When I Get To Heaven

The dust stuck to everything, even my sweat. The heat wasn't as dry as everyone said. I'd be happy when this job was over and I could head back to the city.

The pay had been too good to say no. Five thousand bucks for a single target. I assumed there would be catch.

The catch was the location. Heaven, a town I'd never heard of, found just a few miles down from the edge of absolutely fucking nowhere.

If I wasn't headed to heaven to kill a man, I'd have assumed I was the one who was already dead.

The Whimsical Sun

It always rained where I lived, and the sun never showed its face. January to December: an encore of relentless grey days.

Sometimes during the summer break, when the gray became unbearable, my mother allowed me a night’s stay at my best friend's house next door.

There at her place, we would play late into the night and there was always an abundance of hot chocolate and stories to go around. Late mornings, while we were still in bed, her father used to roll up the clacking blinds, and tiny motes of dust danced in the sun, just like magic.

From Guest Contributor E. Rhyme

Resistance

The bomb exploded and debris collapsed all around. Covered in dust and choking from dryness, I ran to the alley. A sharp pain in my leg, I realized I had a large gash. I tore the sleeve of my shirt and wrapped my leg to stop the bleeding. With the gestapo in the area and people screaming, I stayed put.

After hours of cramped space and agonizing discomfort, I got up from the ground and limped to the safe house where my team awaited.

The resistance would be pleased with my finding and hopefully the allies would be here soon.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Dragonfly And Crow

We—who were left by the fire after the boss stood on the flame's waving edge, wearing his black suit and immaculate boots, to tell the dragonfly and the crow that had bedeviled his every moment since the fire's first spark that he had found a solution and would soon be free of their cruelty, that he, the boss, would soon pull off their wings and grind them into dust, and then turned, the boss, and ran into the flames—joined our hands before spreading blankets on scorched grass, opening bottles of cold beer, and sharing figs fatter than those in eternity.

From Guest Contributor John Riley

John is a former teacher who works in educational publishing. He has published fiction and poetry in Smokelong Quarterly, Mojave River Review, Ekphrastic Review, Connotation Press, Banyan Review, Better Than Starbucks, and many other journals and anthologies. EXOT Press will publish a book of his 100-word prose poems in 2022.

Crazy

That’s what he thought. Small balloon floated over his head with &#%!@?; yet, he smiled at her with his lizard eyes—his lips razor-thin, unable to utter the string of words that would sear the flesh off of her. He remembered a bible verse as a matter of reckoning the lies he listened to while sitting at that table. He thought about the sounds that kept him up half the night. Not new sounds in the farmhouse— no new sounds, except theirs, living in the thin cracks of ticking floorboards and plaster dust. He listened without making a sound.

From Guest Contributor M.J. Iuppa

M.J.’s fifth full-length poetry collection The Weight of Air is forthcoming from Kelsay Books, May, 2022. For the past 33 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.

Mammoth

An airplane soars into the mammoth building, leaving a gaping hole. Blackness, dust, and papers fill the air.

Angels fall and my heart beats quickly not knowing what to do. I pace the floor with the others, stunned, quiet, unable not to watch. The sirens pierce our ears, and we stare at one another.

The phones ring with panicking family members crying that a second plane has crashed into the other building. I drop the phone when the fire drill alarms. The sky darkens and we head to the staircase not knowing our fate.

The World Trade Center is no more.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Fade

There wasn’t much to see, wasn’t much to be seen, and he knew it. He knew every inch of the room; had taken its inventory a million billion times, day in and day out since his sentence had begun. Nothing but crumbs and dust and a bed he’d never made.

He hadn’t heard a thing but his own thoughts in ages, and even they were beginning to fade. Mostly all he had these days was the memory of sound: screams, sobs, and the slamming of doors.

The only face he’d seen was his own, smiling, on the tattered magazine cover.

From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette

Ron. Lavalette’s debut chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press) is now available at all standard outlets.

Dust To Dust

NATURE SUBMISSION:

The dust swirls through the late evening sun, catching the light just so. Growing up, people used to say the dust was your dead skin. A few of my more morbid friends even said it was the skin of dead people. Dust to dust after all.

I wonder if that's true. The poet in me wants to believe it is, that we're surrounded by our ancestors at all times, that their spirits live for eternity on the winds.

The claims adjuster in me turns back to my computer screen. Perhaps if I concentrated a bit more I'd be home already.

From Guest Contributor Angie Thrush

Love You Till The End

NATURE SUBMISSION:

I’d never seen a more glorious sunset, even after a tornado. Half the sky was a golden yellow and the clouds above the sun were skeins of vermilion fire. Even the orange flames on the horizon dulled in comparison. Dust in the air; much of it probably radioactive.

We had come out of the root cellar, its door fortunately hidden by an overgrown raspberry patch, where we’d hidden from marauding mobs that had fled the cities, and hidden again when the pursuing troops began shelling. Our house and outbuildings were charred skeletons, the animals gone. We were still holding hands.

From Guest Contributor F. J. Bergmann

Shine

Scrub scrub scrub the floor. Make it sparkle. Make it beam. Kneel on the floor, wash the tiles. Use the rag. Soak it up. Use the brush. Clean the cracks. Use the sponge. Get rid of the spot. Quick. Go quick. Before they come, before they notice. Faster. Go faster. Before it smells, before it stains. Scrub scrub scrub. No! No, there is still red! Pour more bleach. Make it shine. There should be no trace of dirt or dust. No trace of blood or guts. Ah! Finally. Clean. Shiny. Spotless. No one will know. Now, deal with the body.

From Guest Contributor Alexa Hulmes