Titus

The emperor gave Titus the signal and he plunged his sword into the gladiator. Blood gushed from his neck, and he took his last gasp. The crowd chanted and Titus waved his arms in victory.

Titus’ master approached. “Well done, Titus. There hasn’t been a gladiator to match you, and I hope it stays that way.”

The ground began to rumble. The emperor’s statue fell in a heap, and people began tumbling to their deaths.

Someone in the crowd yelled. “Look at the mountain. It’s on fire!”

Mount Vesuvius spewed fire and rained pumice.

Titus would not fight another day.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Statue

The old master carved the tortured limbs and anguished face out of the stone.

Christ on the cross came from his very soul, he who had witnessed war, massacres and the plague that had taken his wife and dearest daughter, his whole life seeming one long crucifixion.

He cursed the God that had forsaken him and the bishop who had commissioned the artifact for the new cathedral. Tired and sick, he died a few days after the statue was completed.

For centuries after his death, visitors stood in awe before his creation that spoke of suffering and, to some, redemption.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

The Chipmunk And The Squirrel

The chipmunk that lives outside my dog’s window has been avoiding me lately. He says his name is Tony Fauci, but I don’t believe him. Today he’s hanging out with a squirrel in the front yard. The squirrel freezes like a statue when I see him. He thinks this makes him invisible because the trick works on my dog; it doesn’t work on me.

I tell Tony his rent check is late, and both Tony and the squirrel scamper away like a couple of bandits. I’m not mad, though. Tony never pays his rent. These are challenging times for everyone.

From Guest Contributor Dan Slaten

The Reluctant Informer

About 600 miles south of the North Pole still stands the world's northernmost statue of Lenin. There are people who feel uneasy in its presence. The face is like a mask, with a guarded but threatening expression. Some years ago, a tableful of coffeehouse radicals confided to a police informer that they planned to topple the irascible founder of Bolshevism from his pedestal. “We’re the rifles our ancestors didn’t have,” one declared. The informer made a shushing sound. He wasn’t used to the kind of drunken talk where you say you are going to do something and don’t do it.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's latest poetry collections are The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and The Trouble with Being Born (Ethel Micro-Press, 2020).

La Piedra

I was once asked a question. In fact, it was the most important question in the history of the world.

The question was so immense that it should have been saved for God himself in the afterlife.

It covered love and hate and fact and fiction and everyone and everything at once.

Naturally, I wanted to answer, but my throat froze and my eyes turned to stone like those of a statue. If my heart throbbed, I wasn’t there enough to feel it.

Honestly, how’s a piece of shit like me supposed to know if everything happens for a reason?

From Guest Contributor Branko Tubic

Whimsy

The statue of young Buddha had been an exemplar of serenity when first placed under the tree. Time had passed. Wars had come and gone. Nutrients and sun had been converted into growth by the woody plant’s armoury of respiration and generative processes.

Aashi grinned widely at her discovery. The base of the tree had grown around and in front of the old idol, seemingly intent on squeezing it silly.

She looked closer. Through some trick of lichen growth, the once droopy eyelids and superior smile had been transformed into an expression of squashed distress.

Her tinkling laughter wasn’t malicious.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid