Parting Sails

The seas clash between her and the shore. Yer crew lined up on the edge of the beach. Her sails are riddled with holes from cannon fire. Her hull crushed and impaled by other vessels that have crashed beside her. Quite a miracle she can float even now. As yer crew take their final glances, ye walk until the water reaches yer knees as ye recall her the most. Through storms, valleys, and currents. With a staff of flame on yer right hand, ye set her ablaze in a last gaze of glory. She rests in the sea’s foamy waters.

From Guest Contributor Nahum Zewdie

Nahum is a student of general studies in Pikes Peak Community College.

Art, Music, Philosophy

Our 5-year-old daughter, Celeste, was singing to herself. She suddenly stopped and said, "Why do I always fart when I sing?” Then a French farmer while plowing on a hill uncovered a rusted revolver that may be the very one Van Gogh used to shoot himself. I looked at my wife, who was looking back at me. I can’t keep drowning, I can’t. There are little children living without parents in freezing tents in detention camps. The ancient Greek stoics maintain a complicit silence. I just want it to end. Every kind of music is meant to be played loudly.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

Eight Maids a-Yelping

“What’s a milkmaid to do? The only thing bovine hereabouts is the Silly Cow who owns the place. During the first seven days of Christmas, she let her true love convert her manor house into an aviary.”

“Tell me about it! I’m a housemaid, but I don’t do windows and I don’t do guano.”

A barefoot parlor maid lamented, “Look at my bloody feet after half a dozen geese pecked my corns.”

The other five recently-hired maids commiserated with them.

“Let’s tar and feather the harpy. We can substitute pine pitch, in a pinch, and there’s no shortage of feathers.”

From Guest Contributor John H. Dromey

John’s short fiction has appeared in Mystery Weekly Magazine, Stupefying Stories Showcase, Thriller Magazine, Unfit Magazine, and elsewhere.

That Day

He dreamt of one. Then another and another...until the sky wascrowded with them. Umbrellas. Pristine white. Open. Descending from uphigh. Why?

They were irrelevant in his daily life. Not so for his wife who neededdifferent umbrellas to complement her wardrobe.

Upon awakening he realized what triggered the scene he envisioned. Whyhe told his boss he wouldn’t be at work that day.

“Does this go with my sweater?” his wife asked, opening an umbrella byhis bedside.

The man quietly slid back under the covers.

No way was he going to move on Friday the 13th.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna, a former librarian, gathers tidbits from around theworld in her travels, strings them into delectable morsels of poetryand prose, and stores them in her gopher hole in the CanadianPrairies. She is open to sharing, upon request.

The Gift

Timothy wants a brother for Christmas.

His mother, divorced, comes up with an alternative solution and sits Timothy on her lap. “Honey, there’s another way we could give you a similar present. Each month we can sponsor a child.”

Timothy tilts his head. “What does that mean, Mommy?”

“Well, each month we’ll send money to help the boy get food, education, and whatever he needs. Some children in other countries can’t afford these things and need help.”

Timothy’s face lit up the room with his radiant smile. “I like that, Mommy.”

In Bangladesh, a little boy has a happy holiday.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

One Last Time

"Be a good boy," said my mother. "Stop playing cricket in the graveyard with you likkle hooligan friend. I don’t want to hear that you trying to see duppies by washing you face with rice water."

I didn’t want to disappoint my mother, a God-fearing woman, who left Jamaica ten Christmases ago to work as a hospice nurse in Miami, comforting the soon-to-be dead. I'd been a good boy until last week when she came home in a box. So who could blame me (and I know she would forgive me) if I tried to see her one last time.

From Guest Contributor Geoffrey Philp

Geoffrey is the author of Garvey's Ghost

Deaths In July

On 17th July, Adhakanta’s twins Tompi and Shompi were found hanging from the tamarind tree their forefathers had planted outside Dhemaljote for the demons to rest in. Both had been national-level Kho-Kho players. Mairong Sarkar, their distant uncle, also an ex-KLO turned social worker, supported them as their father's 0.07 decimal land was engulfed by the malicious river Balashon.

The scene ignited Mairong's innermost despair and he took to the jungle again. Their father dead since last July, he untied the dupatta around his daughter’s neck.

Next July, their mother Meera eloped with Kanai, the infamous sand mafia of Balashon.

From Guest Contributor Nabanita Roy

Moon Shot

You can open your eyes now. The walls are covered in scribbled physics equations. Nothing wrong with that, but someone has to get on that rocket and get blown up, maybe. Take it from me, you don’t want to overlook product warnings (“Do not insert in rectum or vagina using fingers or mechanical device.”). Awareness is just so important. Everything happens too fast, as if hurled in irrational anger by the hand of God, though it’s really fluid dynamics. Even a momentary lapse in concentration can result in the sky cracking, dripping, burning, and the blue of night remaining unsolved.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

Invincible

Vainly, her vulva strained to become prehensile. With her digits and her digestive tract things of the past, her vaginal aperture was the only anatomical feature that could hope to get a grip on the handle and shut off the valve before all the veal broth leaked away again. Yes, they would probably replace it with venison consommé, which might well be more flavorful—but existence is fraught with uncertainties. She suddenly remembered that she had once seen a man visibly twitch his large, convoluted, rather hairy ears. If he can do it, I can do it better, she thought.

From Guest Contributor F.J. Bergmann

Postcards Of Joy

Mother loves postcards. I wish you could see this cathedral. I miss you. I have been constrained by tradition. I move from friend to friend. Wake in one bedroom, slumber in another. No personal markers, photos. Gifts conveying motherly intimacy. My favorite Yates novel, a radio, a train set. Living with Mother was rife with frenetic energy once Dad left. He called her a senseless dreamer. Life was defined by bottles, hissing wine. Cackling laughter, dissolved smiles. I want Mother at ease. Instead, I conjure her flitting about cathedrals, mistaking facades for joy. I tell her I’m happy. Try to believe.

From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri

Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. His story "Soon," was nominated for a Pushcart and he has also had work nominated for The Best Small Fictions. Yash's work is forthcoming or has been published in journals such as 50-Word Stories, Silent Auctions, City. River. Tree. and Ariel Chart.