Something To Eat

“The city is breaking up the encampment, clearing us out,” Olivia said. “I’m leaving.”

“Where are you going?” asked Simone.

“Jail.”

“Jail? Why?”

“In jail I’ll eat every day, have a place to sleep, shower and go to the toilet.”

Simone shivered and pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders. “Jail is awful.”

“Being old and homeless is worse.”

“How will you get sent to jail?”

Olivia opened her coat, exposing the pistol tucked in her waistband. “I’m robbing the first bank I see.”

Simone watched Olivia walk away and tried to ignore the hunger growling deep in her belly.

From Guest Contributor Robert P. Bishop

Robert, a US Army veteran and former Biology teacher, lives in Tucson, Arizona. His short fiction has appeared in numerous online and print journals.

Fall

The blanket of brown leaves, crisp underfoot before the overnight rains, were now a moist, organic mess. The wind was forcing entire sheaves of debris into clammy piles against curbs and hedges.

The water-logged corpse of one of the neighborhood's homeless lay in the street half-covered as well. A growling dog poked at an exposed leg, disturbed by a scent only it could perceive.

Mrs. Roberts waited at the corner for the paramedics. She didn't like the dog bothering the body, but she was unwilling to get any closer. She instead dragged from her cigarette and stared at her phone.

Good Bye World

The blood of the homeless worked nicely. I was able to refine the unimaginably gruesome ritual and it worked, I stopped aging! I am writing this to repent for my sins and to warn others. Now the only life I will take is my own, to ensure that the minute details of the sickening ceremony die with me. Always remember that one virtuous short life is worth more than a hundred long lives of evil like the one I have lived. I now say goodbye to the world I have known longer than anyone else in the history of man.

From Guest Contributor Kevin Pentalow

Street Life

November spreads gray across sticky sidewalks as acrid smoke from burn barrels warms frigid hands and stings sleep-weary eyes. Winos huddle wary knowing tempers can flare as quickly as last week’s newspapers tossed in the fires. On the streets a life is worth a pint of Mad Dog. Desperate men commit despicable acts for a drink. Women trade sex and dignity for comfort under blankets. Robert the Shank holds jagged metal to a girl’s throat. Bettie slams a bottle against his ear. He cuts her bad. An ambulance takes her to County. She smiles bleeding, thinking of a clean bed.

From Guest Contributor, Jeff Switt

Jeff is a retired advertising agency guy who loves writing flash fiction—some days to curb his angst, other days to fuel it. His words have been featured at Dogzplot, Boston Literary Review, Flash Fiction World, Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, and Shotgun Honey, and have appeared at lots of places that take whatever you send in.

Lost At Sea

Raul's father was reported lost at sea soon after his son was born. When he turned thirteen, Raul set out to sea himself, determined to bring his father home.

After searching for many years, he found his father on a tropical island in the South Pacific. Despite his son's pleading, the old man refused to leave.

Raul finally returned home empty-handed and told his mother the bad news. Only then did his mother admit that his father was not Captain Joseph Blighy, the famous Sea Adventurer, but Old Joe, the homeless crack addict who roamed the neighborhood begging for handouts.

Urban Spelunking

When they went urban spelunking in the abandoned tunnels of the city’s old subway system, they were prepared for anything and everything: forgotten homeless, horrible mutants, over-sized rats. But they were not prepared for what they actually found.

The giant mirror blocked the tunnel and made further progress impossible. Then one of them discovered they could walk right through it.

When they resurfaced several weeks later, the world was exactly the same as before, except everything now was the opposite.

Mark liked that he was now rich but life as a black woman was hard even when you had money.

Don't Think Too Deeply

You can bet if anyone discovers your involvement, there will be hell to pay. Perhaps that's what attracts you in the first place. The flirtation with danger. Or more likely, it's the inevitable moment when you are caught and everyone's expectations of you, their belief in your character, their assumptions about how far you are willing to go, will all be dashed.

Or perhaps you go along just because everyone else is doing it. You know you might get in trouble, but there's safety in not thinking too deeply.

Whatever the case, murdering this homeless man will haunt you forever.The Daily Theme from Figment for April 11

Think of a time in your life when, against your better judgment, you decided to give in--to temptation, to popular opinion, to someone else's will.

Now focus in on that decision to relent. In second person, describe those moments of transition, using the distancing effects of second person to allow you to analyze your decision as if it had been someone else's.