A Day at the Lake

Cartoon fishing is bloodless but the one who landed on the bodies of trees that was a good excuse for a sweating can of beer in the red hand of Uncle John was a body, eyes peeled and gasping, flapping, slapping, impaled with rusting violence and the lie about the free lunch of the worm and I also stopped chewing, not because of my seven-year-old wiggly tooth but because of the hook in the ham sandwich my mother'd given me, the hook in the wooden deck of the boat, the hook that cartoon fishing is bloodless

and then she died

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

That Holiday We All Supposedly Love

I push in my code: 437. The sound mocking me as I snatch the clipboard off of its peg—the check list of the unforgiving. My job today: revision in the main isle. I garb my lime-green box-cutter. Time to unpack the new merchandise. I fill the cart with cardboard boxes and scoot to the holiday shelves. I slit open the tape and a waft of rich-bitterness hits my nose. I pull out the advertisement holder that holds crimson candy boxes with cartoon dogs saying, “I ruff you! Give me a kiss!” Lurking within, little cones of so called yummy.

From Guest Contributor McKenzie A. Frey