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

Dream?

The doctor looked at me through his eyeglasses that sat perfectly on the rim of his nose.

“In your dream, you said a spirit you didn’t recognize handed you a feather.”

“Yes, but the figure was only a cloudy shape of a person.”

“What do you suppose the feather represents, Charlie?”

“My father used to train pigeons before he died in the car accident. Maybe that?”

“Possibly. Time to stop. We’ll continue this next week.”

When I arrived home, I felt something in my pants pocket. I reached in and my eyes widened. It was the feather from my dream.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Death Of A Student

The email arrives just after 7:30 am, and its subject line is blunt: “death of a student”

You read this slowly. Twice. Open the message. In two sentences, the Dean of Students tells you everything: She was killed in a car accident. They’re working to remove her from your roster.

You delete the message, drag it back out of the Deleted Items folder, read it again.

The news isn’t public yet. You can’t say anything in class.

Her seat is empty. You pass out the day’s reading assignment and have an extra copy, which you quietly drop in the trash.

From Guest Contributor Shane Borrowman

Shadows Of The Forgotten Timepiece

He never uttered the word curse, but Dante had no doubt his life was marked for tragedy.

From his car accident at 16, to the string of outlandish catastrophes that followed him like ducklings throughout adulthood, including bouts of homelessness, addiction, and illness, both mental and physical in nature, Dante never caught a break, until finally he simply gave up all together.

Most of those who knew poor Dante blamed his lack of willpower. But they might have thought differently had they realized every misfortune occurred at exactly 3:13 PM. The same time he'd broken his grandfather's lucky watch.

A Loving Wife

Debra sat beside her husband’s hospital bed, the click of the monitor a regular tune in her head. Barry laid there, his breathing calm and steady. Seeing him hooked up to tubes and unconscious was an unbearable sight. Still, she read to him daily and hoped he heard, but his eyes never opened. It had been one year since his car accident. Trauma to the brain was what the doctor called it.

“I love you, Barry, but it’s time to let you go,” she gently kissed his lips.

As the doctor unplugged the monitor, Debra watched Barry’s chest stop moving.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Unlucky Fate

After six months of recovery in the hospital from my car accident, I’m finally going home.

I walk outside into the fresh air, taking deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling. I can’t stand the musty air in hospitals. My cell rings distracting me from my happy moment and I answer it.

“Hey, Charlie, I heard you’re discharged today.”

“Yeah, I’m on my way home as we speak.”

As I’m crossing the street, I walk straight into an oncoming car. People gather around me as I’m on the ground unable to move.

I guess I won’t be enjoying my own bed tonight.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

I'm Alive

People come and go, they fuss and say they love me while doing everything that I cannot. They touch my arm, but I don’t feel it. They talk to me, but I cannot reply. Their mobile lives allow them freedom to gaze upon beauty or hide from the disgusting whenever they please, but I will forever remain seated in my chair, staring at the projections that appear on my television screen. My fault or not, a single moment brought me to this place; a car accident I barely remember. This is my life now, but at least I'm alive, right?

From Guest Contributor Michael Atherton

Wavestar Bang

He lost her, but not as he thought: not to the cancer, or a car accident, or to some art student.

She was dancing alone to Wavestar in the dark, only the nightlight of the stove touching her naked toes, her knees, her swishing hips. She spun, hair whipping, neck caning, hands flying like children playing through the twilight air of the highway with the windows down, wrists like autumn leaves whose time had come.

She became transparent, translucent, spinning faster and faster, and glitter evaporated from the feet up, a tornado of silver steam.

He fell right through her.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

After graduating with a BA in English from Vassar College, Brook landed her first paid writing job as a reporter for a small-town Colorado newspaper. She left it to travel to India, where she fell in love, got married and canceled her ticket home. She and her husband Gaurav write freelance articles for dozens of publications, including Outpost, Ecoworld and Little India. In 2013, they launched www.BluePlanetJournal.com, which she edits and writes for. She also teaches writing at a community college, is earning her MFA in Writing at Lindenwood University, and is writing a novel.

The Margin Between Here And There

The margin between her final breath and eternity was shorter than she'd been led to believe, barely enough time to comprehend what was happening. She felt herself suffocated by regret and panic and an overwhelming sense of injustice..

There had been one moment when she'd been truly happy.

As her body twisted inside its metal chariot that would drive her forcefully into the afterlife, the airbag slammed away her breath, swallowed up her regrets, bludgeoned her consciousness, until all that was left was that moment.

She wanted to call out to him.

Before she could say goodbye it was over.

Stephen

One day, as he was looking through old photographs, Dave noticed a little boy in many of the photos who looked a lot like him, only a couple years younger. He was even in the family portraits.

As he flipped through, memories floated back of an imaginary friend named Stephen. Dave remembered him as a constant companion. His parents had always been kind enough to humor him. But sometime around his twelfth birthday, his parents had informed him that Stephen had been run over by a car.

It seemed strange an imaginary friend could show up in photos like that.