Supercut

Ray slipped at the top of his building's stoop and flew face first at the cement below. Time elongated as a supercut of his entire life played out like a scene on a museum urn.

There was Ray's first memory: being handed to a smelly, strange man, dressed in red and white with a giant beard. He'd been waiting in line with many other equally scared children. While he screamed, the scary, strange, smelly man laughed and his parents took photos and everyone laughed.

That was really the only memory that came to mind. Ray was only four years old.

Buffalo Parade

The brown, mangy forelock and beard of the drum major serves as a baton for the rest of the herd despite being littered with straw. He marches forward without waiting for his retinue to follow. Their accordance is coded in.

The troop rushes forward like a flood of molasses, slow at every moment, but before we know it, we're drowning in buffalo, breathing in their musk. They pretend to ignore us as we snap photos and move as far too close. They seem more like comfortable bedding than a physical threat.

Neither group understands the true danger it is in.

Platero And I: Father

I have always known my father as a man with a beard, Platero.

He was a proud man—always mounted the fiercest stallion, never a simple donkey like you.

I sometimes saw him standing in front of the mirror with small scissors to remove rebellious or – with years passing – white hairs.

As a child I thought it was a fake beard, but I never risked tugging it.

According to the customs of this country it is up to the eldest son to remove the beard of the father, the undertaker said yesterday.

Guess what, Platero, it was real after all.From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short stories whilst recovering from a sports injury and he hasn’t stopped since. Generally he writes them hatless and barefooted.

Deep Moaning Blues

They’re traveling incognito, George Washington with a moustache and Abe Lincoln without a beard. Time is like a river that has jumped its banks and carved a brazen new course through the ruins of fabled industries. They follow its many twists and turns, only to find themselves weeks later cold, ragged, and hungry, and under perpetual ban. Meanwhile, killers walk around free if they’re white and have a badge. It’s as though the laws have been rewritten by malignant algorithms. A night of solid sleep is impossible. The moans that keep waking me up, I finally realize, come from me.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

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

Burning Uncertainty

HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:

My elder sister Tanya and I burn portraits of Nicholas, watching his solemn eyes melting. Melting, melting. Flames envelop his beard, rising into the night sky.

“To the Revolution,” she proclaims. “We’ll be happy again.”

“To happiness,” I proclaim. I hug Tanya. She smells of sweat and oil and victory.

I wonder what will come next. We’ve lost homes and positions, slaved in Siberia. She was a teacher and I, a writer. Those positions are in the past, though.

Will we be of use? Or will the Revolution brand us too bourgeois?

I wish the picture wouldn’t burn so fast.From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri

Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, 50 Word Stories, (mac)ro (mic), and Ariel Chart.

Homage To Discworld King

The tall caped figure dismounted the midnight horse and negotiated cracked paving to knock on nondescript door.

Bright dancing eyes and grey beard yanked it open. “Well?”

Taken aback, Death cleared his throat. “HELLO.”

“Bugger ‘HELLO’, what kept you?”

“UM!”

Author pushed past the cowled figure.

“ER… DON’T YOU WANT TO DRESS?” Death waved a skeletal digit at the grimy T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.

Author pointed his beard aggressively. “That would be rather pointless now, wouldn’t it?”

Death sighed and followed the little man to the waiting steed. He was sure he’d forgotten something.

“OH YES.”

He raised the scythe.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Drum

There is one bright dancer among them. Her hands trace the music onto air. The “U” of her hips sways, telling bedroom stories. Melodies float her toward the youngest doumbek player, barely bearded.

She bends to him, smiling, flirting even, to the ululating tongues of all her watching sisters but as the hafla pauses to draw a collective breath, I see the truth: her focus is not the boy drummer. She shines for the pulled-skin drum.

An elderly man leans near me. “It is all that remains of her husband.”

“He played?” I am confused.

He shrugs. “He had enemies.”

From Guest Contributor Laura Lovic-Lindsay

Hospital Song

They need to run more tests but Dad pleads, "I want to go home." This man who built houses can't stand by himself to pee.

I sit two hours with him daily, passing my sisters or brother in the hall on either end of the visit. We touch hands, squeeze.

A curled little old man under layers of cabinet-warmed blankets, he's shaking, all ice-blue eyes and Viking-white beard under sunken cheeks.

Television is election chaos. No help there. I realize what's on my iPad, close his door, crank its volume: Dad and Bob Dylan, gravel-throated friends, a hospital bed duet.

From Guest Contributor Tjorven

Mall Christmas

Christmas shoppers crush the mall their noisy chatter drowning out tinny holiday music. Fairy lights glimmer from boughs bedecked with fusty smelling red bows. At the epicenter of the mayhem is Santa Claus, surrounded by dingy fluffy snow. Corralling people into a staggering line, the elves keep order as Santa's beard is yanked -- it's real! -- and wishes whispered in his ear. A ruffled and flustered child heads for the over-sized presents next to Santa's worn throne. Ripping shiny paper away, the child's eyes fill with tears -- it's empty! A quick-thinking elf offers a fat orange. Tears gone. Christmas is saved!

From Guest Contributor D. K. White-Atkinson

Santa Ritual

I’m ten, too old to sit on Santa’s lap. Tell my parents. Please, someone?

Last year I was a brat, on purpose. Cracked inappropriate jokes, tugged his beard, farted on his pants. Hoping my message would come across.

Yet, here we go again. When asked what I want for Christmas, I belted out my thoughts.

Santa was speechless. Mom and Dad stared. Parents with kids waiting to meet Santa looked like icicles.

Then, I remembered Scrooge. “Sorry Santa,” I said, not letting him see my tears.

“You’re forgiven, son,” he replied. “The greatest gift is love. You already have that.”From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published at: Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, 100 word story, 101 Words, Boston Literary Magazine, From the Depths (Haunted Waters Press), ShortbreadStories, SixWordMemoirs, and Espresso Stories.