Not One Of Us

They watched Mark with great interest. Everything about him screamed that he was different, from the way he was dressed (tattered blue jeans and a Winter is Coming t-shirt) to the way he shunned their company.

As he walked briskly past, heads turned seemingly as one. Before long, Mark had a large retinue, each individual dressed in a dark blue suit, following after him. He hurried on without directly acknowledging their attention.

"He's not one of us."

Mark stopped. "Why won't you leave me alone?"

"We just want what's best for you, Mark. Join us and never be alone again."

Clown Show

Every night around 11pm, the television stations ran an entertainment program for adults, featuring all of the funniest clowns in the circus. They danced around and bashed each other on their heads and wore garish make up, all for our amusement. The show was so popular it got replayed on the cable stations all morning and afternoon. Many times they performed with trained chimps in human clothes that we found cute and funny, because they acted just like real people.

Then, one day, every adult in the country decided to stop watching. We finally realized that clowns are for kids.

The Little Things

Tiny micro explosions, one after another, lit up the night sky in a cascading array of magentas, periwinkles and mulberry, accented by warm yellows and golds, a momentary distraction utilizing everything that is beautiful living inside the fire. Even the soulless ones, with clouded empty eyes, were taken aback as their heads tilted towards the heavens unblinkingly.

The degradation of pathways in their once human brains would soon enjoy their form of pyro techniques as neurons started firing once more. Reminding them that we were now their food source while simultaneously forgetting that once we would call each other family.From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Hours, Later

I’m thinking of them, those soft-lipped women, sitting side by side like litter-mates. They yawn simultaneously, then settle their curly-haired heads against each other; closing their eyes for just a moment. The smell of vanilla lotion is thick in the air, and smooth as honeyed kisses. Nothing is wasted; yet, their story is full of unanswered questions. A string of pearl-sized love bites ring their necks, making it hard to disguise the plum-colored bruises on their golden skins that glow above the soft folds of sundresses. Do they ever sleep? These pure and chaste women who lean on each other.

From Guest Contributor M.J.Iuppa

M.J.’s forthcoming fifth full length poetry collection The Weight of Air from Kelsay Books and a chapbook of 24 100-word stories, Rock. Paper. Scissors. from Foothills Publishing, in 2022. For the past 33 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

If The World Stops While Having Coffee

“I felt a lurch.”

“I think it’s stopped.”

“All that spinning. What did it come to?”

“To leave or not, that is the question.”

“What if we need oxygen? Have you any squirreled away?”

“I confess I don’t.”

“What do you think? Should we blow this pop stand?”

“I always loved that expression. Now we’re saying the world is a pop stand.”

“Is that a yes?”

“I’d like to finish my coffee first.”

“Remember loose change? I still have a quarter. How about heads, we leave?”

“Who carries oxygen?”

“Amazon, no doubt.”

“Go ahead. Flip it.”

“Here we go!”

“Maybe!”

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Linda's stories and poems have appeared in BOMBFIRE, The New Verse News, Microfiction Monday, Six Sentences, and others.

One Cookie Or More?

The pile of chocolate chip cookies on the plate was shrinking. Big Ed put five on his plate. “These are going to be gone before I get back for more,” he said to the person across the buffet line. “Same thing on these brownies,” while heaping five on his overloaded plate. Some shook their heads, but no one said anything. Neil approached the dessert table and looked down at the long line behind him. He selected one brownie and placed it on his plate. When there is a risk of running out, are you a one-cookie or a four-cookie person?

From Guest Contributor NT FranklinNT 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.

Reign Of Terror

When the reign of terror begins in earnest, a street corner poet with hollow cheeks and large feverish eyes will sit at the anchor desk delivering the news in a toothless mumble and then ignore increasingly frantic signals and pleas to go to commercial break and instead recite between pulls on a bottle a long, rambling, incendiary poem, his voice rising and falling like a medieval executioner’s double-sided axe, until all the baskets are filled with the heads of our namesakes and the only sound that is still worth heeding is the disputatious sound of the children’s orchestra tuning up.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's latest full-length poetry collection, Gun Metal Sky, is due in early 2021 from Thirty West Publishing.