Muted

Late one night in a foreign town, I walked past two men just inside a dark alley. The larger one had the other pushed up against a wall with a knife under his chin. The smaller man looked at me with pleading, terror-filled eyes. When the larger man jerked to follow his gaze, I hurried beyond them up the street. No one else was around to turn to for help. I had no cell phone and no idea where the nearest police station was. So I just continued on my way, hands trembling, head down: voiceless, derelict, abandoning all rectitude.

From Guest Contributor William Cass

A Boy I Knew

A boy I knew killed a man. Lost his mind. Shaved his head. His face on the news was an open-mouthed scream, soundless. His eyes so round, searching. I whispered to the screen: please blink. I said it like ice in his mouth, like the way he’d look up at stars puncturing the still night sky, the cold air, too many angles of his body pushing out, knees and elbows and chin. I said it without hope. When this boy was mine, he danced and wide-smiled and kissed and laughed. His voice rang out, ethereal, hit the earth like rain.

From Guest Contributor Beth Mead

Soothing Sounds

As soon as I entered the apartment, I felt the heavy air of disappointment. Lauren hadn’t made the all-star team. She’d been practicing her foul shots and layups for months. She was curled into the recliner with a blanket tucked under her chin. I knew better than to speak to her.

On my way into the kitchen, it struck me that my father had discovered texting and Face Time on his cell phone. I shot him a text, turned the speaker on, and my father’s warmth came through my phone.

“Pop Pop” Lauren squealed, jumping and tossing the blanket aside.

From Guest Contributor Edith Gallagher Boyd

Sweet Revenge

“Trespassers deserve to be punished,” Ralph stated. “They have no business being on property they’re not entitled to.”

He stared at his damaged lawn.

Jeremy winced. “You sure about that? Might’ve been here before you.”

Ralph scratched his chin. “Okay, they’re diligent workers but they aren’t working for me.”

“How about you forget and forgive. Better still, prepare a nice meal for them.”

“That’s what I had in mind. Got all the fixings right here in my bag.“

After mixing up the concoction and serving it, Ralph watched.

With the sweet taste of sugar, the ants entered their underground home.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. She resides in Edmonton, Canada.

Apple Jenga

Pyramids of fruit abound in the market’s produce section.

A man pokes and squeezes to find the perfect Gala. Five tiers down, he locates a winner, and the Jenga game begins.

He shapes his hand into a “C,” then moves in slowly to extract the prize, leaving a hole in the pyramid where the apple once was.

Standing a little taller, he raises his chin and puffs up his chest.

One aisle over, he sees a woman arch her back and hold her shoulders high. Next to her, three holes exist in the Golden Delicious pile.

He’s met his match.

From Guest Contributor Jennifer Lai

Fate

Cold and hungry, I shivered on the platform.

Everything had been taken. The silverware from Grandmother Petra, tossed in a bag, was a knife to the heart. All our valuable paintings, ripped from the walls and tossed into a pile, was too much for my husband Jenko. He protested and got a bullet in the head. I held my chin high without weeping.

I’m alone, except for the hundreds of people waiting to board the train and wondering where we are going.

I lowered my head and pressed my hand against “The Star of David,” sewed onto my fraying coat.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Numb

“I’m so sick of pain, Gene. I wish I couldn’t feel at all.” With a shaky sniffle, Emily stroked the black fur of Gene’s chin, eliciting his tractor purr.

She may never fully recover, the doctors said. They called it transverse myelitis. Emily preferred less polite terms.

Gene‘s glowing eyes slid closed. Emily’s followed.

She awoke to a ringtone, heart pounding. Her thoughts reached for the phone inches away on the sofa.

Not a muscle twitched. No sensation, as though her nerves had died. The phone fell silent. Gene‘s stare blazed with yellow light.

Gene...

In her mind, Emily screamed.

From Guest Contributor Michelle Cook

Feeling Blue

Blue is a breeze blowing wisps of hair across my cheek. Red is juice running down my chin as I bite a sun-ripened strawberry. Green, the scent of freshly cut grass, blades rippling and tickling the soles of my feet. Purple is the fading warmth of a summer’s evening. White, a smooth window pane on an icy winter morning.

I feel these things because I was born deaf, and my vision melted away soon after. I sometimes imagine fleeting specks of color from my first glimpses of life, but those memories exist only in the moments between sleep and waking.

From Guest Contributor Megan Cassidy

Megan is an author and English professor currently teaching at Schenectady County Community College. Her first young adult novel, Always, Jessie will be published by Saguaro Books this spring. Megan's other work has been featured in Pilcrow & Dagger, Wordhaus, and Gilded Serpent Magazine. For free excerpts and deleted scenes of Megan's work, check out her website or follow her on Twitter

Nightshirt

It was shocking to find the moon to be just as Joey had always seen her in paintings: the pointy chin, drooping lids and blue glitter eyelashes, the silver curlicue smile. Cold as it was, she smelled like steaming milk, and the look in her eyes was warm and vast, outside and inside at the same time. She was almost two-dimensional, but he knew she had room for him. He climbed on, nestled his knees into the hollow under her bottom lip, hooked a hand around the bridge of her nose, and fell asleep in the pillow of her cheek.

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.