Year Of Atonement

The Grim Reaper took things slower, started to travel by tricycle during the week and by donkey on the weekends. At night we kept warm around matchsticks and dumpster fires. For entertainment we compared peanut butter and jelly recipes. Snooze buttons recorded high anxiety days. Snooze alarms provided the year’s soundtrack. Almost everyone drank alcohol to mournful excess. Even coffee was served wrapped in brown paper bags. Coincidentally, that was the last year for the Miss America pageant. The final talent show, with an extra-large flame thrower, was really something. For months afterwards people sold charred auditorium remains as souvenirs.

From Guest Contributor Mike James

The World Is Nothing But Chaos And Entropy

Brian stared at the devastation. Where once stood his immaculately kept garage, packed with 45-years worth of careful philatelic curation, was a skeletal frame and mound of black cinders. His eye would be diverted by what momentarily struck him as an envelope floating on the breeze, but turned out was nothing but ash.

His wife attempted consoling him. Imagine the insurance payout! But his devotion had never been about money. Only now, staring at the remains of his life's work, did he truly understand his need for the comfort of a well-aligned stamp in a world of chaos and entropy.

Taking Chances

I held the charred remains of something dear to me. Last glowing sparks from the fire catapulted towards the night sky, disappearing upon impact.

“Have more wine,” my friends encouraged. “You’ll sleep easier.”

I took the bottle, poured a glassful. Considered my next move with every sip. What if this happens again? Can I take more defeat?

We sat at the scene of the blaze. The nearby forest receded into a thickening mist. I removed that which once was from my clasp and attached another to the end of my skewer.

Toasting marshmallows over a campfire need not be complicated.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. She resides in Edmonton, Canada with her husband and stuffed animals and many friends.

Never Forgotten

The eerie sound of rumbling and cries coming from the street as the day turns clouded with dust and debris.

Sirens blaring, chaos ensuing. A day of sadness and a city coming together in the face of tragedy.

The memory of falling angels and blackness in lower Manhattan as firefighters run to help the innocent.

Seventeen years later, the depth of emotion still consumes our souls.

Names read every year on the day, by a weeping family member.

Sleepless nights and sorrow for family still waiting to hear if their loved one’s remains are found, never forgetting September 11th, 2001.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Remains

Stephanie allowed her eyes to adjust as silhouettes gradually manifested in the murkiness of the cabin. Even this deep, the difference between dim ocean floor and the total blackness within the shipwreck was stark.

After a few minutes, she saw the safe's boxy outline in one corner. Her fingers delicately worked the dial, hoping corrosion had not ruined the mechanism.

Stephanie spied two spotlights through the empty window. The competition. She worked faster without a torch, one of the reasons her employer always came to her first.

The safe opened. Inside: nothing but remains.

The question: Would her pursuers believe?

The House On The Hill

As the floodwaters receded, Thompson entered what used to be his home. The structure had once stood proud at the top of the hill. Now it was in shambles, the storm having carried it off its foundations and depositing it several hundred yards away.

With stooped shoulders, Thompson shifted through the remains. His friends would say he should count himself lucky that anything survived at all. At least he was alive. But it was hard to think that way with Jessie's waterlogged doll in his hands. He was not one of those parents who looked at their children as disposable.

One Last Sunrise

Carl awoke to the escalating chorus of songbirds echoing through the dense northeastern forest. He arose and went through his morning ritual in silence. Dress and redon boots. Rehydrate and consume breakfast, coffee. Breakdown camp. Load his backpack.

These same activities he had performed for countless summers, now at a slower more deliberate pace.

The sealed cardboard box was left out of his pack today. He would carry it the last few miles in his hands.

Arriving at their unnamed peak, he savored the sunrise view east. Opening the box, he sprinkled her remains. Finally, at peace. Finally, at home.

From Guest Contributor Todd Raubenolt

Impact

At the base of an apartment tower, lies a fresh corpse. Police arrive.

They log the remains of a habitual thief, the main suspect in a spate of “Human Fly” style burglaries.

Whilst finding the injuries which caused his death consistent with falling from a considerable height, the Coroner will observe some fingernails on both hands have been impacted and crushed.

I am sitting on the balcony of my fourteenth floor apartment, enjoying an early morning breakfast, and panoramic ocean view.

My nine-pound hammer rests against the leg of the table. It will be cleaned and stored after coffee.

From Guest Contributor Barry O’Farrell

Barry O'Farrell had his 950-word sci-fi story Shakedown published in the December 2014 issue of Cyclamens and Swords.