August Drops

It's not fall yet. It's still light ‘til eight and the kids want to stay out past that on the trampoline that squeaks now with every bounce, its round net keeping out the cucumber-loving mosquitoes, the raspberry-loving bees, the cool night-loving spiders. The sky goes sherbet and then gray and raindrops fall but stop just before you get them to come in and then the sky is bright on one side, and the baby is jumping and pointing: light! (spin) dark! (spin) light! (spin) pink! And it's time to do pajamas and kitchen and bills but you don't.

You jump.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook is the author of Only Flying, a Pushcart-nominated collection of surreal poetry and flash fiction on paradox, rebellion, transformation, and enlightenment from Unsolicited Press. Her work has won contests at Loud Coffee Press and A Story in 100 Words, and it has appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror, Soundings East, The Alien Buddha Goes Pop, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She is a founding editor of Blue Planet Journal and a professor of creative writing. Read her work and learn more about Only Flying at https://brook-bhagat.com/.

God Bless America

HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:

He was met by his family at the Orlando airport after 12 long months of active duty.

Captain Steven Hooks was a free man. Now that the Army didn't need him anymore, he could get back to being a husband and a father and re-open his dental practice.

Gloria, his wife, suggested a movie for his first night home. They gave the kids baths, dressed them in cozy pajamas, and loaded them into the station wagon.

Upon arriving at the booth he handed the cashier the money but she wouldn't take it.

"Sorry, but this drive-in is for whites only."

From Guest Contributor E. Barnes

E. has works published at Entropy, Spillwords, The Purple Pen, The Haven, and several works are in the anthology, "NanoNightmares."

Grass Stains

The neighborhood still smoldered as much as the house's charred remains. Hushed faces stared out from lawns, secretly cathartic. Firemen, and one woman, huddled in clusters, their whispers lingering like the smoke. Beside the black husk that used to be 4522 Westhaven Drive, memories were piled up like litter, tossed aside to make way for fire hoses.

Rebecca sat against the oak tree, numbed. The fire was probably her fault. Her mother had always warned her about those candles. But as she huddled against the dawn chill, all she could think about were the grass stains on her floral pajamas.