies Are Piling Up

She killed another overnight. Now what, she thought, as she headed to the woods with the dead body. She had to be careful not to draw carrion eaters near her house, that would lead to other problems.

How many did this make, four, five, six? She lost count. Meaningless lives, they disgusted her. No one would miss them. Any of them. How many more would she have to kill before she could sleep soundly? She stopped and thought. Five dead, she was sure now, then proceeded to open the mouse trap and let the lifeless body fall to the ground.

From Guest Contributor NT Franklin