When I Write

When I write, I look above my screen and think. When I write, I ponder the entertaining events a published book may possess. When I write, I revere the marvelous feeling of finishing a book. When I write, I envision what I’ll do with my upcoming chapters. When I write, I imagine the extravagant scenes I can conjure up in my mind. When I write, I realize all I’ve been doing is daydreaming about moments of a future not yet known. Watching the clock tick, I look down at my screen and notice I’ve still not even begun to write.

From Guest Contributor Leif Bradley

Leif is a student of Literature and Creative Writing at Pikes Peak Community College.

A Dream

The house is empty, and my bags are packed. I don’t know where I’m going, but I reach for and open the front door anyway, ready for whatever awaits me on the other side. I realize I’ve left the radio on, though, so I turn around and go back to take care of that. While I’m doing this someone or something scurries through the front door. I look and see that it’s my brother’s dog, Oswald. “You can’t be here,” I say. “You’re dead.” Oswald wags his tail and tells me that he’s here to take me to the afterlife.

From Guest Contributor Dan Slaten

Ties That Bind

Sam always used rubber bands to hold up her ponytail; I'm still finding them around the apartment, lost during sex, or when she shook out her hair after a long day at work, or in any of a dozen different ways. The trust between us proved less elastic, and snapped.

Everything came undone when she found that bobby pin in the bathroom. I told her that Jodie had just needed to wash bird crap out of her hair when she dropped by, but clearly I wasn't believed. Now, in every sense, there's no way left to hold things in place.From Guest Contributor Alastair Millar

Alastair is an archaeologist by training, a translator by trade, and a nerd by nature. His work can be found at https://linktr.ee/alastairmillar and he lurks on Twitter @skriptorium.

Lariateer

When he finally finishes his regular morning exercise, he considers going back through his earliest journals and numbering the pages but—smart as he is—he knows he can’t count that high. He thinks about all the pens he’s ever used, tries to calculate how many oceans of ink he’s expended; imagines uncurling his cursive and deconstructing his print, laying out all of his pen strokes end-to-end and seeing just how many times the line would circle the globe, or if maybe it would form a lifeline out into space to lasso the moon or play jump rope with Mars.From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette

Ron.’s debut chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press), is now available at all standard outlets. Many of his published works can be found at EGGS OVER TOKYO.

Anyway JJ Cale Blows

The old man and me were travellin’ light.

“I can’t live here,” he said. Guess I lose, because this girl of mine, is livin’ here too.

“We’ll be leaving in the morning.” But I wanted to stay around, so I asked to call the doctor.

“It’s hard to tell, but I really do think: you got something,” he said. He must have been the sensitive kind when he saw my crying eyes.

“So, can we stay around? Everything will be alright.”

I wish I had not said that, because at this moment we are ridin’ home, to the artificial paradise. From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé Suys (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short stories whilst recovering from a sports injury and he hasn’t stopped since. Generally he writes them hatless and barefooted

Night Thoughts

I can’t bring myself to read the news anymore or even watch it on TV. There are just so many unidentified dead men with my face, just so many couples in their late thirties having trouble making a baby. Meanwhile, a small band of starving deer stagger out of the snowbound woods in search of help, but help has been repealed. Like the Oxford comma or the use of voiceover in film, the whole thing is controversial. And although it’s day, night thoughts are stuck in my head, and the only immediate alternative may be to cut my head off.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie Good is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication in summer 2022.

Not Today

Sam’s touched up face, slicked brown hair and embalmed body, reminded me that he really was gone.

I sat in the front row as family and friends approached, the same words spoken repeatedly.

“We’re so sorry for your loss, Janny.”

The room filled with flowers, from bleeding hearts to white lilies gave an aroma of a florist rather than a wake.

The priest began to speak, and the room quieted, except for my weeping.

Cancer took my husband too early. He’ll never see his daughter graduate college.

Now I must break the news of my Parkinson’s disease. But not today.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

On The Sweet Path

Ice cream? Al declined. It hurt his teeth.

“Good of him to do so,” acknowledged his school’s principal.

There were other reports of the afternoon sightings. About the SUV parked in front of their school. The dark sunglasses leaning out on a balding head. Words offering a sweet treat.

It happened two days in a row. Possibly three. No one paid close attention until bits of news dribbled out, spreading across the community.

Plans were drawn to nab the culprit.

He must’ve known for no longer was he seen.

Another school needed to heed to the call for ice cream.From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction regardless of the season. Although she prefers spring.

The Giver

It started with gummies. Her mother placed a bag inside her lunch box every day. She gave them all away, hoping the other kids would like her.

In high school, she had a crush on a cute boy. She gave him the best seat, and then she couldn’t see.

Away at university, she baked lemon cakes. She gave all the slices to students who studied in the lounge late at night.

One day after work, she paused at a window and stared. People on the sidewalk bustled behind her.

She stepped into the bakery, bought lemon cake, and ate it.From Guest Contributor Faye Rapoport DesPres

Faye is the author of the memoir-in-essays Message From a Blue Jay and the Stray Cat Stories children's book series. She lives and writes in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Centurion Saturday

He’s feeling less than complete this morning. Some parts have vanished; most just haven’t woken up yet; a couple are only pretending to be there. But for the most part, for one inexplicable reason or another, he’s feeling incomplete.

Maybe it’s just because it’s Saturday morning. And early. Very early. Too early for even a gigantic apple fritter to convince him that it’s really there and that he’s actually eating it. Too early altogether for small-talk local television chat fests, and certainly way too early for the National or World News Countdown-To-Oblivion Update.

All he needs is seven magic words.

From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette

Ron.'s debut chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press) is now available at all standard outlets. Many of his published works can be found at EGGS OVER TOKYO.