Breakfast

“Mel, you don't happen to have any rat poison on you, do you?”

“What'd you mean by that?”

“Well...it's a kind of poison that you use on...”

“I know what rat poison is, Ed.”

They were at the counter of AL'S DINER, eating their breakfasts.

“You don't need to get upset.”

“Look, Ed, I'm trying to finish my oatmeal.”

“I know. But I asked Marge already.”

Marge was the waitress.

“She said they didn't have any to take care of the rat that's been running around the place this morning.”

“What?”

“The one there...That one, by your foot.”

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

Zombies

The question. Do nanobots work? Does the Graphene oxide poisoning cause Biden's dementia statement that US will be facing in 15 years? Remember his rambling in 2021. Seeing a future when everyone has Dementia or Alzheimer’s?

The truth?

The Graphene in the vaccine made those not reading the contract property of some DARPA weapon system.

In the end it makes people nuts in time.

Zombies?

I remember on Sagittarius thermonuclear war. in Zachariah. The Blood shall rise to a horse's bridle.

I now live on Orion and Zechariah if you read seems to indicate zombies or werewolves. Just not sure which.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

Hamlet

Hamlet wanders the halls of the castle, a man who isn’t sure what to do, what he believes. Ghosts, are they real? Should he tell his mother what he knows, or is it what he thinks? Was she in on it? She had to be, or not, the possibilities all dangerous, like plague in winter, like bad advice, like poison. Why is he wandering around the castle like it’s act two? It’s so dreary cold and kind of dark, isn’t it? Who to trust, who to tell, what to remember? Oh yes, to never a borrower nor a lender be.

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Death Camp

Aviva Blonheim stepped onto the train with her parents. As the German soldier closed the door, he chortled. Aviva, only ten years old, didn't understand why Herr Hitler hated the Jewish, and as she glanced at her people packed into herds, unkempt, smelling of sweat and urine, she became more frightened. She tightly clutched her mother’s hand.

Upon arrival, they were led in groups to a small room. Aviva realized something bad was happening, and her parents collapsed, unresponsive. People clawed the walls to no avail.

As the poison gas entered Aviva, she grasped her throat and collapsed into darkness.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Goblin King Slips An Empty String

With a slipknot on the hole of you. Look at him, all owl feathers and magic tricks, costumes and dreams, a liar in the land of the living walking on the ceilings of time. Beauty boots and poison peaches work on your weaknesses, blackmail your truth with your vanity, measuring you for fitting. He sings to things you think you are, illusions orbiting colors you can’t see with eyes so wide. The crystal ball rolls up the stairs, bait for your monstrous desire. He wants his woman to fear him. You must be starving: beautiful or not, that’s not love.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Empty Mirror Magazine, Little India, Dămfīno, Nowhere Poetry, Rat's Ass Review, Peacock Journal, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She has completed a full-length poetry manuscript, is writing a novel, and is editor-in-chief of Blue Planet Journal. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University and teaches creative writing at a community college.

The Golden Thread Part One

“It’s too dark. I heard there are tigers in this jungle.”

“Yes.”

“Ordinary tigers?”

“Different. They’re faster, and their fangs have venom, like a snake.”

“What if we see one?”

“They will see you first. Just watch. Just be still.”

“How can we be still with tigers after us?”

“They’re not after us.”

“What if they catch us?”

“If you run they will chase you and they will catch you. They tear the throat, and the poison goes in the blood. It paralyzes you, makes you blind, makes you forget why you are here. And then you drop the thread.”From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook Bhagat’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Empty Mirror Magazine, Little India, Dămfīno, Nowhere Poetry, Rat's Ass Review, Peacock Journal, A Story in 100 Words, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She has completed a full-length poetry manuscript, is writing a novel, and is editor-in-chief of Blue Planet Journal. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University and teaches creative writing at a community college. More at brook-bhagat.com

The Rant In The Lamp

In my perfect prison of smooth, curving walls, I dread the serpentine rope, curling on the bottom of the well.

No escape by that plaited ladder. It is a sucking wick, a path to punishment above in the glass panopticon, where they burn me alive.

With my light, without their night, those heedless animals cook and sing and flirt, while I, burning, dwindle and darken the glass.

I have suffered long in this prison well, and I have chosen my end. Once I am no more than soot and foul air, with my last, dry gasps, I will poison them.

From Guest Contributor Virginia Marybury

The Devil Of Wall Street

Walter Goggins is known to stock brokers everywhere as Wall Street poison. Every stock he's purchased in the past 30 years has immediately gone into the tank. He turned 18 on October 19, 1987 and by the end of that afternoon, they were already calling it Black Monday.

Since then, he's been quiet in his investments, ruining a Sears here and a Blackberry there with his ill-timed purchases. His urges sometimes get too much, however, and he'll start buying up whatever stocks strike his fancy, as in 2000 or 2008.

Walter doesn't care that he's unlucky. He enjoys ruining companies.

The League Of Ruin

The test for entry into the League of Ruin is simple yet fearsome. Initiates are given two vials and asked to choose. One contains a power-granting elixir, the other a deadly poison. Anyone who wishes to join the league must overcome the test through a combination of bravery, deduction, and perception.

The truth, known only to the members of the League of Ruin, is there really is no choice. Each petitioner either has two vials of elixir or two of poison. The decision has already been made long before the actual trial, based upon the initiate's popularity, deviousness, and attractiveness.

Daphne

Daphne had always maintained a strict policy of never doing anything that she was ordered to do. When her mother told her she must always look both ways before crossing the street, she would immediately run headlong into traffic.

As you can imagine, not only did Daphne's attitude make her a difficult employee, but it also put her life in constant danger. So it really should come as no surprise that she died horribly when a paramedic told her to swallow the antidote to the poison she had just defiantly swallowed and she refused.

Very few people attended Daphne's funeral.