A Far Worse Fate

“I’m sorry, your majesty,” squeaked mouse, prostrate in the straw.

The great lion sighed.

“When I saved you, I laughed at your offer. Now I am caught in this cage I can laugh no more.”

“My brothers and sisters will set you free,” promised the tiny mouse.

“This cage is electrified,” explained the lion. “Chew these bars and you’ll die.”

“So you are fated then to be a head on a wall?” wailed the mouse in disbelief.

“No little one,” sighed the lion. “My fate’s far worse.”

The Circus Train gave a shrill whistle as it pulled into the station.

From Guest Contributor Tim Law

Cage

The town came to the zoo based on the promise of a special exhibit of animals captured with great difficulty. The audience was truly impressed.

“My god, they are ten times our size.”

“They are bellowing so loud they can be heard ten towns away. The shrieking hurts my ears and might leave me deaf.”

Despite their fear people stuck around, mesmerized by the crazed beasts. They trusted the extra thick bars in the cage.

Their trust was ill-advised. The humans broke out of the cage and stomped the crowd into the ground. Three thousand Xanians died painfully.

From Guest Contributor Doug Hawley

Savage State

Special trains departed every hour on the hour for labor camps and reeducation centers. Hatchet-faced men in leather trench coats would grab people right off the street. I struggled hard to keep the look of the panic-stricken out of my eyes, the hitch of the guilt-ridden out of my step. It wouldn’t even be noon, and the sun would already be a dying ember in an ashen sky. There was no specific end to the workday. Steel bars had been installed on factory windows and suicide nets on the roofs. Manufacturers knowingly sold baby food contaminated with the devil’s tears.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of more than two dozen poetry collections, including most recently Gunmetal Sky (Thirty West Publishing, 2021).

Swimming Sterility

HUBRIS CONTEST:

I’m a fish, except I swim between kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom.

I sterilize, wash, wipe, dry. Watch episodes of Barry and Curb Your Enthusiasm, semblances of entertainment before the virus.

I’m swimming in sterile fishbowls.

Some nights, I open windows. I absorb tree branches shifting, the tenderness of a fleeting breeze. I absorb the thump of distant speakers. Wear widened eagerness, an expression I thought I suppressed.

Some nights, I try to step out among bars, laughter, bodies.

Some nights I make it a block. Two, even.

But I retreat. Wide eyes sink into submission.

Brave fish are always doomed.From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri

Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. A native of Idaho, Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, and Ariel Chart, among others.

Gift

Matthew has a friend who works at NASA. His friend Kent is on the team that is launching a manned mission to Mars next week.

On the day of the launch with the help of Kent he is able to sneak his girlfriend Kim aboard the ship.

A few hours after the launch, Kim wakes up. She is wearing a spacesuit with a note posted on her chest.

She reads the note. "I know you really want to go to Mars. Love, Matthew."

Kim screams, “You idiot, I said I want to go to the bars, get your hearing checked!”

From Guest Contributor Denny E. Marshall

News From Abroad

Dearest Melanie,

It pains me to report that my attempt to traverse the Andes has been an immeasurable failure. My guide, John Trapp, and I were scaling a particularly dubious crag when I felt the compulsion to belt out Tennyson's "Come Into the Garden, Maud." Distracted by my ill-timed warbling, Trapp lost his foothold and fell 2600 feet to his death. As I watched him descend, I made a game for myself in which I attempted to finish the song before John's head exploded on the rubble below. Sadly, I came 72 bars short.

My love to the girls.

Elliot

From Guest Contributor Amiel Rossin

Coursework

"Professor, here's my coursework."

"I see. Have you been hitting the bars in the Kuiper belt again."

"Well, maybe."

"And you traveled at what fraction of the speed of light?"

"Zero point nine nine seven."

"Applying the Lorenz factor, how much extra time passed in the Earthframe of reference compared to your personal frame of reference?"

"Erm, maybe three days."

"Did you travel out to the Kuiper belt at the same speed?"

"Yes."

"That's six days more that time progressed on Earth compared to yourpersonal frame of reference. When was the coursework deadline, Mr.Physics Student?"

"Oh shit."

From Guest Contributor Ross Clement