Mrs. Garvey

Tom mostly preferred to forget his high school years, but he did recall his senior English class. He spent an entire semester imagining his future married to Mrs. Garvey. As far as he was concerned, she was the most beautiful woman alive. The fact she was well versed in romantic literature only made their life together even more appealing.

Encountering his former crush at the grocery store should have provided the perfect opportunity to realize his dream. Unfortunately, despite being ten years older, he found himself just as incapable of forming a coherent sentence as when he was a student.

Safari

I couldn’t believe I was in Africa on a safari and that my dream came to fruition.

My guide points to the giraffes in the field; their long necks and legs were ominous to other smaller animals.

The elephants led their young and stayed nearby. It was astonishing seeing them up close, the males’ prominent ivory tusks digging the soil as their young squeaked.

The heat in Africa was unbearable, so I sipped my bottled water to stay hydrated in awe of my surroundings.

The tour ended and I was back at my hotel.

Tomorrow, my flight home to reality.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Every Ending

Needle prick. Anesthesia kicks in. You’re floating, light as a feather, then you fall back into your body. But not in this dream. You won’t wake up again.

Harsh hospital lights. There’s no capacity to sustain you. To build homes in this scorched world. You couldn’t afford them, not even before the natural disasters. Instead, one-square-meter pods in space—compact and cheap—for your brain. For all human brains. Other body parts are redundant.

We need to shrink. Reduce our footprint. The resources have been exhausted.

Before your eyes, the scalpel blurs. Remember that every ending is a new beginning.

From Guest Contributor Bettina Laszlo

Dream?

The doctor looked at me through his eyeglasses that sat perfectly on the rim of his nose.

“In your dream, you said a spirit you didn’t recognize handed you a feather.”

“Yes, but the figure was only a cloudy shape of a person.”

“What do you suppose the feather represents, Charlie?”

“My father used to train pigeons before he died in the car accident. Maybe that?”

“Possibly. Time to stop. We’ll continue this next week.”

When I arrived home, I felt something in my pants pocket. I reached in and my eyes widened. It was the feather from my dream.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Wake Me

You know that FOMO feeling when you realize your friends have been hanging out without you? Every insecurity threatens to overwhelm as you fear never being invited out again and wonder what horrible things were said about you in your absence?

That's how I feel every time I fall asleep. While I'm dreaming about tests unstudied for or mundane conversations with long-forgotten acquaintances, what amazing adventures might be happening in the waking world? It's enough to make one an insomniac.

Of course, every time I awaken from a particularly delicious dream I must worry about what fantasies I've left behind.

Are We All Bound In Hell?

The quantum traveler reviewed history yet again.

Age of change?

Age of reality?

Watching the Mandela effects replace known history?

Or a mind swapped into a shifted realm?

For?

In Abe Lincoln's election 1860 only 2 parties ran. Not 4.

Lincoln according to Hillary Clinton and myself was a senator.

The question really is does any of it matter?

Or is this all some sort of dream?

Science confirms we live in a simulator.

So a test is expected at the end of a simulated training run.

Is life the test or is hell just all there is to expect?

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

Pirate Tale

Aright, there I was reading a pirate book in bed, when a portal opened and swiped me into a different realm of sorts. It took the whole bed and me cup of rum. Sailing into the seven oceans blue making me wonder what was true. Thus I pondered and wondered about reality as I continued to read my pirate book. Were there just seven seas or oceans in the realm of reality I was in,at which point a pirate spoke to me, making me wonder what was in my rum. To live free is a dream. Dying an end.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

Speaking From Beyond

The spirit spoke.

“Water is wetting my house.” Trevor woke up from his dream puzzled. He wondered what his dead aunt was trying to tell him from beyond the grave. He waited for the sun to rise and then rushed down to her burial spot to investigate.

Examining the sepulcher, he saw a gaping hole in the roof of the structure and as he looked down he could see the coffin below. He took out some cement and sand he had in his car trunk and sealed off the spot.

“Ok,” he said, “That was what the dream was about."

From Guest Contributor Dennis Williams

Dennis is an emerging poet/writer from Sandy Hill, St. Catherine, Jamaica. His writings have been published in agape Review, the American Diversity Report (ADR), Alchemy spoon issue #7, the Health line Zine #1, the independent literary magazine Adelaide #54, EgoPHobia # 74, and the livina press issue # 3, Blue Pepper Magazine.

The Silken Parasol

Elethea needs rest—there is no peace—looking for a place to hide, she's found it. A good deal of space inside the umbrella, so she lay there with her face turned up towards the light. She cannot help but dream as she admires the firefly-lit lantern from the lamppost on the corner. Above all others, it is virtuous in golden light. Down, down, down into the darkness of the silken parasol. So gently it goes as she settles in her bitter bed. Several people walk by, uninterested in her. None of them bother to look in through the silk.

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Her Dream

Little by little, she slept. The world had become rather too much. She began, in the night, when no one was watching, stealing away to where she couldn’t be found. Her great disappearing act. But before long, she’d be pulled back to the incessant waking wants, needs, demands. So she honed her skills. Cut social ties, snuck off earlier. Worked from home, held out longer. Staked claim to a full half of each day. And of what did she dream? Every night, the greatest dream of all. A world without work, without demands, where she could sleep as she pleased.

From Guest Contributor John Villan