A Ladder To The Stars

For him the past was a story trove, for me it was a series of embarrassments that woke up and lingered like morning phlegm.

My brother tells another story on our porch. I notice how night falls earlier in mid-August. How the North Star rises off the horizon. How it calls me like a conjurer in an epic fantasy.

My brother will stay in this town and rise. He’ll talk about how the band played Forever Young at his graduation and he knew he was destined. But who will tell the story of that morning when I woke and wandered?

From Guest Contributor Dave Nash

Great Minds

Despite my dread, graduation blasted through the calendar. The ceremony was lovely; I felt something strange in my heart. After I got home, I gravitated to my room and turned on my computer. I opened an old chat program, scrolled down to his name. Our last chat, both online and in real life, was more than five years ago. I saw him sitting in the front row an hour ago.

I read our conversations, laughed, forgot his vanishing act.

Suddenly, the grey icon went green.

Soccer93 is typing….

The message vanished.

Soccer93 is typing….

“Great minds think alike, I guess.”

From Guest Contributor J.R. Night

Water Pitcher

The mustard-lustered staircase was slick with California rain. Loaded with bridal shower largesse, like some kind of Sierra-Sherpa goat, I lost my footing—and lost the water pitcher over the balustrade escarpment. The abysmal fracture at your feet flashed within your eyes; oh the silence, oh the rain. There must have been other gifts, but I remember this one only, and others: forgetting to set the alarm for the eclipse, going to the airport on the wrong day, and missing Sasha's graduation. The mind adheres to misadventure like a stubborn sticker on glass. Even the dishwasher of time can't dislodge.

From Guest Contributor David C. Miller

Test Day

Test day had arrived. Paul entered the arena with overwhelming trepidation. Failure today would mean death.

The arena was smaller than on television. And the stench of blood and burning flesh threatened to suffocate him. No matter how much training they'd given him, nothing had prepared him for that.

In the end, Paul passed his test, the lone survivor among his 99 classmates. He didn't like being a stooge for the network--murder should be a choice, not something forced upon you--but at least he was still alive.

In any case, he looked forward to graduating to middle school.