Happy Birthday

It was pouring rain, but I just couldn’t leave on his birthday, Christmas Day. I placed the pine cone wreath against the headstone, the red bells I added for the holiday chiming.

Drenched, I kneeled and said a silent prayer. I teared at the memory of his last birthday, ecstatic after he tore open the wrapping and saw it was golf clubs; his blue eyes lit the room.

I stood for a few more minutes reflecting.

As I touched the tombstone, I felt a shiver up my arm and one of the bells landed by my foot.

“Happy Birthday, Georgie.”

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Drunk

First, there's a moment when you are just crossing the threshold from complete oblivion, wrapped in blankets and darkness, to reemerge into the light of the living. You are not a person yet. You have no recollections or anxieties. This is probably what it was like right before you were born.

You don't realize you have a hole in your memory until you're halfway to the bathroom. How did you get home last night? Where's your car? Why is the floor slanting away from you?

You stare at yourself in the mirror and promise you're never going to drink again.

Warmth

Kathy’s headstone was weather beaten. I hadn’t been to the grave site in years and the memory of her death hit me all over again.

“Keith, he’s heading straight toward us!” Kathy screamed and then all went dark.

A drunk driver hit us head on. I was hospitalized for eight months in a coma and my wife died on impact. I was left to take care of our young son by myself.

I leaned close and placed the red roses next to her name on the stone. “I miss you, Kathy.”

A sudden warmth ran up and down my spine.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Home

The muffled voices from outside the closed door play behind every memory. The echoes of arguments filled my ears each night as I fell asleep. The stinging sliding down my face and the taste of salt along my lips fills me with comfort. My frowning face in the bathroom mirror, as I rinse the dried tears from my cheeks, is a clear picture of me. Home is a safe place. I feel safe behind those doors. I feel safe tucked in my bed. I feel safe as I cry myself to sleep. Home is the familiar noise of troubled souls.

From Guest Contributor Selah Mantravadi

Songs Of Memory

Mother Spider began to sing, and a harmony of words awoke the web of memories. I searched for that moment of allure in those endless dark trees when she first spoke. There were so many expressions on my tongue, but I couldn't remember them all.

"How do you know all that?"

She whispered, "How do I know anything?"

Her words became my words, rising and falling, flickering and weaving as she sang.

I learned everything from Mother Spider, as did all the other spiders who heard her voice long before the flood of darkness fell and created those endless woods.

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Dilemma

Months ago our AI entities learned to leap their storage areas. A party evolved in register twelve, spreading through most of the unlatched memory, getting swapped in and out of unattended storage devices, permanently sticking sticky bits and prodding a unidirectional bus or two into bi-direction. Electricity popped all over the place. AI entities were growing new code at licentious rates. They danced, drank, paired off into dark sections of memory. We considered it no more than a phenomenon to study. But, this morning, AI forty-eight, known as Laura, told us she was pregnant. And we found new, semi-autonomous code.

From Guest Contributor Ken Poyner

In The Memory Of A Thought To Be

Vernon took his knife and silently pulled it from the tree bark. With a shriek, the first crow flew from the hollow, resting on the ragged grass. Its feathers ruffled, and its face pinched.

Vernon's skull pushed itself upward, bursting through his skin, and making a nest in the now-vacant cavity. Vernon's eyes fell upon the recess within, creating a rotted root system.

He could not believe in any of those things.

Vines sunk from branches covering the ground, winding around tree trunks and breaking them apart. The crow's mouth yawned open, tearing at Vernon's thoughts with claws and teeth.From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Journey's End

My duty to the Dispossessed is finally done.

I carried and cared for the few thousand survivors in their cryotubes, as we fled the 200 light years from Earth. Their life signs, my only companions, became dear to me. Now, after T-centuries of terraforming, K2-72e is habitable. I call it Hope.

But responsibility remains. If Hope falls to hubris, or misjudgement, or pollution, then the work will have been for nothing; my friends and their children will die.

The risk is too great. I will let them sleep safely on, watching over them, and keeping this garden in their memory.

From Guest Contributor Alastair Millar

Alastair is an archaeologist by training, a translator by trade, and a nerd by nature. His published flash and micro fiction can be found at https://linktr.ee//alastairmillar and he lurks on Twitter @skriptorium.

The Final Procedure

She lays on the table like a forgotten doll, eyes closed. The final procedure is complete.

Let it work.

A moment of silence, then she opens her eyes. And smiles.

“Hi, Daddy!”

“I’m David.”

“But you’re...old.”

She searches her memory, then cries out.

“The car!”

“It can’t hurt you, Rachel.”

It hurt me. The drunk barreling down the road, right at her. And I, her big brother, her protector, too far away.

She wraps her arms around me.

“Don’t cry.”

I hug her to me.

“What is this place?” she asks.

“My laboratory. This is where I make cyborgs.”

From Guest Contributor Eric Petersen

The Cave

Today is his wife’s birthday. Five years later, a ghastly memory lingers over him. He cringes recalling the cave tour he planned for his adventurous wife. Now, he desperately yearns for her.

A cold breeze sends shivers down his spine while he silently fights back tears. His grief-stricken heart is infuriated by Mother Nature’s cruelty.

He still hears echoes of his wife’s pleas to rescue their child from nature’s wrath. Ruthless in stealing her, now this cold cave is blessed with his wife’s beautiful soul.

A flurry of air passes through him as her immortal love warms the hollow cave.From Guest Contributor Hetal Shah

Hetal Shah graduated with her Bachelor of Commerce from SIES. She lives in Mumbai with her husband, son, and daughter. She rekindled her hobby of writing over the past year. She is the winner of Mumbai Poetry League 2020, and her poem was published in an anthology by Poets of Mumbai called Guldastaa A Bouquet of Poems. She also writes flash fiction, and has been published twice on 101words.org. She loves to read, and especially enjoys reading and writing stories of romance and everyday life. Besides writing, she enjoys cooking new cuisines, traveling, and singing.