Cruel

On our Saturday morning walk, my daughter found a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest.

"Can we take it home?"

"I think it's dead, sweetheart." When I explained what that meant, she didn't seem too bothered and I thought the matter forgotten.

A few days later, my ex-wife called to say she'd had to meet with Chelsea's teacher after school. "She got in trouble for making two of her classmates cry."

"What did she do?"

"She told them that God is cruel and kills those who deserve it least."

"Weird. I wonder where she got that from."

Long Enough

David kept asking, “Whose funeral is it?”

His daughter replied, “Mom's.”

Minutes later he said, “Whose funeral is it?”

“Mom's.” Each reply earned the same quiet nod.

When the service ended, mourners drifted away. David stepped beside the casket. He slipped off his wedding band. “You'll need this,” he whispered to the casket. “Take good care of it.”

The daughter blinked back tears.

He smiled faintly, patted the casket, and walked on. Halfway down the path, he stopped. “Whose funeral is it?”

His daughter slipped her arm through his, and they walked slowly toward home beneath silent autumn trees together.

From Guest Contributor E. Barnes

E. Barnes has work published at A Story In 100 Words, Spillwords, The Purple Pen, The Haven, and Medium.

Dive Night

From the street, the Cowpony looks like a generic Tucson bar. Nondescript, squat, windowless. Cowboy silhouette on the exterior.

Gerry and I wander inside. The back room features an empty pool table. I rack the balls. Gerry breaks them, sinks the eight ball. Decrepit characters wait beside the bar for karaoke to begin. They leer at us and wink.

“This place reminds me of my misspent youth,” I say.

Gerry thumbs through the karaoke catalog. “Let’s stay a while. There’s a Steely Dan song I want to sing.”

I settle into the booth. It’s going to be a long evening.

From Guest Contributor Leah Mueller

The Opera

I met Katherine at the opera, where I’d shared a box with her and her partner, a tall brute of a man. During the interval, they rowed; he stormed out. After the finale, Katherine and I went back to my place.

The next morning, as we were leaving my flat, a big Merc pulled up next to us. Her boyfriend sat in the front passenger seat, face like thunder.

I had a feeling of dread when two swarthy-faced, black leather-jacketed men jumped out, bundled her into their car, and drove off with her. She was never ever seen again.

From Guest Contributor Val De Vere

A Dozen

Mort motioned to the waitress who took her time getting to the booth.

“Is this place okay?”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I just saw a fly.”

The waitress, with the name ‘Marge’ stenciled on her food-stained uniform, twisted her face.

“Are you sure?”

“I know a fly when I see one. And Claudette saw another one over there.”

Claudette nodded, pointing to the empty counter where a bulbous-headed insect stumbled erratically.

“Only two?”

“What’d you mean ‘only?’”

“Look, I get your point. A dozen or more flies aren't going to be wrong about a diner. But you saw only two in here…

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

Café

Sarah limps from the explosion, barely able to see through the dust and debris. She coughs, covers her mouth with the torn scarf, and follows the sounds of voices.

Her son and husband are most likely buried in the rubble. The last visual she has of them is laughing while they were having lunch at the café, she sipping her tea while listening to their previous day’s outing.

Her leg is throbbing, and her head pounds, but she sees soldiers up ahead.

Panting, she pleads, “My husband and son need help.”

The soldier gives her a pitying look and nods.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Branded

“Do you see the donut,” the cancer specialist asks, sounding suddenly anxious, “or just the hole?” My eyes burn, though tears are 98 percent water. Once cancer touches you, you belong to it, you’re marked with the herd brand. It would take something like a miracle for me to recover. Yesterday, to the shock of tourists, a statue of the Virgin Mary in a fourteenth-century cathedral in Linz appeared to go into labor. Belief is contagious. And so, I lie in bed at night with all the windows open, listening intently to the gregarious insects at ease in the dark.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's latest poetry collection, True Crime, was published by Sacred Parasite in Berlin this year.

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey

Odysseus is a sad boy. He has been away from his wife and son for a long time. A beautiful goddess forced him to have sex with her for seven years. He really didn't like it. Then he met a beautiful witch and she made him have sex too. Again, he didn't like it.

He sailed past more beautiful women and he wanted to hear their song, because it was supposed to be the most beautiful song in the world, so he tied himself to a mast to avoid having to have sex with more beautiful women.

Poor, sad Odysseus.

Central Casting

Phillips had certainly looked the part. He was linebacker big, with a granite jaw and iron fists. He wasn't too bright either, which O'Malley had always found a useful trait in his bouncers. Punch first and ask questions later.

You'd have thought that would-be troublemakers would take one look and choose to take their riotousness to the next establishment. Instead Phillips had the temperament of a bunny rabbit.

When O'Malley fired him for failing to deter rowdy behavior. he asked Phillips to explain himself.

"What's the point of having a bouncer if you're not willing to knock some heads together?"

Dreams Of Fallen Ashes

He didn't ask.

He just slid on the shoe, and that was that.

Granted, it was all a huge improvement from my previous position – a dizzying improvement. I had to keep reminding myself that everything was real, everything was fine, that I truly was in a fairy tale. And granted, I had asked – no, begged – to go to that dance in the first place. If I hadn't –

If I hadn't, I would still be wearing sturdy leather shoes, sleeping in warm ashes, and dreaming.

Not here, undreaming, with ankles caught in sharp chains of diamond and gold, watching others dance.

From Guest Contributor Mari Ness