Survivors

They live presently. Now they tear the soft meat from the bone, now they hear the twang of resistant tendons. The vibration of it. A chorus of crows. Scudding wings of moths that search for the darkness just beyond. In the pit is hunger. We exist, hands pasted to rifle stocks, glimmering gunmetal eyes, rattle-boned. They know family born of teeth, defined by the low moans of their communes. Their tongues hang together. Our hands hang separately, our nails scratching our own stomachs, our thighs, our faces. But we are all hungry. We will all ooze the same black ichor.From Guest Contributor Carrie Cook

Carrie received her MA in Creative Writing from Kansas State University and is currently living in Colorado. Her work has appeared in The Columbia Review, Midwestern Gothic, Menacing Hedge, and Bartleby Snopes.

A Turquoise Fish

When the brown moths would gather on the ceiling, you would take them up in your hands and set them loose outside. Yes, I miss that. And you are right. It is true that I was vengeful. It is true that I was impossible to pin to the carpet. And I used rhetoric to slip out of body. But what you wouldn't hear, what I tried to tell you, was that I felt like a fish on the shore, begging for water. Love me, please, hear me, please, see? You kept saying, “The sand is water, so swim in it.”

From Guest Contributor, Addy Evenson

A Mystery Unraveled

Gordon Seckenheim dedicated his post-doctoral research to insect behavior. Specifically, he wanted to learn why moths are attracted to a flame.

His work determined that the moths killed in this way are suicidal. As corroborating evidence, he cited the global human suicide rate of .0074 percent. When you figure there are an estimated 200 trillion moths and butterflies, it makes sense that millions would kill themselves every night. It's simple mathematics.

It was accounted a strange coincidence when Dr. Seckenheim himself committed suicide after his marriage ended.

Or it may have been that his emotional state somehow clouded his analysis.