Nothing

The engine gives out and we’re about to crash. I guide the plane as best I can and brace for impact. Then there’s blackness.

When I wake, Ted has a blank stare, and his head is twisted in an awkward position. He’s dead.

The bone in my left ankle is protruding from the skin and I’m having trouble breathing. I’m sure I’ve ruptured my ribs.

The door is jammed and I can’t walk. The airplane will soon explode and there’s nowhere to go. I say a silent prayer and close my eyes.

There’s a crackling noise, flames and then nothing.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Midnight Shock

Manny started awake in the middle of the night. A commotion outside his bedroom window sounded like someone had been electrocuted while being drowned in a metallic barrel.

He carefully peered through the blinds, the lights off so as not to draw attention. This might be some kind of zombie invasion or purge situation. But whatever created all that noise was nowhere to be seen.

Manny waited a few moments, then laid back down and fell asleep.

The next morning, the headline read, "The Midnight Shock Serial Killer Strikes Again." His preferred method of killing: electrocution in a metal barrel.

Analog

Clocks are next to useless and no alarm cares what you think of it. Their noise is neither birdsong nor church-bell. It is measured by eye-blinks and muscle contractions. Clocks reflect anxiety when the big hand overtakes the little. Their seconds are like tickles of hair. Sometimes clocks are said to be buying time. But what happens when that time is only borrowed? Clocks stop without notice when their time is up. When their battery runs out, it sounds like the click of a tiny rifle; the tapping of a deathwatch beetle. No one hears it until it’s too late.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Once In A Lifetime

It was a once-in-a-221-year-event, the simultaneous emergence of two different cicada broods. One was the 13-year group. The other, the 17-year variety. So, as predicted, a trillion cicadas emerged, one-by-one, from the warming soil. Sam and Waldo were two such cicadas.

"Can you believe it?"

"What, Sam?"

"We're In the southeastern United States."

"What a racket."

Cicadas make noise through a special organ, a tymbal.

"What?"

It was increasingly hard to hear.

"HEY, WALDO?"

"YEAH."

"I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SAY IT."

"WHAT?"

"I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU...BUT AFTER 221 YEARS, I THOUGHT IT'D BE A LOT BETTER THAN THIS."

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

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

His Majesty

The king sits on his throne with a large and excruciating chest wound. The room is filled with blood and lifeless bodies, his men.

The beautifully decorated hall is covered in blood and the delicately prepared meat and fruit sit untouched never to be eaten.

The king hasn’t much time. He can’t feel his legs and his body is cold. He reaches for his ring and struggles with his weak fingers to remove it. As he releases it, he slumps over and the ring drops to the ground, the noise echoing in the quiet.

His Majesty will soon be replaced.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Noise

Walking down the street, he stops and listens. There’s so much going on around him that he has trouble making out any specific sound on its own. The cacophony of everything around him is almost deafening. People are talking on the phone. Cars are racing down the street, honking. There’s a poor musician playing for tips. He can’t stand any of it. The sound of people shuffling around him is the worst of it, he thinks. All his life, the only thing he’s wanted was silence. He hears a whistle, then a boom, and then after that he hears nothing.

From Guest Contributor Chris Ellsworth

Mayhem

The last time I saw Clara, she was by the door waving goodbye after our passionate kiss. I still smelled the scent of her flowery perfume.

I wrote as often as I could, but the mail was not reliable. I received a letter a few weeks ago that our son was born healthy and named Brian Joseph after my brother who died a war hero.

I didn't know when I’d see them. A loud noise awakened me from daydreaming, and I ran for cover.

The photo of my wife was destroyed in the mayhem when it dropped from my hands.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Indignation

The kid just ran out. I was only doing twenty-five in a twenty zone. You’re allowed some slack. He magically appeared from behind a van. I didn’t put the ice there that caused me to skid. I didn’t put a school gate by the main road. I wasn’t the one teaching road safety and I didn’t call myself on the phone, talking garbage. Yet I stand accused.

A hundred times his face turns toward me in slow motion, eyes widening, then everything becomes rapid, the exploding noise and flying glass.

Was no one responsible for a traffic patrol? So unfair.

From Guest Contributor Duncan Bourne

I See You

If we could only look deeply into the eyes of strangers, we’d see not a stranger at all, but a piece of ourselves.

As I stand in line, I see a man pull his shirt over a large belly. Beside him, a teenager glances anxiously at passing faces.

If people knew, they’d feel more compassion for one another. Indeed, they’d offer kindness even as they are shown anger.

The knowing inside me is too big. I’m surrounded by the noise and lights of the world, seemingly unchanged from before. My heart aches. I see you, but do you see me?

From Guest Contributor Caitlyn Palmer