The Receipt

Monday was always wash day in Marla’s house. She sorted through the load of “darks,” mostly jeans and towels. While checking the pockets, she thought she felt a piece of paper in her husband’s jeans.

Marla found a receipt made out to her husband. It read: “Rent for the month of October 2020, paid.”

“What rent?” she thought to herself. Marla didn’t recognize the address. She began to consider the possible explanations. Was it a pied-a-terre? The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. What had the bastard done now?

Just then, her husband walked in the door.

From Guest Contributor Janice Siderius

Mack’s Walk

A chill is in the air and Mack’s hands are numb. He pulls his coat collar around his neck and shoves his hands deep inside his pockets. He’s looking forward to a hot cup of coffee when he returns home, the simmering heat soothing his stomach. A few more blocks and he’ll turn back.

“Hi Mack. Have you seen my cat Arty;” the boy asks. “He got loose today, and I can’t find him.”

“Sorry, no, I haven’t.”

Timmy rides his bike at warp speed, making Mack’s head dizzy. Then a gentle brush against his pants distracts him.

It’s Arty.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Our Rooms Are Like Treehouses

Both with decks attached that lead into pockets of treetops. Our rooms are like treehouses, and if I had a string long enough, I would make a tin can telephone and give one half to you. If we had a tin can telephone tying our treehouse rooms together, then I would whisper into it at night to see if you were still awake. If you were still awake, then I would tell you all the things that freeze on my tongue when we are together—when everything gets flurried, and I forget that you can’t hear me through the silence. From Guest Contributor Grace Coughlin

Grace is from Buffalo, New York. She is currently a Senior at St. John Fisher College, majoring in Psychology with minors in English and Visual and Performing Arts. She has 100-word stories forthcoming in Eunoia Review and Otoliths Review.

The Standard

"Don't get me started on politics."

May took a drag from her cigarette and rolled her eyes so only Sal, the bartender, could see.

"All them crooks in Washington robbing the money right out of our pockets. It's a travesty."

"If your Pappy was alive, he'd be at the front of the revolution."

"Damn straight he would be."

May and Stan started laughing. Bill didn't seem to mind. He just frowned at his empty cup of coffee.

"Let me get you a refill, Mr. Guthrie."

She returned with a steaming pot.

"What was I talking about again?"

"Tonight's baseball game."

To Clara: Regarding Your Critique

You shared your writing with me. An extension of friendship, like a handshake. More like the reaching out of hands with the chance to be held – or swatted – open palmed. Sharing...emptying pockets to reveal hidden things among the embarrassment of collected lint, is a dangerous proposition. Your shadows merged with mine, achieving the density of darkness that brings on the dawn. How can I thank you? For selflessly taking my hands and guiding me to an unknown resting place within the pages of you. I spoke in an attempt to reciprocate. My words: sandpaper to your beach of memory.

From Guest Contributor Keith Hoerner

Calendar Sex

Cellos make little nicks in the dark and we breathe together. The afternoon was a failure. This plain gesture, togetherness, makes quick use of industrious forgetfulness. I cannot keep you behind this gate beyond the third movement. We mean to create more than one monologue to accompany the flutist. The children upstairs, our occupancy momentarily set. I position your fingers behind my neck as talisman for strings. The tent is down. This igloo explodes into every shard of routine that has, before this moment, set what stands for you and for me, aflame, sparks falling into pockets, to the ground.

From Guest Contributor Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has won awards for her poetry, prose, and scholarly work. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri St. Louis. She is the director of the River Styx Hungry Young Poets Series and founded the Graduate Writers Reading Series for UMSL. She is currently a Professor of Humanities and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen is the author of two chapbooks and one flash fiction collection. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, arrived from John Gosslee Books in 2012 and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

On The Shore

"They'd both die for you, you know," he said.

She watched as the man and the dog, floundering in the sand as though beached at low tide, laughed and barked in hoarse revelry.

"Does it scare you?" he asks.

"No. That I'd die for them, that scares me."

He watches her watch the man and the dog.

"Feeling is more frightening than being felt for?"

"It's more difficult to control," she says, finally looking at her interrogator.

"Dying," he says. "That's the ultimate in losing control."

"Not if you control how you die."

Her pockets were already full of stones. From Guest Contributor Peter Hynes

Peter's stories have appeared in such publications as Flesh & Blood, The Malahat Review, Transversions, Dark Tales, Wicked Hollow, Rain Crow, Not One Of Us, Aiofe's Kiss, Horror Library Vol 2, and On Spec.

Poe Would Attribute His Carelessness To The Weight Of His Guilt Pressing In On Him

He begins the search casually, with a measure of optimism, fully expecting it won't be difficult to find, but with every crossed-out possibility his equanimity lessens, as he goes from pocket to pocket in all his jackets, even jackets that haven't been worn in years just to be sure, and finally to the pockets of his man-purse--the one she always mocked him for--until he's all out of pockets, and then it's to his Range Rover, where he looks methodically from back to front so that he's really beginning to panic because all he finds are stale fries and dog hair and a few drops of blood, which are all attributable to her and he needs to clean up soon, but there'll be no point in cleaning if he can't find it, and now he begins retracing every stop of the last six hours, first to the ATM that is supposed to be his alibi, but there's nothing in the parking lot, and then to the dumpster in the industrial park that was a really stupid place to put her bag but it's too late now, and in any case, it isn't there either and now he's driving to the waterfront and he's nervous because it seems like those headlights in the rearview mirror are following him despite his driving so slow and steady because it would be really bad if he gets pulled over when he hasn't washed the blood and he's still wearing the same clothes and the car is speeding up and its lights are flashing and oh my God it's the cops, so he thinks about speeding up too but that never works and he best play it cool and he's just about to ask what seems to be the problem officer when the cop demands to know why there's a handgun on the top of his car.

Today's story is a deviation from the 100 word format. Instead, as you probably already noticed, this is a one sentence story, a concept first introduced to me by Matthew Bennardo. It turns out they are quite addictive, and the thrill comes in trying to make them as long as possible before they collapse in upon themselves, much like a house of cards (I was going to say a game of Jenga, but the analogy doesn't really work.