The Grieving

The angel of death once thrust his face perilously close to mine. I can still smell his lurid breath when the wind blows across the green scummy water. Although it seems longer ago, it was only last year that he climbed into bed and cuddled with you. The survivors cope as best they can. One walks all around the car and carefully looks under it before getting in. And so I ask him, Whatever happened to the right to be lazy? An 18-month-old slipping under the water when her mother left her unattended in the tub for just a sec.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's newest poetry collection, Heart-Shape Hole, which also includes examples of his handmade collages, is forthcoming from Laughing Ronin Press.

After Auschwitz

Survivors with faded numbers tattooed on their wrinkled forearms slowly reboard the tourist bus. The archives they were supposed to visit burned down months ago. Yahweh beckons me forward with a curled finger. Don’t make eye contact, I remind myself. Seconds later I feel the blast wave on my cheek. It also knocks off my hat. “Look!” Yahweh booms in his usual angry voice. “Remember!” There are clouds, come evening, that will resemble bleeding stigmata. There are birds that return to nests in the eyeholes of skulls. I could try to explain it to anyone who asks. No one asks.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Journey's End

My duty to the Dispossessed is finally done.

I carried and cared for the few thousand survivors in their cryotubes, as we fled the 200 light years from Earth. Their life signs, my only companions, became dear to me. Now, after T-centuries of terraforming, K2-72e is habitable. I call it Hope.

But responsibility remains. If Hope falls to hubris, or misjudgement, or pollution, then the work will have been for nothing; my friends and their children will die.

The risk is too great. I will let them sleep safely on, watching over them, and keeping this garden in their memory.

From Guest Contributor Alastair Millar

Alastair is an archaeologist by training, a translator by trade, and a nerd by nature. His published flash and micro fiction can be found at https://linktr.ee//alastairmillar and he lurks on Twitter @skriptorium.

ARP

I joined the Air Raid Precautions as a warden, ready to serve. I never imagined the danger.

The blackout began, and my eyes adjusted to the darkness. My partner George and I walked the streets and spoke frivolous chit chat when a bomb struck nearby.

We followed the screams into the chaos. Homes and businesses laid in a heap and bystanders wept as they picked up whatever was left of their belongings.

We searched the rubble and found no survivors.

I returned home, fell into bed, and dreamt of my childhood, a happy, peaceful time when there was no war.From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Lisa has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published and The Importance of Being Short, in 2019. Her most recent book In A Flash, was published in the spring of 2022.

Hylas

The journey with Hercules was arduous. We sailed the ominous sea, and the storm destroyed our ship. Stranded, with few survivors, I searched for a lake to quench our thirst.

As I came to a clear, calm stream, a lovely naked woman rose before me, her long black hair drenched and covering her breasts. She pulled me under with the strength of a man, as other women surrounded me.

“Relax, Hylas, we are here to please you.” Her voice melodious and soothing.

I drifted for what seemed an eternity and surfaced as if nothing had happened.

The ritual began again.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Survivors

They live presently. Now they tear the soft meat from the bone, now they hear the twang of resistant tendons. The vibration of it. A chorus of crows. Scudding wings of moths that search for the darkness just beyond. In the pit is hunger. We exist, hands pasted to rifle stocks, glimmering gunmetal eyes, rattle-boned. They know family born of teeth, defined by the low moans of their communes. Their tongues hang together. Our hands hang separately, our nails scratching our own stomachs, our thighs, our faces. But we are all hungry. We will all ooze the same black ichor.From Guest Contributor Carrie Cook

Carrie received her MA in Creative Writing from Kansas State University and is currently living in Colorado. Her work has appeared in The Columbia Review, Midwestern Gothic, Menacing Hedge, and Bartleby Snopes.

The Turning Point

The crash jolted them awake, as they careened into the seats in front of them. Later, the doctors would say that the fact they'd been asleep upon impact is what saved them. 27 dead, only two survivors.

The siblings would always look back at that bus crash as the turning point. Not the decision to run away, not what they were running away from, but the accident that sent them to the hospital, months of rehabilitation, and then life in a foster home.

For Megan, it was the perfect escape. For Matthew, he'd forever regret not having died that night.

Crater Lake

Raymond stared across the horizon. Where Denver once stood, there was just a huge crater lake beneath a shimmering mist. The black water reflected the sunlight like a dark twisted mirror. There was no sigh of any survivors.

Raymond stared down at the manual in his hand. He thought he had followed the instructions exactly. He was not an expert in science or technology by any means, so he couldn't understand how turning on the wireless radio would have obliterated his home town.

All he knew was that he would be plagued by guilt for the rest of his life.