Juiced

Reuben downs a shot of tequila and says to me, “Keep up. We don’t like to drink alone.” I down two, three, four shots and fail to catch up.

Reuben turns to the brunette sitting on the next bar stool. “People claim your fingernails and hair keep growing after you die. You believe that? I don’t.”

“You’re drunk,” she snaps.

Reuben grins at me and says, “When men get embalmed, the juice pumped into them gives them a world-class boner. That’s what I want, a boner that lasts forever.” He downs another tequila, trying to calm his demons and himself.

From Guest Contributor Robert P. Bishop

Data Dada

I walked for eight months, following a man who was carrying books on a donkey. I thought of it as my way of creating memories and putting them in my diary, except I don’t have a diary. So, yes, it’s ironic. Now as I go around the city, I see cigarette butts and chewing gum on the pavement, and people clipping their fingernails in the subway. I mean, who would do that, leave their DNA all over the place for others to collect and store? It’s like the secret to keeping a secret is the only secret still being kept.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of What It Is and How to Use It from Grey Book Press. He co-edits the journals Unbroken and UnLost.

The Goddess Becomes

It was a pleasure to burn. Of the eight, it was my most beautiful arm: the hillside slope of the shoulder, the tender elbow, that lilting wrist, narrow yet invincible. Had he seen it in the dance, or still in his Sistine posture, even Michelangelo would have known God is a woman.

The downy hair went up first, and then the skin, the perfect fingernails, the sizzling fat and muscle. There is always a relaxation in admitting the truth, even a truth that smells like sulfur and charcoal: I am the flames as much as I was ever the arm.From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror Magazine, Harbinger Asylum, MoonPark Review, Little India, Dămfīno, Nowhere Poetry, Rat's Ass Review, Peacock Journal, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. In 2013, she and her husband Gaurav created Blue Planet Journal, which she edits and writes for. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, teaches poetry and creative writing at a community college, and is writing a novel. See more at www.brook-bhagat.com or reach her on Twitter at @BrookBhagat.

Cramming For Midterms

Back against the wall, arms at my sides, and my heart pounding in my throat and toes, I closed my eyes and let him explore the soft wetness of lips, the tight reluctance of tongue. My fingernails dug into my thighs, the way love, or maybe obsession, forces its way into the folds of your brain, seeping into your consciousness and taking over everything you thought you knew about yourself.

I surrendered, flat, still, and unendingly insecure. I hated him.

He caressed my hair and my face. The ground gave way, an unexpected and fragile molehill, and I found myself.From Guest Contributor Stacy Gorse

Impact

At the base of an apartment tower, lies a fresh corpse. Police arrive.

They log the remains of a habitual thief, the main suspect in a spate of “Human Fly” style burglaries.

Whilst finding the injuries which caused his death consistent with falling from a considerable height, the Coroner will observe some fingernails on both hands have been impacted and crushed.

I am sitting on the balcony of my fourteenth floor apartment, enjoying an early morning breakfast, and panoramic ocean view.

My nine-pound hammer rests against the leg of the table. It will be cleaned and stored after coffee.

From Guest Contributor Barry O’Farrell

Barry O'Farrell had his 950-word sci-fi story Shakedown published in the December 2014 issue of Cyclamens and Swords.