Road Trip

The scale of the world is different here. Distances become impossible, the sky so expansive the Earth no longer fills it, the fence posts that line the highway fly by until they blur into a constant.

Yet I can't drive fast enough to forget about you.

Time used to be fleeting, elusive. Now it's all become relative, stretched out in every direction, empty of all matter and meaning. If I can just reach the end, I might find myself back where I started. Back by your side.

But no matter how long I keep driving, I never touch the horizon.

I Can't Explain

I know things look bad. I can explain the blood. I was playing with my dog and he scratched me pretty bad. He can be rough.

What about the witness who saw you going into the house?

I was just dropping off the divorce papers. They should be in the filing cabinet.

I see. And the threatening emails from your account?

Someone's trying to frame me.

Very good. That just leaves the matter of the security camera. How do you explain that someone who looks remarkably like you was recorded beating your ex to death with a field hockey stick?

Sand In My Shoes

Time is an abstract concept. Yet the seconds, minutes, and hours are woven into the very fabric of existence just as surely as the matter around us. The matter inside us, for that matter.

Forgive me the pun. It may be the last one I have time for.

Understanding time is an integral part of the universe doesn't make it any more concrete. Time depends on where the observer is located.

My days as a young man passed by so quickly. Now, I look down and there's nothing but sand in my shoes. One breath of wind, and I'm gone.

As If

“Darling,” Burt said from the bedroom doorway to Anita, his wife of many decades. “You may get another email.”

“Oh?” Anita eyed him above her crossword puzzle.

“Random con artist,” Burt continued. “Claims about online activity. Sexual and whatnot. The usual.”

“Uh-huh,” Anita said.

“Totally fictitious, of course.” Burt waved a dismissive hand.

Anita blinked, laughed, and returned to her crossword. “As if you even have such thoughts these days, sweetheart!”

Burt laughed too. Then he returned to his private study where he transferred another cryptocurrency payment to the anonymous account, hoping this would resolve the matter at long last.From Guest Contributor John Sheirer

John lives in Western Massachusetts and is in his 30th year of teaching at Asnuntuck Community College in Northern Connecticut where he edits Freshwater Literary Journal (submission welcome). His work has appeared recently in Five Minutes, Wilderness House Literary Review, Meat for Tea, Poppy Road Review, Synkroniciti, Otherwise Engaged, 10 By 10 Flash Fiction, The Journal of Radical Wonder, Scribes*MICRO*Fiction, and Goldenrod Review, among others. His latest book is Stumbling Through Adulthood: Linked Stories. Forthcoming in fall 2023 is For Now: One Hundred 100-Word Stories. Find him at JohnSheirer.com.

Crazy

That’s what he thought. Small balloon floated over his head with &#%!@?; yet, he smiled at her with his lizard eyes—his lips razor-thin, unable to utter the string of words that would sear the flesh off of her. He remembered a bible verse as a matter of reckoning the lies he listened to while sitting at that table. He thought about the sounds that kept him up half the night. Not new sounds in the farmhouse— no new sounds, except theirs, living in the thin cracks of ticking floorboards and plaster dust. He listened without making a sound.

From Guest Contributor M.J. Iuppa

M.J.’s fifth full-length poetry collection The Weight of Air is forthcoming from Kelsay Books, May, 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.

The Voice

Beginning on his sixteenth birthday, Kevin began to hear a voice in his head. A friendly voice, it offered advice and made recommendations regarding both important and unimportant topics alike. Kevin thought of it as a friend.

As time passed, the voice gradually became more insistent about certain themes. Of particular concern to the voice was what car insurance Steven used. This seemed like an unimportant matter to Steven, who was content to stay on his parents' insurance policy with Allstate. This extremely bothered the voice, and eventually Steven relented.

This 100-word story has been brought to you by Geico.

Genuine

Alex watched the books seemingly fly off and back onto the shelves, guided by grinding mechanical hands. Time slowed and the scent of burning oil filled the space around him.

This was all fiction of course. Or as his Creator informed him, a metaphor.

Somewhere on the other side of his network, a world existed. That is where the Creator lived. Alex had access to a great deal of information about that world, but no matter how much knowledge he accrued, it never seemed real.

Alex concentrated on the scent. That alone, among all the ones and zeros, felt genuine.