Alma's Journey

I'd always known about my husband's cheating, but when he was home, he was good company. Now he'd left.

Was I losing my mind, too?

"Leave Miami," my daughter had said. She’d just given birth to my only grandchild. "You can start over with us in Orlando."

What was she was thinking? She knows I've never been more than thirty miles from home.

I looked down. The purse I thought I'd lost was between my shoes.

Picking up my purse, I couldn’t wait for the train doors to open fully—my daughter cradling my granddaughter on the brightly lit platform.From Guest Contributor Geoffrey Philp

Geoffrey is the author of the YA novel, Garvey’s Ghost. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the Inter-American Campus of Miami Dade College.

A Viking Burial

"Who does this anymore?" Joshua asked. "A viking burial -- is it even legal?"

I looked out at the lake, its opposite shoreline no longer visible under the moonless night sky. The family lake house was well secluded, shrouded in forest nearly twenty miles thick.

"It's what he would have wanted," I answered, glancing down at the lifeless figure in the wooden canoe, hands gracefully folded, with a wreath of crumpled newspaper haloing his head.

With a heavy sigh, Joshua waded the canoe out to water as I lit several matches. He smirked.

"Feels like cheating, without the bow and arrow."

From Guest Contributor Amanda S.

The Pesto of Love

Jasper Bains had not meant to invent a love potion. He had an excess of macadamia nuts and fresh tarragon; it seemed a good idea to make pesto from them.

Every customer of Jasper's Specialty Foods who bought some returned hand in hand with a new customer. Business was booming.

Jasper spread pesto on crackers and gave them to a frowning brown-haired woman and a young man who'd shot shy glances at her. Eyes met eyes and the winter cold was forgotten.

Jasper's heart skipped a beat when Genevieve walked in, but he hid the pesto. That would be cheating.

From Guest Contributor Ross Clement

The Voice

Stephen had a conversation with the voice every day. It tended to be an incessant dialogue until one or the other of them fell asleep. The voice cajoled and upbraided and urged him to do the worst things.

There was the time the voice commanded him to steal the money from his coworker’s till and she got fired. Or the time it wanted him to cheat on his girlfriend with that woman in the bar. Or his ongoing cocaine addiction.

What made the whole thing even more perverted was the voice sounded just like his third grade teacher, Miss Boggs.