You Know Birds

“Look, Ed. the Sun's coming out.”

“The Sun, huh?”

Actually, it had been out, fusing protons into helium nuclei in its core. Daily, unendingly, for billions of years, it kept at it. Cloud cover had temporarily blocked Edna's view.

“Look at the trees. Let's go out on the patio, Ed.”

Squinting, she turned from the window.

“But the birds in the trees like to crap on me, Edna.”

It was true. They aimed for Ed's head especially.

“Yeah, Ed. But they'll hold off.”

“What?”

“Your hair's a mess...You know birds. They'd rather splatter you after your shampoo, not now.”

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

The Lit Bedroom

As nightfall descended, a feathery latecomer gathered crumbs from Vi’s patio. Lights in a nearby house turned off, except for one.

It shone from a second story. An elderly woman was seen looking out the window.

When Vi met the house owner at their communal mailbox, she remarked on the upstairs light being left on at night and asked how long the guest would be visiting.

The neighbor looked perplexed. She said it was her mother’s room, until her death a year ago.

Vi wondered if her imagination played tricks. Since their conversation, that bedroom light no longer lit up.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, primarily residing in Edmonton, Canada.

Anger Is An Arrow

The sun was shining for once, and I was sitting out on the patio with a book, Clare Carlisle’s Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Soren Kierkegaard, open on my lap, while I stared off into the middle distance, trying to think of a specific skill my angry beautiful workaholic father had taught me growing up – how to change the oil in a car, for example, or restring a steel-string acoustic guitar, or make sourdough starter from scratch – and I couldn’t, I couldn’t think of one, unless, that is, you consider being a yellow bull’s eye a skill.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

Pests

Two men relaxed on a patio overlooking a lush garden, talking conversationally.

“I’m having a lot of trouble with these pests. They’re just everywhere! In my backyard, my pond, and even the kids’ sandbox,” the larger man said, shaking his head.

His companion sipped from a bottle. “Same with us. They destroy everything, but I still feel bad about killing them. They’re probably just trying to survive.” The smaller man paused before pointing to the ground. “Look, there’s one now.”

The larger man stomped on the creature with a look of disgust before wiping his boot.

“Pesky humans,” he grumbled.

From Guest Contributor Caitlyn Palmer

Anechoic, Deprived

I once thought I heard my father listening to Santana on our back patio. He never listened to music. The only soundtrack to his workaday life was the eight cylinders rumbling at his foot’s command. A kick drum reverberating in his chest that echoed his life. A violent explosion shrouded by modernity, reduced to a drone. I eased through the sliding glass door and found him staring at the beyond the lower pasture in silence. “Be still,” he said. His words hung thick in the mid-summer air. I still don’t know if I wanted the music for him or myself.

From Guest Contributor J. Andrew Goss