The Untimely Demise Of Adrian Perez

HUBRIS CONTEST:

Joe, doing his best to hide the fear bubbling up from within, kicked dirt from the mound as the next batter sauntered to the plate. This was Adrian Perez, MVP, future Hall-Of-Famer, and the best home run hitter alive.

Ninth inning. Bases loaded. Two outs. Clinging to a one-run lead.

Before Perez entered the batter's box, he did the unthinkable. He pointed towards the outfield, confirming what everyone already knew about the ball's final destination. Joe winced at the shame that was sure to follow.

Nobody was more surprised than Joe Flack when Perez hit a soft grounder to first.

From Guest Contributor Bill Kern

Bare Ruined Choirs

An ex-beauty queen has been found in her bedroom decapitated, limbless, a chainsaw nearby. On the wall, a decorative wooden sign says, “Breathe deeply and calmly.” How do you do that? We need a plan, an intervention, something. In Hiroshima after the bomb, they piled the bodies in the swimming pool at the college and cremated them with scrap wood. Last night when my mother finally managed to fall asleep, she dreamed she was walking through a ruined city in a hospital gown left behind from her cancer surgery, while, in the distance, sirens screamed. Assume the monster is everywhere. From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of The Death Row Shuffle, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

Inkling Of Jackals

While you putter and sputter and wander room to room forgetting

there are jackals on the moon. They nip and shiver in a hidden corner of the Lake of Dreams, a secret pocket of atmosphere just big enough to make a den, a home, a scratching ground. Black eyes shine from once red-brown-white coats, now just ashen tufts of moondust, moondust, pale gray. The pups scramble up from their rough and tumble, fall silent, and sit still, narrowing their eyes and curling their ears at the little blue marble in the wet ink sky.

They are waiting for your Howl.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook Bhagat’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror Magazine, Harbinger Asylum, Little India, Rat’s Ass Review, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She and her husband Gaurav created Blue Planet Journal, which she edits and writes for. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, is an assistant professor of English at a community college, and is writing a novel. Her poetry collection, Only Flying, is due out Nov. 16, 2021 from Unsolicited Press.

The Botanist

HUBRIS CONTEST:

Settled at the picnic table, I was teaching my three-year old granddaughter, Natalie, the process of planting seeds. Surrounded by supplies: seeds, cardboard egg cartons, a bag of soil, a big spoon and a spray bottle filled with water, Natalie carefully filled each section of the egg carton with soil. All the while I explained to her how seeds grow into plants if they have sun, water and food. I believed that she thoroughly understood. She was seriously working.

Grandpa joined us and asked, “What are you doing?”

“We are growing eggs!” Natalie boasted.

I’d better wait till she’s four.

From Guest Contributor Patricia Gable

The Dollhouse

is custom made to look like my house, our house. My new wife’s idea—for Sarah. Same front elevation. Duplicate floorplan. But my step daughter’s attempt to match furniture placement is off. I nudge the miniature hutch to its true location. She frowns, pushes my hand away, makes me move to the front yard, so to speak. I look at her through the windows. She appears as if a Goliath child. My sling: empty after repeated attempts to penetrate the four walls of her heart. I lean low, peer inside the front door. “Knock, knock,” I say. She never answers.

Keith Hoerner lives and pushes words around in Southern Illinois.

Rags To Riches And Back

HUBRIS CONTEST:

Mr. X fell. How badly?

Initially, he didn’t know. He continued contriving grandiose schemes. To deceive and conquer. Gain at the loss of others.

Friends he once had dwindled to one. They witnessed him gloating. How he went from rags to riches, increasing net worth “like no one else.”

Until the world sank into monetary collapse.

His temper shot up. Those he benefited from abandoned positions of his corporate ladder. He maintained headstrong in his quest of greatness, overriding those needing assistance.

Indeed, Mr. X fell. Sad thing, he had no clue how to rise.

Nor do others marked ‘X.’

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

On Being A Man

HUBRIS CONTEST:

His backhand caused her body to pirouette grotesquely before landing face down on the coffee table.

Wincing, she rolled off the table, and sat up, mopping blood futilely from her mouth with the back of her right hand.

“Aren’t ya proud o’ me, workin’ all night?” he whined.

Unblinking, she nodded.

Then, the boy, who’d learned what a man was from his father, brought the cast iron pan onto the back of his father’s head with a sound like a loud wet kiss.

The man slid to the ground gracefully.

Beaming at her son, she said, “Now that’s a man!”

From Guest Contributor Jody Lehrer

Swimming Sterility

HUBRIS CONTEST:

I’m a fish, except I swim between kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom.

I sterilize, wash, wipe, dry. Watch episodes of Barry and Curb Your Enthusiasm, semblances of entertainment before the virus.

I’m swimming in sterile fishbowls.

Some nights, I open windows. I absorb tree branches shifting, the tenderness of a fleeting breeze. I absorb the thump of distant speakers. Wear widened eagerness, an expression I thought I suppressed.

Some nights, I try to step out among bars, laughter, bodies.

Some nights I make it a block. Two, even.

But I retreat. Wide eyes sink into submission.

Brave fish are always doomed.From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri

Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. A native of Idaho, Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, and Ariel Chart, among others.

A Piece Of History

The suicide stopped drowning for a minute to pose for the art students sketching on the riverbank. It happened about the time Sartre claimed he was being followed through the streets of Paris by a pair of rare blue lobsters. The bearded lady sat at the window, beautiful in her own way, but struggling to decide whether or not she should start to shave. Even though Hitler was dead, the screams from the gas chambers went on. People in the surrounding area would later say they thought it was just the collection of apple-cheeked Hummel figurines above the fake fireplace. From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of The Death Row Shuffle, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

Let's Stay Focused On The Good News

HUBRIS CONTEST:

Gerald raced home, test in hand, too excited to look both ways as he crossed intersections. There was never any traffic anyway, and this news was too good to wait. He only paused at one point to pick up the books that had scattered on the sidewalk behind him because he'd forgotten to zip closed his backpack.

He sprinted up his driveway and burst through the front door.

"I am the GOAT!!!" He threw the paper towards his mother, who looked up in bewilderment.

"A B+ on your English exam. I'm proud of you. Now what about your math quiz?"

From Guest Contributor Breanne Nyhoff