Cirque Du Silly

One summer, I went to Circus Camp. As an acrobat, I was overcome by terror, lost my grip on the trapeze, and plunged into the net before my partner could grab my ankles. Animals hated me. The dancing horse tried to bite me, and the performing poodles peed on my shoes. I looked hilarious in clown makeup, but my timing was terrible, and I was trampled while exiting the tiny car. I tried juggling and hit myself in the face with the balls. Fortunately, the camp staff were brilliant photographers; the shots they posted on Instagram made my family proud.

From Guest Contributor R.K. West

Sand In My Shoes

Time is an abstract concept. Yet the seconds, minutes, and hours are woven into the very fabric of existence just as surely as the matter around us. The matter inside us, for that matter.

Forgive me the pun. It may be the last one I have time for.

Understanding time is an integral part of the universe doesn't make it any more concrete. Time depends on where the observer is located.

My days as a young man passed by so quickly. Now, I look down and there's nothing but sand in my shoes. One breath of wind, and I'm gone.

The Pyramids

The new neighbors were installing an elevator in the three-story home on the corner. As soon as it was finished, they handed out tickets like we were going for a ride. When the doors opened, we stepped out into a blistering afternoon, where men were struggling with giant blocks of stone. Were they busy creating one of the ancient wonders of the world? It looked like we might be witnessing a miracle, but the air was stifling, thousands of years old. Wasn’t it time to go home and relax? Kick off our shoes, call an end to this crazy day?

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

How It Was Is How It Will Be

No one claims to know how the Hebrew slaves came to be heaving the shriveled bodies of the dead into raging furnaces. Soon their throats swelled from the smoke, and they couldn’t swallow or eat, and then their eyes turned red, and everything looked blurry, as if seen through the sting of tears. I feel less certain every day about my own chances. I go to sleep afraid, and I wake up afraid. Sometimes I’m even chased down the street, shoes slapping the pavement, but when I glance back, I can’t quite see who it is that is chasing me.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.

The Look Of Things

We were invited to a silent room filled with melting glaciers. I just stood there, part of the system, but vulnerable in a way peculiar to men who are naked except for their socks and shoes. I’m constantly creating problems that never even existed. I have to walk really, really carefully or there’ll be more cats than people around. After we’re dead, it’s another story: Cosimo de Medici once complained to Michelangelo, “That sculpture doesn’t look like me.” “Listen,” Michelangelo said, “you’ll be dead in 20 years, this will be around for 2,000 years. So, that’s what you look like!”

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Spooky Action at a Distance from Analog Submission Press.

Reunion

Imagining their reunion had helped her do unspeakable things since the Collapse. The cold night crystallized her tears. Others might mistake the flicker on the mountainside for a twinkling star, but she knew it’s a candle burning in the window--their sign. Don’t worry baby, she thought, Momma’s coming.

By daybreak, she had reached their cabin. Its warmth draped itself around her like a blanket. Wiping her shoes on the mat (force of habit) a small thing flew out of a cupboard and pinned itself to her legs. “Mummy! I missed you!” David emerged; his face already crumpled with emotion.

From Guest Contributor Carla Halpin

Decree 349

Five naked women had been lined up against the wall. Something about the one in the middle caught the captain’s eye, whether a tattoo or the way she shyly covered her breasts with her hands. “May I offer you some candy?” he asked. It was only then she remembered that Kafka was buried in a plain wooden coffin, a stray fact that under other circumstances might have been interesting to share. That’s just the sort of place this is, no time for a chat, not even about who it was that tracked in blood on the bottom of their shoes.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of What It Is and How to Use It from Grey Book Press. He co-edits the journals Unbroken and UnLost.

Outside The Box

Annie is missing. “Not in her room,” Mom said. “Can’t find her outdoorshoes,” noted Dad. “Maybe she fell into a humongous puddle,” quippedyounger brother. Older brother was silent. Two guinea pigs madlythreaded wheels. Crows lined the backyard fence squawking at thehouse. “Bet she’s at a friend’s,” said Dad. “Maybe a monster snatchedher,” younger brother grinned. “That’s enough young man,” assertedMom. “We need to think OUTSIDE the box,” Dad stated. “Maybe someoneput her INSIDE a box,” giggled younger brother. “Hush!” yelled Mom.Older brother emerged: “Annie’s in my bedroom closet with an imaginaryfriend.”From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

Alma's Journey

I'd always known about my husband's cheating, but when he was home, he was good company. Now he'd left.

Was I losing my mind, too?

"Leave Miami," my daughter had said. She’d just given birth to my only grandchild. "You can start over with us in Orlando."

What was she was thinking? She knows I've never been more than thirty miles from home.

I looked down. The purse I thought I'd lost was between my shoes.

Picking up my purse, I couldn’t wait for the train doors to open fully—my daughter cradling my granddaughter on the brightly lit platform.From Guest Contributor Geoffrey Philp

Geoffrey is the author of the YA novel, Garvey’s Ghost. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the Inter-American Campus of Miami Dade College.

I Stole A Baby

And I’m sorry. I stole a blue-eyed toe-headed overalled emptiness because IJust couldn’t help myself. She was climbing a fence, she was smelling a tree. She was a whip snapping wet wings. She was a sky that could hold anything.

I fed her square meals of television, eggs, and ambition, served rare. She ate the garnish, grew smaller and smaller until she was gifted and talented—pretty new scales, shiny black shoes worth the pinch. Now it’s not clear whether, if I keep tightening the belt, she will ever be able to disappear.

In my defense, I love her.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University. She teaches college writing and is the co-owner and chief editor of BluePlanetJournal.com. Her nonfiction, poetry, and flash fiction have appeared in Creations Magazine, Little India, Outpost, Nowhere Poetry, and The Syzygy Poetry Journal.