Love Triumphal

Mother hides me in the closet.

You won’t go back to that school. I’ll deal with that asshole father.

She smells of lavender perfume and sweat. Not like Dad with his Old Spice, calculated aroma, who mocks Mother. Arranges my future with Headmaster Edgar. Harvard, law.

Men bang at the doors. Buzzwords waft into my musky space: “Custody arrangement,” “Legal orders.”

Fuck off. Mother’s words hold firmness, edge.

Footsteps draw near, unpleasant pounding.

My mother tells them I’m her son. I’m someone who needs love.

I absorb that word, so foreign, while she spars, words rising.

Love. What beautiful form.

From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri.

Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. His work is forthcoming or has been published in journals such as 50 Word Stories, Silent Auctions, City. River. Tree. and Ariel Chart.

Stalker

She was always staring at him, even in the eighth grade when I sat behind him, green with envy.

"He doesn't even know you're alive?" I snipped at her in the tenth grade when I caught her staring at him in the cafeteria.

He did not recognize either of us when we attended his lecture at Harvard. I couldn't have cared less what the new advances in pediatric neurosurgery were, but I went at her insistence.

I stand on the walk and give them distance, as she places red roses on his grave.

Tonight, I finally have her to myself.

From Guest Contributor E. Barnes

Dear Diary

Today I got my first period. I'm the first in my grade to have one.

It wasn't bad at all. I was in English class, and I told Mrs. Johnson what happened, and she gave me a pass to the nurse's office. Only a few of the girls understood what was going on, and none of the boys.

Mom tried to be reassuring, like it was something I might be ashamed of. I think Dad was more embarrassed about it than I was.

Actually, I'm proud. I'm way ahead of schedule. This is definitely going on my application to Harvard.

You Get What You Deserve, Eventually

The misspelling had seemed innocuous at first. Reversing an i and an e hardly seemed a travesty. Sure, she received a 97 instead of a perfect 100, but she was only in fourth grade. Her chances of getting into Harvard would hardly be affected.

Deterministic chaos renders long term prediction of complex events impossible, despite the lack of random elements. Only with hindsight can omniscience be achieved.

Therefore, it was impossible for her to know at the time, for anyone to know, that a simple misspelling would eventually lead to the extinction of the human race.

In hindsight, she deserved an F.