Analog

Clocks are next to useless and no alarm cares what you think of it. Their noise is neither birdsong nor church-bell. It is measured by eye-blinks and muscle contractions. Clocks reflect anxiety when the big hand overtakes the little. Their seconds are like tickles of hair. Sometimes clocks are said to be buying time. But what happens when that time is only borrowed? Clocks stop without notice when their time is up. When their battery runs out, it sounds like the click of a tiny rifle; the tapping of a deathwatch beetle. No one hears it until it’s too late.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Sofa Of Cycles

The sagging couch cushions are a trophy–evidence attesting to her self-discipline to stay situated.

She’s a chameleon in her contradictory custom office. An extension cord slithers around wooden legs, dressed with a black and blocky laptop vitalizer. The coffee table has been repurposed into a feet-book-pen desk, crowded with sacred guides to creation and the honing of creative crafts. No clocks tick, as time gives no counsel. Silence rears its head to the ears of the beholder, mouth perpetually packed by scribbles and click-clacks.

She forges life and death. A prolific puppet master.

Stay at home God of worlds.

From Guest Contributor Madeline van Batum

Madeline lives in Colorado with her cat and hopes that one day she can go back to her home country of the Netherlands to finally meet the Flying Dutchman.

Relationships

Anna reflected on her most cherished companions.

There wasn’t a room in her home that didn’t feel their presence. They helped her become organized and value the importance of scheduling her days.

When they stopped behaving as expected, especially at times of need, Anna fell apart.

Her son noticed the untimely demise. How she missed appointments or arrived late for others. How her personality took on an air of grumpiness.

“Let’s get you back on track,” he said, visiting one day.

Once he fitted batteries into the once silenced clocks, his mother bounced back.

Her time-focused companions ticked on.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction while trying to keep warm through a Canadian winter.

D.S.T.

Our test of CesiumApp (Sync Your Devices to The Nanosecond!) launched at 2am, the end of Daylight Savings Time.

But somehow when the clocks fell back, so did we, snapped to wherever we’d been one hour before. We showed up again in the conference room, greedy with foreknowledge. Kyler sold airline stocks short, profiting from a plane explosion. I bet Australian rugby winners.

We waited anxiously for next 2am when an explosion blew the doors open. A hideous half-human encrusted with growths like lichen gasped “butterflies” in a familiar croak, leveling a rusted revolver.

I’d always been handy with guns.

From Guest Contributor Clay Waters

Wonder

The Erie Canal in Spring is serene, she thought. Once again, first heat of May made the pink sugar bowl blossoms on magnolia trees shimmer with light. Townies were out walking, taking their time getting to the Lift Bridge on Main Street. Each wore a blue, or red, or yellow balloon fastened to their jackets. The balloons drifted & tugged in the wind, like her niggling thoughts about her neighbors. How they reminded her of sliced white bread. She doubted that they knew they lacked depth; yet, like setting clocks ahead, they came to watch water fill the canal’s bed.

From Guest Contributor M.J. Iuppa

M.J.’s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 31 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

Traveler

Curiosity turned into passion. A passion to explore the unknown.

Time. Space. Alternate history. I visited them all.

And my memories unfolded...

Worlds I explored.Arrakis. Gethen. Narnia.

Characters I observed.Zaphod Beeblebrox. Severian.Winston Smith.

Wonders I experienced.Clocks that struck thirteen.Monoliths that searched minds ofape-like men.Farm animals that spoke of revolution.

Gods of worlds that I was privileged to.Wolfe. Asimov. Lewis. Clarke.

But you wondered about how I made the impossible possible.

Inventor of faster-than-light travel?Navigator of black holes?Man familiar with alien technology?

I responded with three simple words.

"No. I read."

From Guest Contributor John Lane