Traitor

The streets were eerily quiet, and I knew Nazis were lurking around. I stood in the woods and listened to the animals’ noises until I heard footsteps. It was the contact. He said the code word and I handed him the papers. He was gone as quickly as he came.

I was about to make my way back to the resistance when I heard another set of footsteps. I braced myself and reached for my weapon, but it was gone. Traitorous monster, I thought. He swiped my knife.

A Nazi appeared pointing a barrel of a gun to my head.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Our Private Summit

I listened to Camilla talking about global warming, the ocean plastic crisis and the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. Words crowded behind her lips: I silenced them with a kiss. We stayed ten eternal seconds in that first intimate contact.

“I didn't see it coming,” she told me, when she recovered.

“I don't believe you.”

“I knew it could happen, but not so soon. I thought you were harmless.”

“The same they say about climate change.”

We spent all afternoon enjoying our private summit, evaluating the measures to be taken in the future. We started to negotiate ecological caress credits.

From Guest Contributor Marcelo Medone

Marcelo (1961, Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a fiction writer, poet, essayist and screenwriter. His works have received numerous awards and have been published in magazines and books, individually or in anthologies, in multiple languages in more than 40 countries all over the world, including the US.

He has been nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize.

Facebook: Marcelo Medone / Instagram: @marcelomedone

Document

The rain pelts my face, the umbrella useless. I walk quickly, but not enough to draw attention. I must get to my destination and back before curfew.

The document I carry may save countless lives. If the Nazis stop me for a search, they’ll never find it.

“Do you have it?”

I place the umbrella down, dripping, release my shoe and pull the document from my heel, handing it to the contact.

“Good work,” he says and hands me a paper that I neatly place into the heel of my shoe.

I leave and make my way home before curfew.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Served

“You are served!”

“Why?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Hmm. No contact, the papers state, so I won’t know. Let me think. I haven’t bought her a birthday present for four or five years, but she doesn’t like what I buy anyway. I always turn over all of the money I make. She is a great bookkeeper. No 'out to dinner,' but I cook often. I don’t do dishes. The kids are grown and out on their own. We don’t talk too much. I imagine she emptied out the savings. Where are Ted and I gonna get stoned? Where am I to sleep?”

From Guest Contributor Virginia Timm

Spy Culture

Just before dawn, the train barreled across the border. My carryall bag on the overhead rack contained an entire set of ant-dreams preserved in amber. Spies lurked everywhere, but, after the train pulled in, I evaded them by frequently changing my facial expressions. Later that day, I traveled by sampan and pedicab to meet my contact, an experienced agent posing as an English nanny. We met in a neighborhood playground beside a tree whose round fruit the children pretended were bombs. At one point I forgot the word “cremated” and had to ask her, “What’s it called – incinerating the body?”

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of The Titanic Sails at Dawn (Alien Buddha Press, 2019).