In The Shadow

Nighttime, people strode past him in pursuit of merriment at the city’s main square.

In a high rise apartment across the street, flamenco pulsed from an open window. Singing and clapping erupted. Smells of warm foods being prepared at tapas bars flavored the humid, tepid air.

He pulled a quilt over his head when a nearby nightclub closed and rowdy customers zigzagged into the light of a new day.

There’d be coins dropping into the cup by him on a bankrupt store’s doorstep he called ‘home.’

Someone would throw him an empanada. He sometimes found one, after footsteps scurried away.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

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

Looking For Mr. Goodbar Version 2022

Mr. Goodbar was a respected man, but he was still single at fifty. The woman he picked wore no panties under her joggers. She said she liked having sex with two men. Mr. Goodbar was happy.

The woman got pregnant. He married her because he was a good man. She wanted him to change for their child. He did not. In work and now in marriage, he had to live a double life. Mr. Goodbar was exhausted and miserable.

The woman had deceived him. She was not like she had led him to believe when they had met.

She vanished.

From Guest Contributor Dominique Margolis

Soothing Sounds

As soon as I entered the apartment, I felt the heavy air of disappointment. Lauren hadn’t made the all-star team. She’d been practicing her foul shots and layups for months. She was curled into the recliner with a blanket tucked under her chin. I knew better than to speak to her.

On my way into the kitchen, it struck me that my father had discovered texting and Face Time on his cell phone. I shot him a text, turned the speaker on, and my father’s warmth came through my phone.

“Pop Pop” Lauren squealed, jumping and tossing the blanket aside.

From Guest Contributor Edith Gallagher Boyd

A Special Education

Our daily newspaper when I was growing up would publish on Saturdays a page of commentaries, advice columns, comics, etc., by teenagers. Although I can’t remember the exact subject of my commentary – the unfortunate phrase “the rising tide of communism” sticks in my mind – I do remember my intense pride of authorship. For the first time, I felt avenged on all the adults who had ever undervalued me. I deliberately showed the clipping, with my name and age, 13, in boldface at the bottom, to Mr. Eakely, my eighth-grade English teacher. “What’s that?” he said, pointing at the number. “Your IQ?”

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.

Settled, Unsettled

The atmosphere had been charged all day so when the storm started neither of them was surprised. The husband settled in to read; the wife paced the room unsettled.

“What if,” she said, then paused at the window, watching the rain lash against the panes.

“Hmmn?” He responded, bookmarking his place with a finger to listen.

“What if,” she continued, contemplating the unleashing storm, “we got a divorce?”

“Are you angry, disappointed, frustrated, sad, or joking?” he asked in reply.

She turned to then contemplate him. “Does it matter?”

“Whatever you want,” he said, and returned to reading his book.

Melissa Ridley Elmes

Melissa is a Virginia native currently living in Missouri in an apartment that delightfully approximates a hobbit-hole. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Reunion; The Dallas Review Online, Eye to the Telescope, Star*Line, Gyroscope, In Parentheses, and other print and web venues, and her first book of poetry, Arthurian Things: A Collection of Poems, was published by Dark Myth Publications in 2020. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @MRidleyElmes

Best Friend

Candy crawled behind the battered settee, where nobody could find her, and held her knees tight to her chest. Sleepy raindrops smashed at the window, echoing like someone rapping at the door. Someone who cared.

“Rain will be my best friend now,” Candy resolved.

She didn’t need anyone else. People grumbled she had the shape of a baby elephant; people rolled their eyes and tsked tongues like she took too much space in their lives. Even her darling Beckie said she looked ludicrous.

She turned to the dotted window. “You don’t think so, do you?”

It tapped a little harder.From Guest Contributor Malvina Perova

Malvina is a warrior writer, creator and illustrator from Ukraine, the amazon from https://goamazons.tumblr.com/ and an artist at https://www.instagram.com/goamazonsart/

Shadowfax Marie

Just before he’s seventy, just before seven in the morning he finds Shadowfax Marie at the 6068 Spa, lets her drift him into his morning pages, levitate him, lets him forget everything, dismisses all of his desires--even his morning coffee, even his Beloved (still in bed, dreaming he’s still there, sleeping, beside her).

His wings, though, are only borrowed and insubstantial. Before he can float away, he remembers his flesh, recalls his agenda, and realizes that there’s a day ahead during which Shadowfax Marie will inevitably fade; a day filled with no sound worth hearing, no vision worth sharing.

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

Haunted

We lived in that house, but we died in it too. It ravished the souls of the living and confined those of the dead. We lived with our eyes closed, but we died with them open. It took us slowly, a gradual disorientation of the senses. We lived far too short, but we died ages ago. It trapped us with a treacherous hive mind, seduced by the whispers in the walls. We lived apart, but we died together. It didn't hurt and it won't hurt for you. I watch at the edge of your bed; the ghoul in the shadows.

From Guest Contributor Margaret Gleason

Currently, Margaret Gleason attends Pikes Peak Community College, but has dreams of writing, coding, and drawing her own video games.

Vegan Vigilantes

The joint was cased. All that remained was the decision: this coffeehouse or the Dunkin’ Donuts on the bypass?

Roland sauntered inside and scanned the menu--coffee and sandwiches--on the back wall.

“Can I help you?”

“Anything vegan?”

Bewildered: “Uh, vegan? Er...”

An older barista, working a blender: “Nothing vegan.”

Roland stepped back, leaned against the wall, phone to ear: “Mook, it’s the shop on Main. Even worse than Dunkin’. Pick me up in two minutes.”

He replaced the phone with a gun and approached the counter.

“Since your menu isn’t cruelty-free, I’ll take your money. Open the register.”From Guest Contributor Joe Surkiewicz

Joe writes from northern Vermont.

A Theory Of Justice

The medical assistant asked in a flat, toneless bureaucratic voice how I would describe the pain. Stabbing? Aching? Sharp? Dull? She entered my answer on the form, but without showing any actual concern. A philosopher once said – or should have – that a society is only as just as its treatment of its most vulnerable members: the old, the sick, the poor, the institutionalized. Using a dropper, I strategically place .50 milliliters of Triple M tincture under my tongue. I wait fifteen, twenty minutes, and then gray-clad troops burst from the treeline with a rebel yell. The tongue is all muscle.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie 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.