Sensitivity Training

Not another sensitivity seminar! The professor already kept his door open when he was with a female student. What more did they want? And who else had been sent this message from the dean? Nobody had been cc’d, so the professor forwarded the message to the entire department, the colleagues scratching their heads when they got it. Why had the professor sent them the dean’s message about sensitivity training? Each colleague checked the skeletons in his closet before flinging their doors open to the punishment of pizza stacked up against the professor’s office. One good prank deserves another, they agreed. From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Cheryl's recent fiction has appeared in Gone Lawn, Necessary Fiction, Pure Slush, and elsewhere.

The Snow

The snow covered the land, as it had all winter. He picked his way to the rocky shore and looked longingly to the foggy sea. His sea, his love. He knew it; she should have known it.

His mother always said that snow covers sins. It was true; a blanket of white hides everything. But the snow had started to recede from the shore this past week. Today’s snow-eating fog will make short work of the rest of the snow. His sins would no longer be covered; her shallow grave will be exposed. He should head out to his love.

From Guest Contributor NT Franklin

NT Franklin has been published in Page and Spine, Fiction on the Web, 101 Words, Friday Flash Fiction, CafeLit, Madswirl, Postcard Shorts, 404 Words, Scarlet Leaf Review, Freedom Fiction, Burrst, Entropy, Alsina Publishing, Fifty-word stories, Dime Show Review, among others.

Fifteen Minutes

After a lifetime of deception, a sense of purposelessness persisted. Trapped in darkness, Sarah faced tests, time lost all meaning, hunger gnawed, and survival was vital. Guilt spiraled into self-blame. A presence loomed, with fear gripping her. A hidden cave, a reward, reality slipping, and power and control are beckoning. Uncertainty and choices lead to dark paths. Sarah complied, fearing the unknown. Urgency and the cave's depths awaited. A dangerous allure, dread mounting. Unease, an invisible stalker, the crunch of footsteps. The weight of a gaze, fear, and defiance entwined.

"I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to win!"

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Raise Your Voice

raise it as if your life depends on it. Your future too.

Scream if needed. Scream even if your voice cracks.

Don’t wait for help, help yourself.

Learn to survive, and remember,

the young neighbor who cries every night,

a distant cousin with a broken arm, a young girl on the bus, with bruised marks.

Remember the scars, the burns, the pain, the losses too.

Read the silence, the untold stories behind every closed door.

Then write a new story, draw a new picture,

paint your toenails red, wear a bindi, go out and shout

Shout until you are heard.

From Guest Contributor Marzia Rahman

Marzia is a Bangladeshi fiction writer and translator. Her writings have appeared in several print and online journals. Her novella-in-flash If Dreams had wings and Houses were built on clouds was longlisted in the Bath Novella in Flash Award Competition in 2022.She is currently working on a novella. She is also a painter.

Parts

There are so many parts. Kept in so many places. Compartments. Boxes. Bags. Bottles of fragile glass. Crumpled notes. Silent emotions. Screaming thoughts. Swept under the rug, in full view for all to see. No one cares to look. Feet itch. Throats burn and choke. There is pain. A fullness in the head. Legs are terrified. Hips want to cry. I don’t know why. Go, in search of questions. Lost with all your parts. Unable to fix. Unable to stop. Unable to flee. Unable to look you in the eye. Scared of what you already know. Parts of a whole.

From Guest Contributor Courtney King

Happy Trails

The wind in the woods sounds like a river. It whispers across my face, soft and sweet and holy.

Dave packs the tent and I roll our bed bags. Soon we’re hoisting packs, tightening straps, stomping the last of the embers from the night before. Remembering bittersweet songs, old stories, and the secrets we’ve left behind with the trees and the stars.

The day warms. A robin twitters. Cicadas hum in the pines. Dave whistles the Happy Trails tune as we start down the path. And so the end begins, and I clutch this small, quiet death in my soul.

From Guest Contributor Jayna Locke

Cat Lady

In a rapidly gentrifying London suburban apartment by the park, where the people are cold and the weather is colder, I overhear a nascent rumor in the making, about myself from the overfamiliar voices, and for a long second, I wish my life was as interesting as my thriving geriatric grapevine conjures it to be and believes in possibilities over probabilities. I move on, wondering why those so close to death remain so inquisitive about the lives of others who are busy living, and I tell my friends that if I ever become that bitter old cat lady, stop me.

From Guest Contributor Dr. Vaishnavi Pusapati

Last Breath

My heart aches when I look at the faded photo of my wife. I place it back in my pocket and lean over the trench, rifle in position.

The tanks approach and deep down I know it’s an impossible situation, but I run onto the field shooting, the tanks firing back, hitting me, and my body thrown midair.

Charles, my friend, pulls me into a ditch and I manage to gesture to my pants pocket. Charles reaches in and pulls out the picture and hands it to me.

With the photo clutched to my chest, I take my last breath.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Microplastics

Too small, too tough, the forever stuff. Five millimeters to a nanometer, all recycle cheaters. Polyethylene is not green. Debris in the sea, in the sand, on the land, in the air. The minuscule plastic molecule – drink it, breathe it, absorb it. 200 thousand microplastic molecules in you every year. Perfect hair, revolutionary skincare – just vain dreams ruining streams. All the sales promotions on lotions and potions, laundry soap, shopping bags, and tags. So much trash; it’s the sin of the bin. It’s hard to be a container abstainer, a nature campaigner. This is the mess we’re in.

From Guest Contributor K Mayer

Orange Sky

The sky has turned a hazy orange from wildfires capable of creating their own weather. Pages are torn out of books to further feed the fires. Birds wildly flap their wings to escape, only to go round and round in circles. Everything that isn’t predator is prey. Sisters of Mercy are forced to strip naked on the edge of a burial pit, folding their arms over their breasts in misplaced concern for modesty. Today is without a tomorrow. The roof burns, and we let it. My eyes fill with tears from the smoke, but I have never seen more clearly.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's newest poetry collection, Heart-Shaped Hole, which also includes examples of his handmade collages, is available from Laughing Ronin Press.