Buried

HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:

Quintus, uncomfortably warm, found himself staring blankly at the frescoes on his wall of intertwined naked ladies and men. Startled out of his daydream when the floor shook and the walls cracked, he ran through the atrium to the front wooden door and opened it. People scrambled the streets, colliding into one another screaming in terror. Mount Vesuvius had erupted into fiery lava, ash and pumice.

Quintus ran, but the roof collapsed and buried him in a pile of burning rocks. With shallow breathing, and his lungs collapsed, he bid farewell to Pompeii as the sound of dying screams faded.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Only Casanova in This Dead Country

"She was so hot,” Sam says. “It was like she was blasting out chunks of magma. When we finished, the whole apartment looked like Pompeii. Anyway – how'd you do with your lucky lady?"

I light up a cigarette and think for a moment.

"I was depressed the next day. Does that answer your question?"

"You tellin' me you didn't make a formaldehyde fetus?"

"Oh we had unprotected sex. I don’t know. Something doesn't sit well inside."

Sam puts his hand on my chest.

“There's nothing comfortable inside that heart of yours,” he says. “It's an abandoned archaeological site. Like America."

From Guest Contributor Justin Karcher

Justin lives in Buffalo, NY. Recent works have appeared in Crab Fat Literary Magazine, Mixtape Methodology, and Maudlin House. You can find him on Twitter.