Best Friends Forever

Michael sits on the dock with his feet dangling in the water. Frank lounges next to him, his nose alert for danger or snacks.

Perhaps they will go for a walk along the lake, or follow the dried creek bed up to the moss tree. Or Michael might grab a fishing pole from the shed and spend the afternoon at the shady shore. Frank would probably rather chase squirrels and rabbits in the grassy meadow.

It's the kind of day that you want to freeze in time and make it last forever.

The kind of day made for best friends.

Her Sacred Space

Sammy was buried in the garden, behind a shed. Rose stepped daily over a trail meandering between overgrown shrubs to get there.

She told Sammy how dearly she missed him. How her life lacked happiness, excepting visits from grandchildren.

They would’ve delighted seeing him. But it was different for them. They lived elsewhere in town. Their lives filled with interests young people sought.

Only when Rose died did her grandchildren realize her loneliness. Close to the burial ground, hidden under debris, they uncovered a stash of cigarette ends.

Undoubtedly saturated with the tears she shed for her beloved Chihuahua, Sammy.From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

The Birthday Party

Once the lawn chairs have been folded and stacked inside the shed, the plastic wrap stretched across rows of cheese glistening with sweat to be stuffed into the fridge and forgotten, the shrieking of grandchildren and boozy chatter of distant relations swept out the front door and down the driveway, and the candles—slabs of wax carved into a 7 and 5 and crusted with cake—tossed into the sink to be dealt with later, the man lifts legs snaked with purple veins onto the recliner and makes his annual wish: that he won’t be here this time next year.

From Guest Contributor Doug Koziol

Doug is the Fiction Editor for Redivider, a journal of new literature and art. His work has appeared in CounterPunch, Driftwood Press, and theEEEL.

I'll Stay

I’ll stay.

I never did see their faces when they grabbed, raped, and beat me. Nor when they left me for dead in the canal not far from home.

A delusional hermit fished me out – tended to me in his old gardening shed they used to give coal miners. He called me daughter. His tenderness and doting seemed true.

It’s been two years – he is my Dad. And I his Isabella. A cozy shed-home for two.

But now shades of my past have begun flickering through the fog. I had been Anne. An orphaned young prostitute. Alone.

Isabella was lucky.

From Guest Contributor Nicolle Browne-Jamet

Imprint

Larry unloaded the wood from his pickup and hauled it into the workshop. Both facades, the truck and the shed, were as worn down as he was.

Larry did most of his thinking while he worked. It was always that way. He could look at a piece, even twenty years later, and remember what he'd been thinking while he built it.

Now he was thinking about his wife. There had been a time when he'd think about leaving her, but that was many years ago.

He was glad he staid. That's what he was thinking as he built her coffin.

The Babysitting Job

Lisa had been babysitting for almost two years, ever since she was 14. Never in her long career had she seen anything so disgusting as this.

Little kids will puke and poop and spit and generally make a mess of everything they touch. Lisa was used to all these awful behaviors. She was a pro.

But she'd never seen a baby molt before, yet that was exactly what this toddler was doing. Shedding its skin and revealing a hard layer of scales underneath. Lisa shrieked and jumped on top of the coffee table.

Perhaps the Iguana family wasn't hispanic after all.