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

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 Beer Has Two Inches Of Foam, Not One.

Pushing too hard. Pushing too fast. Wanting something with such veracity that the world disseminates into popping bubbles. I have poured myself into us with too much speed; I am breathless. You are smothered. As the air escapes into a toxic atmosphere, I gulp your aroma into my lungs. I clutch your being until the oxygen releases into the air, and you die beneath my affections. My sorrow does not reconstitute you; my grief does not call you from beyond. Can you hear the lack, the absence of hope? Slow is not for the desperate. I drown in your absence.

From Guest Contributor, Karen Burton

Karen Burton is an MFA student at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO

The Vacuumers

A city of one billion people relies on many citizens and institutions to maintain order. But in Colossolopis, the world's largest urban center, everyone knows who the city most depends on for survival.

The vacuumers are the only civilians allowed outside the city interiors. Donning their radiation-shielded hazsuits, they crawl like insects on the rooftops, cleaning the air.

Some doubt that what they are doing can really be called cleaning. It has been generations since anyone has been able to freely breath the atmosphere. But if they were to stop, the toxicity levels would quickly breakdown even the strongest shielding.