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.

Unfinished Business

I returned from the dead, a list in my pocket: wrongs to right, pleasures to reclaim, truths to confess, sins to own. Mostly I needed to know how the world had fared without me. Apart from my poor mother, a grieving ghost of her former self, it was as if I’d never lived. Never loved. Never mattered. A stranger slept in my bed, alongside my darling wife, in my home, the one I’d slaved to pay for, my manicured garden now wildly overgrown. I fed the list to the fire. I’d start over from the very beginning, wherever that was.

From Guest Contributor Elizabeth Murphy

Manuscript

The rain pelted the window as I typed the last few pages of my manuscript. It was past midnight, and I had been working for hours with a cold cup of coffee on my desk. My agent advised that it would be in my best interest to have it ready by tomorrow morning, my first novel.

Thunder filled the sky, and my dog Bree ran under bed, my concentration never faltering.

As I typed “The End,” a flash of lightning lit the sky, and the electricity went out.

I didn’t have a chance to hit save before the power outage.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Linda

When I opened my eyes, the room spun, and the immense pressure in my head caused my stomach to churn. I surveyed the room and realized I was in a hospital, laying in a bed, my arm hooked into intravenous. I heard footsteps and then a nurse walked in.

“Hi, Linda, I just need to take your blood pressure. How are you feeling today?”

“I don’t know. How did I get here?”

“You had a terrible car accident. You’re very fortunate. I’ll be back later to check on you.”

She called me Linda, but I didn’t remember who I was.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Lights Out

I heard the news today, oh boy. The sun has gone supernova and in six hours the earth is a cinder. Judy and I broke up, so I went to Henry’s Bar in the hopes of being some woman’s last chance. The one woman there was working her way through the guys. Her "dance card” was already filled. With time growing short, I’d give Judy another chance. She told me “Duke you should have gotten the message. I’m not going to waste my little time left with you. I’m in Jason’s bed making the best of the end of world.”

From Guest Contributor Doug Hawley

Home For Christmas

I finished arranging the last of the ornaments on the Christmas tree. I pressed the switch and the bright red, green and blue lights lit the room, and the star topper sparkled.

The manger was arranged with Mary and Joseph beside the baby Jesus and the wise men holding their gifts.

My children were getting the milk and cookies ready for Santa Claus before going to bed and awakening to presents and my laughter, even though Hal wasn’t home.

I sat on the large sofa and sipped my hot cocoa when the doorbell rang.

My Hal, home from the war.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Runnin’ On Adrenaline

I’m amazed at how much energy I can muster after that dreaded phone call. It doesn’t matter it’s 3:00 AM. I can sacrifice sleep. I’m dressed in a flash and on the road racing to the hospital, running through hallways, arriving before your final breath, “I’m here Dad, I love you.”

You whisper, “Always remember Helen, you’re my queen of queens.”

And after arranging your funeral, packing your clothes, arguing with my siblings about who gets what, I drag myself home, plop down on the bed thinking I’ll pass out from exhaustion, instead, I think of you and tears erupt.

From Guest Contributor Charles Gray

The Bed One Lies In

Brother declared himself ‘nonconformist,’ deciding back in grade school that rules and rituals mattered not.

Many blamed him in situations for his lack of respect. He claimed he simply had no interest.

The breaking point was the forging of Dad’s signature on a cheque. Mother decided on a punishment.

“You have to lie in the bed you made,” she grunted.

“I never make my bed,” he grinned.

He broke the curfew, not returning on time. In the morning it was learned he crashed his motorcycle into a cement wall.

Mother stopped making his bed. No one slept in it again.From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes mainly short fiction and poetry.

Home

The muffled voices from outside the closed door play behind every memory. The echoes of arguments filled my ears each night as I fell asleep. The stinging sliding down my face and the taste of salt along my lips fills me with comfort. My frowning face in the bathroom mirror, as I rinse the dried tears from my cheeks, is a clear picture of me. Home is a safe place. I feel safe behind those doors. I feel safe tucked in my bed. I feel safe as I cry myself to sleep. Home is the familiar noise of troubled souls.

From Guest Contributor Selah Mantravadi

Pirate Tale

Aright, there I was reading a pirate book in bed, when a portal opened and swiped me into a different realm of sorts. It took the whole bed and me cup of rum. Sailing into the seven oceans blue making me wonder what was true. Thus I pondered and wondered about reality as I continued to read my pirate book. Were there just seven seas or oceans in the realm of reality I was in,at which point a pirate spoke to me, making me wonder what was in my rum. To live free is a dream. Dying an end.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle