Bass Fishing In America

CONTEST WINNER:

The bass must talk to each other.

“Hey, I’m not going to chase those chartreuse spinners today. Are you guys with me?”

It’s amazing that creatures with brains the size of a split pea can outsmart other creatures that are supposedly the pinnacle of creation, or happenstance. Anglers driving hundred-thousand-dollar boats equipped with underwater cameras, sonar, and drones occasionally get skunked.

“Let’s follow those surface poppers right up to the boat, then suddenly dart into that network of rocky crevices.”

“Okay.”

Stealth trolling technology, GPS markers, anise-scented lures.

I’m really not surprised that the war in Afghanistan didn’t go better.

From Guest Contributor Mark Thomas

The Chopping Block

The cabbage on the chopping block was a vivid royal purple. She couldn’t figure out why it was called red cabbage. It certainly looked purple, even after it was cooked. Her sheepsfoot knife was thinly slicing the quartered pieces with almost no effort. Good knives were worth every dollar spent on them, she mused.

She thought ahead: I still need to chop the onions and the Granny Smith apples. I hope I have apple cider vinegar. This dish will go perfectly with roasted pork.

She looked down and noticed blood on the board. Was that the tip of her finger?

From Guest Contributor Janice Siderius

After A Painting By David Lynch

He said to me, “I am dying.” I said, “How is that my fault?” but sat down on the bed and held him and rocked him. Somewhere out there the lake was being strangled. I was frightened the fish would die, and that this would instigate the death row shuffle for everyone. The sound of endless wars in far-off places is still buzzing in my head. I stop, I look. The boy and the car are gone. It’s just crying and anger here, and farmers who make less than a dollar a day having an arm or leg blown off.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

Traveller

As soon as Aarthi could walk she had toddled off to the nearby railroad crossing and plopped herself down under the sign to play in the dust with whatever curios escaped from the trains’ wakes as they slowed.

Her skinny brown legs had quickly lost their natural skin-glow as she had sprawled in pursuit of imagination. She’d found a shiny dollar once. Mam had taken that. Aarthi had got ice-cream.

***

Sixteen long years ago. Now, she eased her battered body to a sitting position and placed her hand on the rail. It was coming to free her from her abuser.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid