TV

The trick or treaters are finally done for the night. Time for some soothing TV. Must be somehorror movie, some ghastly looking character is staring at the camera emoting “You’ll be deadbefore the night is over.”

I’ll check the news. I’ve had enough of scares tonight. Channel 8 has my favorite broadcaster,but he’s decked out for Halloween, I guess. Another monster. This one reads “Sorry, but you’ll bedead before tomorrow.”

Wow, those guys are going all out for the season. I’d say a little overboard.

Must have a really late tricker, someone’s at the door now.

From Guest Contributor Doug Hawley

Haunted

Megan watched Max watch TV. This went on for days. Max was too sad to do anything else. He'd stopped going to work. He wasn't seeing any friends. He even refused to answer the door. He just binged whatever old sitcom Netflix recommended next.

Max had always been stubborn. He refused to listen when anyone made a suggestion he hadn't thought of first.

But Megan was stubborn too. She'd keep haunting Max as long as it took to get him off the sofa and out of their house. She may be dead, but Max had a life still to lead.

Night Thoughts

I can’t bring myself to read the news anymore or even watch it on TV. There are just so many unidentified dead men with my face, just so many couples in their late thirties having trouble making a baby. Meanwhile, a small band of starving deer stagger out of the snowbound woods in search of help, but help has been repealed. Like the Oxford comma or the use of voiceover in film, the whole thing is controversial. And although it’s day, night thoughts are stuck in my head, and the only immediate alternative may be to cut my head off.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie Good is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication in summer 2022.

Country Noir

A B-girl with sleepy, mud-colored eyes slipped onto the stool next to mine. “I am here to entertain you,” she said and then added as a tease, “but only during my shift.” At least she wasn’t the kind of woman who would refer to poetry as “verse.” I conspicuously returned my attention to the ball game on the TV over the bar. She leaned in closer and started to stay something. I cut her off. It’s not that I wasn’t tempted; it’s just that I’m cautious. Prison workshops and small rural cemeteries are filled with men who should have been.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication this summer.

Sick World

It’s like a post-apocalyptic movie. A usually bustling city is eerily vacant. Essential supplies have come to include liquor, guns, and toilet paper. Who isn’t secretly embarrassed? Around midnight I take a puzzle apart just for the hell of it. The next morning my department holds a Zoom session on how to prevent cheating in online classes. Other professors mention they also have been having strange dreams. In mine, I’m eating Crown Fried Chicken on a bench while eyeballs the size of boulders roll across the grass and dirt, and a woman I recognize from TV weeps into her hands.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie Good is the author of What It Is and How to Use It (2019) from Grey Book Press, among other poetry collections.

Like Mommy and Daddy

"Mommy, you and daddy look funny." said five-year-old Julia.

"We're OK. We are flying high!" Julia's mommy replied as she chewed a weed-laced cookie.

"These cookies! Flyin' like a bird," Julia's daddy sang.

He took another cookie off the plate on the kitchen table.

"Let's go upstairs, sweetheart. A little lovin' ......Julia, watch TV."

Julia watched as her parents climbed the stairs. She grabbed a cookie, then ran upstairs to her bedroom and ate it.

When her beautiful wings fluttered, she floated to the open window.

She pushed out the screen and thought, "I wanna fly like mommy and daddy."

From Guest Contributor Deborah Shrimplin

Humbug New Year’s

On the television, the ball in Time’s Square dropped. “Happy New Year,” the crowd shouted. I gulped my wine, not a fan of champagne, and shut the TV. After all, I detested New Year’s Eve. It’s a lonely holiday for some, myself included, and I’d rather get drunk on wine in the comfort of my own home, warm by the fire.

Tired, I took off my robe, climbed into bed and turned off the lamp. I told myself, tomorrow would be just another day.

Instead of spending the first day of the new year relaxing, I typed my resignation letter.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Paper Thin Walls

Graham's 300 dollars a month bought him a two-room sublet on the Upper East side. The twenty-four hour access to entertainment from his coterie of neighbors was complimentary.

He was privy to all manner of arguments, heated conversations, shouting matches, and late-night confessionals. After only a few months, he was googling "How to become a therapist" now that he possessed real-world experience. Then there was the lovemaking.

Graham stopped watching TV soon after moving in. He found more value from the real lives around him rather than the fake ones on his television. He finally understood the meaning of authentic.

Dandelions

Passersby might have been forgiven for thinking the playground was host to a psychedelic staging of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but it was just Cassie and Bobby, who'd rubbed dandelions on their skin until their faces were streaked with yellow. They wanted to camouflage themselves like the soldiers on TV, but all they had was mud and flowers and imagination.

When the real life soldiers came, Cassie and Bobby hid in the drainage tunnel as they'd been taught. The gunshots echoed like firecrackers in the air around them while they waited in vain for their parents to find them.

Eye Witness

Sarah watched the invasion passively, from the same armchair she watched TV. The bugs were large, maybe the size of a Volkswagen, but that might have been her perspective. They couldn't have been that big. Her memory was exaggerating.

They were shovel-shaped and had what looked like a hard, chitinous substance as armor. They were crawling up and down the building across the street, consuming the structure in their giant mandibles.

Sarah supposed that some scientist would win a Nobel prize for decoding their DNA or anatomic structure. She would look forward to watching the documentary on the nature channel.