Two Emperor Penguins

After laying her egg, the female Emperor penguin spends at least two months at sea gorging on silverfish. The unfed male then incubates the egg for that entire time in the penguin colony. Ed and Fred were two Emperor penguins...

"I'm really sick of sitting on this thing and living off my body fat, Fred."

"It gets really uncomfortable, especially in the sensitive parts down there, Ed."

"Do you ever dream of silverfish – just eating silverfish all the time?"

"Do you know what's odd, Ed?”

"What?"

"After sitting here so long, all I seem to dream about is scrambled eggs."

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

War Without Rules

There were days when the explosions didn’t subside. The sirens became more and more frequent, especially at night. We began to sleep badly. Then one morning, while hurrying to the market, I was struck by flying debris. At the hospital the doctor first looked around to make sure no one was listening who shouldn’t be. “I just need to grab a lab coat and one egg and I can fix this,” he said. He cut my feet open and put pennies in the incisions before sewing them back up and wrapping them in bandages. He said they were lucky pennies. From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is a poet and collage artist on Cape Cod. His latest poetry books are Famous Long Ago (Laughing Ronin Press) and The Bad News First (Kung Fu Treachery Press).

In The Stir Of A Hand

Robots Contest Entry

“Squeal! Crunch!”

“What’s that sound?” questioned Susan.

Tom ran into the kitchen to check. AngelCakes attempted to blend soup with the batter, including the tin can.

“Darn, instructions weren’t clear,” Tom fretted, making necessary adjustments.

With a replacement of ingredients, the smell of spicy tomato soup cake soon filled their house.

“Hmmm...crunchy!” Susan commented, spitting out bits of cake.

“Yuck!” Tom balked, taking a bite. “Should’ve written: Put egg into mixing bowl. Throw out shell.”

He made another note in the recipe.

“I’ll have our baking robot ready in time to make you a birthday cake, hon.”

Susan grimaced.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction regardless of the season, although she prefers spring.

A Visit To Kafka’s Castle

Not just anyone could stay at the castle that claimed in its promotional literature to be Kafka’s birthplace. A person needed a proven reason to be there – in our case, your egg and my semen. I didn't want to rush you, but my Viagra was starting to wear off. You were seeing something no one else had ever seen when the police burst in, waving their nightsticks and demanding, “Who’s the bad man? What does he look like?” This makes everything sound worse than it was, especially as a whale in the harbor was spouting purple music the whole time.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is on the pavement, thinking about the government.

The Way The World Ends

At first I thought it was a barrel of whiskey strapped to the back of the gangly old man, stooping him over to half in the parking lot. Snow swirled in orange light clouds. As he shuffled closer, I realized it was an egg, yellowish, enormous, bound with dirty ropes. There were scratches on it as long as my arm, and I wondered whether they came from the inside or the outside. I loaded the groceries into the car and pushed my cart at him.

“That’s not how it works,” he muttered, head down. “I have to carry it myself.”

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

My Nana's Custard Tarts

Reflected by the low sun, her chair cast almost mechanical shadows.

Her milky waxy eyes somehow still sparkled.

She chuckled and a few chins flapped like defrosted chicken skin.

I sat pinned, and listened well.

So she told me about custard tarts.

"A good custard tart is rare you know, but you know when you have found one, the pastry is shorter than a long weekend, but as flaky as a veteran hippy! The filling, lovemaking of newlyweds, egg and vanilla, on velvet sheets of cream, complete with nutmeg confetti."

We both sat grinning at the crumbs on our plates.

From Guest Contributor Christoctopus

Stopping To Retrieve What Might Be Lost In The Brush, Quiet.

Late afternoon, Tuesday, I have gathered sixteen leaves into four stacks, and a dog wanders closer to my clean patch of dirt and moss, and this book of symbols is open to the first page on interlocking circles, and four hours of collecting hues through a borrowed lens feels too brief, and this final autumn egg sits askew, broken open, sticky, not drying fast enough, and the dog is coming too close, coming soon, and some winter begins collecting itself near hatchings left to wander into this too early night, and I stand, bend at the waist, and look inside.

From Guest Contributor, Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, from John Gosslee Books (2012) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.