Free

"Oooh, look!" Miriam slowed for a u-turn. They had been driving the county routes and dead ends. The third sofa. "Free" written on cardboard. A recliner.

Her daughters tumbled out. Mitzi leaped from the hatchback. The girls bounced. One bounced on the recliner.

"Here Mitzi!" Mitzi jumped.

"Over here!" One daughter bounced on the sofa. Cushion to cushion. Mitzi twirled.

Miriam pointed to the recliner. "This one?" One daughter squealed. "That one?" nodding to the sofa. The other squealed.

Mitzi spun.

Miriam placed two cushions into the far back. Mitzi jumped. The girls slid. Miriam drove.

"That's enough for today."

From Guest Contributor Rick Henry

The Bobby Pin Woman

In my brother’s dream, a woman was sleeping on his closet shelf. When she woke, she claimed she was going to kill our grandfather with bobby pins. She was surrounded by them, and called herself the Bobby Pin Woman. All the pins were short in those days, without the cushion things on the ends like now, that save your scalp. When we went to see our grandfather, he lay in a hospital bed that raised him up from the waist. At the Rosary, I asked my brother what “Hail Mary” meant. At five I only knew to bow my head.From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Linda's stories and poems have appeared in Outlook Springs, Misfit Magazine, Gone Lawn, A Story in 100 Words, What Rough Beast, Eunoia Review, and others.

Comparison

He stood mesmerized by the depth and variety of the spice-stall’s palette; deep reds to yellows that hurt the eyes so much he had to close them, having to be satisfied with inhaling the melange of aromas.

The taste of burger was still in his mouth from the fast food outlet around the corner. It felt cheap and nasty in such company. He felt shame.

Then he felt a piercing violation of flesh and fell forward, arms failing to move to cushion. The chain securing the briefcase was snipped. Bolt cutters, he thought as his brighter red smothered the fruit.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Witness

The firemen backed out of the room, choking on the gut-churning scent. The old woman lay splayed across the floor, one purple foot twisted out from under the quilted bathrobe, the other in a pink slipper, the lamb's wool gripping the foot it could no longer warm, by her side a bloated miniature dachshund and a cat curled and frozen on the cushion of the kitchen chair. A cockatoo danced back and forth on his perch, still calling to the woman on the floor, to the dog in whining vigil, to the three weeks of silence in the house.

From Guest Contributor Diane de Anda