All Below Was Sky

All below was sky. No, that isn’t right. You are upside down. The seatbelt keeps you suspended a foot above ground. Blood swells and pounds in your temples, or was it the whiskey? Frank was on the street.

Ejected. He had been thrown fifty feet.

Dead and dusky.

His seersucker shirt plunged a deep v on a chest of ringlets. Oxford buttons pin a lapel dyed crimson. You count the spots on a ladybug as it skitters across. Stripes and six spots. A gnarled oak casts shade on the misshapen corners of a green license plate.

A wailing siren approaches.From Guest Contributor Kyle J. Ames

Kyle is a student of English at Pikes Peak Community College

Suffrage

I clear the breakfast plates as a dutiful wife, while my husband, Robert, legs crossed, newspaper in hand, clears his throat and faces me.

“Are you seriously considering going to the parade, Grace?”

“Not considering, I’m going,” I say and slam the cabinet door, dishes rattling.

“There’s no reasoning with you,” he says and leaves the room.

I want more than keeping a home and obeying Robert’s commands. I want the freedom to choose.

I hold my head high, grab my “Women have the Right to Vote banner,” and walk out the door to Fifth Avenue to make a difference.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

His Plant

The only thing left of him was the plant. They’d taken everything else. Emptied every cupboard. Every last scrap. It’s their right, of course. They’re family. Me, just a roommate. As far as they knew, anyway. A roommate. Maybe a friend. Nothing more, surely. No reason to think otherwise.

There in the kitchen windowsill, his plant. Thin, green and white. Spidery. They hadn’t known it was his. I didn’t tell them. I’ll keep it alive now that he can’t. I’m no good at that, but I’ll learn. I have to.

Keep it alive. Keep him alive, by my side.

Forever.

From Guest Contributor Louise Snape

Louise is a speculative fiction writer of Dutch and French origin and a graduate of Oxford Brookes University’s MA in Creative Writing. She dabbles in poetry, short fiction, and is currently working on writing her first YA fantasy novel.