Wars Have Been Started Over Less

When we first encountered the Alavariuum, great expectations immediately spread across Earth. Not only were they a technologically-advanced extraterrestrial race from a thirteen-planet civilization 23 light years away, but they were friendly and offering to help us expand beyond our martian colonies.

Lately, many of the negotiators have admitted their enthusiasm is dampened. While still congenial, most of the committees and protocol meetings have become bogged down in naming conventions. The Alavariuum insist that every significant planet and star be referred to using their complicated symbology, and we'll be damned if we'll let anyone tell us what to call Earth.

Lady Macbeth

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Life had become so boring, so beige boring. Every day it was hound the maids, light the candles, greet the guests. Then along came prophecy! What’s not to believe about a witch, let alone three? Once again, my world oozed with possibility.

What came to pass? Life in red, gushing red. There was blood in the soup, blood in the stew, blood on the hands of my husband. I thought about the plagues in Egypt, the Pharaoh who knew about miracles turned against him. I thought about science. That what flows, surely ebbs? While the old king’s blood ran blue.

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Linda Lowe's poems and stories have appeared in Gone Lawn, Crack the Spine, What Rough Beast, New Verse News, Tiny Molecules and others.

The World Is Nothing But Chaos And Entropy

Brian stared at the devastation. Where once stood his immaculately kept garage, packed with 45-years worth of careful philatelic curation, was a skeletal frame and mound of black cinders. His eye would be diverted by what momentarily struck him as an envelope floating on the breeze, but turned out was nothing but ash.

His wife attempted consoling him. Imagine the insurance payout! But his devotion had never been about money. Only now, staring at the remains of his life's work, did he truly understand his need for the comfort of a well-aligned stamp in a world of chaos and entropy.

East Meets West

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On 10 November 1989, Hans shuffled nervously across the debris littered street, clutching a package close to his chest.

He apprehensively approached the building, straightened his lapels then entered the revolving door.

On reaching the counter, he removed the book from the bag, sliding it across to the stern looking assistant. She opened the book’s cover and said “this is date stamped 13.08.1961. I do hope you have a good excuse.”

Hans anxiously responded “I’d have returned it sooner if it wasn’t for that damned Berlin Wall being built.” Their eyes briefly met before they erupted into gales of laughter.

From Guest Contributor Dougie Shepherd.

God Bless America

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He was met by his family at the Orlando airport after 12 long months of active duty.

Captain Steven Hooks was a free man. Now that the Army didn't need him anymore, he could get back to being a husband and a father and re-open his dental practice.

Gloria, his wife, suggested a movie for his first night home. They gave the kids baths, dressed them in cozy pajamas, and loaded them into the station wagon.

Upon arriving at the booth he handed the cashier the money but she wouldn't take it.

"Sorry, but this drive-in is for whites only."

From Guest Contributor E. Barnes

E. has works published at Entropy, Spillwords, The Purple Pen, The Haven, and several works are in the anthology, "NanoNightmares."

Easter Sunday

Through the window, the sun beams against my face. It’s Easter Sunday and the family will be arriving this evening. I haven’t seen my cousins since the Covid-19 quarantine and we’re all nervous. Do we need to wear masks to avoid breathing on each other, I wonder? We didn’t discuss it, so my husband and I will take our chances.

The food is prepared and cooking on the stove. The lamb and spices fill the room with a delectable aroma and I’m leaning against the counter sipping wine.

I drop my glass when the doorbell rings. I can’t do it.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

April Come She Will

Men on the street would call my girlfriend lindo. “Get used to it,” she said. I decided the best thing for me to do was nothing. April had been designated Artichoke Month. I remember we saw a movie about astronauts on a mind-bending journey to the cosmic womb. It was confusing and a little scary. She got really into the singer-songwriter who had committed suicide by stabbing himself in the chest. There were long lines outside liquor stores and gun shops. One day we found a hand-lettered cardboard sign lying abandoned on the sidewalk: Hungry & Cold / Anything Helps. 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.

Burning Uncertainty

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My elder sister Tanya and I burn portraits of Nicholas, watching his solemn eyes melting. Melting, melting. Flames envelop his beard, rising into the night sky.

“To the Revolution,” she proclaims. “We’ll be happy again.”

“To happiness,” I proclaim. I hug Tanya. She smells of sweat and oil and victory.

I wonder what will come next. We’ve lost homes and positions, slaved in Siberia. She was a teacher and I, a writer. Those positions are in the past, though.

Will we be of use? Or will the Revolution brand us too bourgeois?

I wish the picture wouldn’t burn so fast.From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri

Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, 50 Word Stories, (mac)ro (mic), and Ariel Chart.

Ignis Fatuus

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The three sisters couldn’t spend their summer at home because of smallpox in the town. Their parents acquired the old farmhouse close to the boarding school and their favorite teacher agreed to spend her vacation taking care of them. She told them why the house was empty, of the little girl, who drowned in the cow pond. In time, the spirit came to each: in a dream; as a light over the field at dusk; and to the third sister, as the woman she spent the rest of her life with, from the age of twenty-eight, in a Boston marriage.

From Guest Contributor Jon Fain

Thus far in 2020, Jon's fiction has appeared in 50-Word Stories, Fleas on the Dog, City. River. Tree., and Blue Lake Review.

Like Mommy and Daddy

"Mommy, you and daddy look funny." said five-year-old Julia.

"We're OK. We are flying high!" Julia's mommy replied as she chewed a weed-laced cookie.

"These cookies! Flyin' like a bird," Julia's daddy sang.

He took another cookie off the plate on the kitchen table.

"Let's go upstairs, sweetheart. A little lovin' ......Julia, watch TV."

Julia watched as her parents climbed the stairs. She grabbed a cookie, then ran upstairs to her bedroom and ate it.

When her beautiful wings fluttered, she floated to the open window.

She pushed out the screen and thought, "I wanna fly like mommy and daddy."

From Guest Contributor Deborah Shrimplin