Trick Play

"Ooh, a street magician. Let's watch!"

Bill kept his sigh to himself, not wanting to disappoint his date. Women always enjoyed vapid entertainments and he was used to indulging them. At least in the beginning.

"Sure."

This magician seemed to be of the most mundane sort, relying on rudimentary sleight of hand and clumsy misdirection. Bill had seen all these tricks on YouTube and delighted in calling out the techniques to the onlookers and ruining the illusion. Sheila dragged him away with an embarrassed apology.

It wasn't until the waitress brought the check that Bill realized his wallet had disappeared.

Quantum Entanglement

Like a string of fireflies, we were at first one, then two; then two paired and paired again until the dark spaces between us led us to mirror a necklace of uncountable stars. Now, as I float in a glass-bottomed boat on waves that meet the river's edge, I watch a scene unfolding: watercolor sunset over breaking waves, night wind in the willows and finally the gold sunrise through the green of this island where we once searched for Sirius among the stars, your voice in the breeze saying, the greatest illusion in the world is the illusion of separation.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Burt And Argos

The news sent everyone into a panic. Years of cable sensationalism had afflicted society with a horrible sense that by paying attention to world events, they could actually make an impact. With that illusion shattered, the reality would take time to settle over them. Time that was no longer available.

Burt had stopped watching the news years ago. He'd accepted his futility and was the happier for it. Better to spend that time with Argos, his rescue.

So while most people rioted, Burt and Argos sat on the beach watching the sunset together, waiting for the end of the world.

Relativists

A twin, jealous of her sister’s looks, sends her into outer space.

-The joke’s on you, says their mother. She will return younger than you. And, she’ll look even better.

Doesn’t she know time is an illusion? Then again, she believes the sun rises and sets.

-She knows an illusion when she sees it, says the mother. She’s always been the smart one.

The mother glances down at her watch. It runs more slowly when in motion, treating time like taffy: the greater the pull, the more it stretches.

-Gravity, she seethes.

You always liked her better, says the twin.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Cheryl's recent fiction has appeared in Switch, Does It Have Pockets? Gone Lawn, Necessary Fiction, Pure Slush, and elsewhere.

Last Ditch Effort

The slave driver’s eagles squawk and shift violently in the wind to dodge the endless barrage of waves crashing against the rocky cliff’s edge. By our scent, they know we are close, but they can’t see us.

“It must’ve been an illusion, pa,” says my son. His tunic is soaked by sea and sweat as he rips oar against cruel wave. “The heat makes one see things while fishing. Perhaps there’s no cave.”

I struggle to speak and strain through the invisibility incantation I have surrounding us and our boat, “Row boy! It was no illusion. It’s our only salvation.”

From Guest Contributor John Martinez

Illusion Of Water

"Harvest-bots eat tomatoes?" Randall asks, stroking one ripening.

"They let 'em rot for bio-fuel," grunts Arielle, hammering another spike deep into the soil. "Being greedy, Harvest-bots take everything, but they won't go near water."

She sets another spike while Randall adjusts the tarp.

"If your plan works, we'll have real food," he says, punctuating his remark by crushing a bee-drone. Small metallic pieces pepper his palms.

Arielle looks out on the defiant cerulean blue of the tented field. Years of used plasticine pouches of Mega-Meat and Vital-Veg, sewn together. They undulate and ripple in the wind. Waves, like the sea.

From Guest Contributor Nina Miller

Nina is an Indian-American physician, epee fencer and micro/flash fiction writer from New York. Her work can be found in TL;DR Press's anthology, Mosaic: The Best of the 1,000 Word Herd Flash Fiction Competition 2022, Bright Flash Literary Review, The Belladonna, Five Minutes, 101 words and more. Find her on Twitter (@NinaMD1) or ninamillerwrites.com

Multiverse Question?

Wandering the multiverse. I find the concept of change the bi-word of everything. One day, the illusion spells the reality of a word one way. The next day, the reality spells it another. The definition of wisdom is to come to some understanding? Probably why I still have not mastered how to play the cord of C on a guitar.

If everything changes from one reality to the next. What is the purpose of study? Defining a reality for when the next moment you could be elsewhere seems the definition of absurdity. To waste time trying to understand. Try to succeed.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

Sometimes

Sometimes at night I cling to her hand in the darkness and try to imagine what she's dreaming.

Sometimes the illusion of connection is disrupted enough that I acknowledge--never out loud--the person I fell in love with is my own creation.

Sometimes I wake up early and clean the house before I go to work without ever insisting on credit.

Sometimes I'm so angry that the next words out of my mouth will mean the end.

Sometimes her smile reminds me of why I asked her to marry me.

But most of the time we just watch television.

Illusion

“Do you love me?”

“Yes. I do love you. Don’t you trust me?”

When his love was gone, the reality hit him and it was very harsh. He wanted his love back in his life but it was impossible. He didn’t know what to do, where to go. He had lost everything. His love was gone forever. When things became unbearable, he lost his mind. He could feel those eyes staring at him. He could hear them laughing and screaming. When things went beyond the walls he tried to resist but failed. His dreams turned wet and became an illusion.

From Guest Contributor Sergio Nicolas

Give Me Words, Paint Me Colours

“Tell me words that describe your universe,” she begs, “give me images for what I can't see.”

“How? Your eyes only detect thirty-eight colours; I count them in thousands.”

She shakes her head and bends to kiss my hands. She knows I don’t have them, but she’s happy with the illusion. It’s another truth she searches for.

“Let me share your reality.”

Not a chance, I think, but I can’t force myself to say it. “I’ll try, human.”

For the sake of our impossible love, for that morning when your world remained silent, for the memory of a destroyed planet.

From Guest Contributor Russell Hemmell

Russell is an alien from Mintaka snuggled into a (consenting) human host. Recent fiction on Gone Lawn, Not One of Us, Typehouse Literary Journal, and elsewhere.