Life

When they were at war, everything was easy. They could yell at each other, throw pillows and then sleep in different rooms, sulking and ignoring each other.

But when they were at peace, the silence became so thick it choked him.

They stayed like this for years, until one morning she woke up and the only thing left of him was the Jasmine tea he drank every evening and a letter on the Fridge.

But her?

She liked to fit people into her world like puzzle pieces so she removed the note, lit a fire and watched it burn, unopened.

From Guest Contributor Will Simon

Life Misspelled

Intelligent machines probe not only my words, but also the silent spaces between words, searching for hidden doors to secret rooms. As a kid, I won a goldfish at the county fair by tossing a ping-pong ball into the fish’s bowl. My mom flushed Goldie down the toilet while I was at school. I think of it sometimes when I see Nazis invading Poland on the History Channel. “Last name?” the woman behind the counter asks, eyes on the computer screen, hands poised on the keyboard. “Good,” I say. “How do you spell that?” “Like God, but with two o’s.”From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

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.

God, The Eagles

God how I loved “Hotel California.” Which was more than a song. The rooms had feather beds and cozy quilts you’d think came from the Amish people. Those people, straight and true. Me, I’m a scotch on the rocks girl, down at the hotel bar most nights singing along with those guys. “Desperado” comes to mind. My kids weren’t half as much trouble as I let on. All of them stellar now. So stellar I don’t know what to say to them anymore. And the way they don’t call, I figure they don’t know what to say to me either.

Linda Lowe's poems and stories have appeared in Outlook Springs, Gone Lawn, Dogzplot, Right Hand Pointing, New Verse News and others.

Rain Vigil

Worn wooden arms hold me as I rock in my grandma’s rocking chair on the front porch of her old house. My grandma’s quilt keeps me warm in the cool fall air. It’s the first day it hasn’t rained in weeks. A mist of water rises over the treetops, and the grass is wet. I can’t stay here long. The house is already sold. All the rooms are empty. All that’s left is the rocking chair, the quilt, and me. I’ve kept vigil with the sorrowing rain. I pack up these last moments, get behind the wheel, and drive away.From Guest Contributor Tyrean Martinson

Tyrean is a writer, daydreamer, and believer at http://tyreanswritingspot.blogspot.com

Blocked

“C'mon, Helen, add me back! I know you're still active.”

She knocked a few more times on the portion of the wall where the door had been, hopelessly. Livid, she cursed the day she granted Helen authority to set permissions in her house.

It was progress, they said, that rooms and buildings could be subject to malleable privacy permissions. But now, locked outside, she missed the days when connections were not so easily lost.

No message came from inside, but, crouched with ears against the wall, she thought she could hear the distant buzz of postings addressed to someone else.

From Guest Contributor Leonardo A. Castro