A Diner Problem

Ralph and Rayette were at breakfast, with Ralph treating. He called the waiter over to their booth with its plywood table top.

“Is something the matter?”

“I'll say...Rayette, here, just saw another fly by her oatmeal."

Ralph had the eggs, and Rayette the oatmeal.

“What kind of place is this that has so many flies?”

“Many? What’d you mean by ‘many’?”

Rayette said she saw about five, maybe six of them.

Dismissively the waiter frowned.

“Six? You think six flies is a lot? You should see the number of ‘em in the kitchen...Especially around the pot of oatmeal.”From Guest Contributor David Sydney

Ed's Choice

“If you were a fly, Ed...”

“What'd you mean, a fly?”

“I'm just asking.”

They were at AL'S DINER. The waitress had not yet taken their orders. Ed knew his flies. That's why Mel asked.

“So, if you were a fly, would you go for the scrambled eggs or Al's oatmeal?”

“A fly, huh, Mel?”

“Yeah… Just a regular house fly.”

“Well, I guess the eggs. Now, of course, a horse fly...That might be different.”

“Nah...I'm only interested in regular flies, Ed. I don't see that many horse flies, compared to the usual house flies, in here today.”

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

Thinking Outside the Coop

In a quaint village beyond the hills, lived a scatterbrained chicken named Cluckers. Every morning, Cluckers would lay eggs and forget where she put them. The villagers chuckled, but Farmer Ben grumbled, "No eggs for breakfast!"

One day, Cluckers stumbled upon a stash of eggs hidden under a bush. "Eureka!" she screamed. Cluckers went to share her discovery with the other chickens, encouraging them to "think outside the coop."

Word spread. Soon, every chicken laid eggs in unexpected places. Farmer Ben's breakfasts improved, and the village learned: even mishaps teach valuable lessons.

And Cluckers? She never forgot that lesson again.

From Guest Contributor Chinmayi Goyal

Dying Hearts

A nest formed at some point over thousands of years as eggs drift into the sea, carried by currents and tides. Birds with broken feet but wings spread wide, fleeing in flight from dying hearts filled with the blackness of obsidian inhabitants and their unforgiven. They mutate and break down within the lethal darkness from which it grows, blinded by ignorance.

Mothers must be on their guard in the warm calm of dawn, similar to the nights when they sense the fragile awakening of what is. And sometimes they forget the one thing they should never forget: everything is hungry.

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

The Journey

She crawls up the streambank to the edge of the road to carry out her innate mission. Now in the twelfth year of her life, she’s made the trip six times before, but the litter gets worse every year. On her way to the roadside, she moves past another snapping turtle hopelessly tangled in clear fishing line. Discarded beer cans and bottles keep getting in her way. She claws away sand and starts laying eggs. Fifty white eggs are guided into the hole and covered, only to be abandoned; in ninety days, the turtle hatchlings will be on their own.

From Guest Contributor N.T. Franklin

NT Franklin has been published in Page and Spine, Fiction on the Web, 101 Words, Friday Flash Fiction, CafeLit, Madswirl, Postcard Shorts, 404 Words, Scarlet Leaf Review, Freedom Fiction, Burrst, Entropy, Alsina Publishing, Fifty-word stories, Dime Show Review, among others.

Song For Ancient Children

You’re moving away rather than moving toward something. I can't be sure if you’ll ever come back. The sky is dotted with clouds that resemble ominous black eggs. You want to scream for help, but you’re out of breath. You’ve no idea at all what you should do next. “Fuck the clown!” you confusedly think. “Where’s my clock?” Just as someone is saying it’ll be OK, you feel a bone break. You see buildings toppling over, trees melting back into the ground. You hear angels approaching at full speed in chariots. There aren't even parking spaces big enough for them.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press.

Acknowledgement

He shouldn't have to insist on special treatment. It's no longer special at that point. Besides, he wanted to maintain the same humble demeanor as before. Success and fame shouldn't change who he is, right?

But here he was, waiting with everyone else. Not one person had acknowledged his big breakthrough.

"More eggs, Brian?"

"Yes, please."

He appreciated the gesture, but you'd think a guest appearance on CSI would bump him to the head of the table, not stuck in between his siblings while breakfast was served. Besides, the eggs were cold. Some Christmas this was turning out to be.

I Stole A Baby

And I’m sorry. I stole a blue-eyed toe-headed overalled emptiness because IJust couldn’t help myself. She was climbing a fence, she was smelling a tree. She was a whip snapping wet wings. She was a sky that could hold anything.

I fed her square meals of television, eggs, and ambition, served rare. She ate the garnish, grew smaller and smaller until she was gifted and talented—pretty new scales, shiny black shoes worth the pinch. Now it’s not clear whether, if I keep tightening the belt, she will ever be able to disappear.

In my defense, I love her.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University. She teaches college writing and is the co-owner and chief editor of BluePlanetJournal.com. Her nonfiction, poetry, and flash fiction have appeared in Creations Magazine, Little India, Outpost, Nowhere Poetry, and The Syzygy Poetry Journal.

If You Climb, Fall

There was a wound-dresser in the forest, somewhere deep, maybe sleeping in the sticky tree hollow that still sometimes holds nesting dolls and eggs, tiny gifts, talismans, things we know matter, twin feet in this world and the other. So, when you came, under sun, scabs freshly bloomed, populating your back’s nude surface, to announce what the branches had left when you slid their surfaces from canopy to ground, I handed you a ticket for the woods and we left together, closing each door behind, certain that another Carthage burns softer the closer we come to any shore at all.

From Guest Contributor Kelli Allen

Kelli is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has won awards for her poetry, prose, and scholarly work. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri St. Louis. She is the director of the River Styx Hungry Young Poets Series and founded the Graduate Writers Reading Series for UMSL. She is currently a Professor of Humanities and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen is the author of two chapbooks and one flash fiction collection. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, arrived from John Gosslee Books in 2012 and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Natural Enemies

Richard Gunn was the head of the largest crime syndicate in the four corners area. He commanded a cadre of drug dealers, bookies, gun smugglers, and union thugs that was able to operate openly because he also owned a third of the police force and elected officials.

Richard was famous for his temper. He once scrambled the brains of the cook at his favorite restaurant because his eggs had been undercooked. He was surrounded by yes men and sycophants.

The only people brave enough to question his authority were Selena and Stan. This naturally made them enemies.

Part Four