For The Record

“She was attractive. Cute face.”

“Facts, please,” the officer cringed, pausing his pen.

“Black-rimmed glasses, plum lipstick and...”

“What was stolen?”

“My cellphone. One minute in my hand. The next, gone.”

A woman was called to the counter by the second officer on duty.

“Reporting a theft,” she announced. “Thief had salt and pepper hair.”

“What was taken?”

“My cellphone.”

The officers compared the complainants with the details given.

“You two realize making false claims is an offence,” one said.

“We can let you go this time,” the other scolded. “Go home and make up or see a marriage counsellor.”

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction regardless of the season or location she finds herself in.

Undetected

“We’re detectives,” said the teenager in Greta’s doorway. “Like Nancy Drew. But guys.”

“And brothers!” the other boy added.

Greta studied them. “So...more like...the Hardy Boys?”

“Who?” the Hardly-there Boys asked together.

Greta smirked. “Never mind.”

“We’re tracking a thief,” explained the first boy. “He’s targeting Culpepper Lane!”

Greta gasped.

“Vases, television, artwork.” The second boy ticked off his fingers. “Even Mrs. Giovanni’s tiara! We’re questioning everyone. May we come inside?”

“Certainly,” Greta said. “I was just setting up my new TV.” She ushered them into her immaculate foyer, a sea of diamonds sparkling unnoticed atop her head.

From Guest Contributor John Adams

John (he/him/his) lives near Kansas City, where he produces comedy shows and writes about teenage detectives, robo-butlers, and cursed cowboys. Twitter: @JohnAmusesNoOne.

The Office Visit

In his office at the university, Professor Kudrow pounds on the computer keyboard. His research paper needs a rewrite, his ex-wife wants more child support and he feels a migraine coming on. He wants to go home and get drunk.

His grad student, James, appears in the doorway with an older gentleman.

After introductions, James' father confronts the professor.

"My son paid you for a better grade, didn't he? Don't lie to me. I have documents."

The professor froze.

"Your silence is proof enough."

He turns to his son, "My son, a thief and cheat! I'm reporting both of you."

From Guest Contributor Deborah Shrimplin

Public Poems Built On Public Property

Public poems built on public property are, as they say, asking for it. When you use such flimsy bread, eating away at holy Wonder until such thinly-sliced letters remain, every one meant to be swallowed, not whispered; when you hold them down with found rocks in a stream that is not a stream, just a concrete ditch void of the hand of God; when you slip out the window in the night like a Sufi thief or an idiot child, praying the wrong way, dancing naked, licking vowels in your own nonsense languagedon’t expect to get anythingexceptarrested.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

After graduating with a BA in English from Vassar College, Brook Bhagat landed her first paid writing job as a reporter for a small-town Colorado newspaper. She left it to travel to India, where she fell in love, got married and canceled her ticket home. She and her husband Gaurav write freelance articles for dozens of publications, including Outpost, Ecoworld, and Little India. In 2013, they launched www.BluePlanetJournal.com, which she edits and writes for. She also teaches writing at a community college, is earning her MFA in Writing at Lindenwood University, and is writing a novel.

Sid

Tears streamed from Charlotte's blue eyes. Her protective doberman 'Sid' had died. Even her job as a vet did not help. The cancer had spread. Two weeks after Sid's sad demise Charlotte tied her brown locks into a bun and returned to saving other pets' lives. She accepted only token payments to cover her lonely expenses.

One moonlit evening whilst withdrawing takeaway cash a scuffle ensued. Police arrested a crook from the off license nearby. As he was dragged away the thief shouted back,

'Lady, you're lucky you had a big dog watching you, I was gonna rob you first!'

From Guest Contributor Kerry Valkyrie Baldock Kelly

Impact

At the base of an apartment tower, lies a fresh corpse. Police arrive.

They log the remains of a habitual thief, the main suspect in a spate of “Human Fly” style burglaries.

Whilst finding the injuries which caused his death consistent with falling from a considerable height, the Coroner will observe some fingernails on both hands have been impacted and crushed.

I am sitting on the balcony of my fourteenth floor apartment, enjoying an early morning breakfast, and panoramic ocean view.

My nine-pound hammer rests against the leg of the table. It will be cleaned and stored after coffee.

From Guest Contributor Barry O’Farrell

Barry O'Farrell had his 950-word sci-fi story Shakedown published in the December 2014 issue of Cyclamens and Swords.

Apocrypha of Natural History - Act III

Amidst all the trimmings that the gardeners of our reality have deemed inappropriate for existence, all the strange treasures from lost histories, only one thing interests the Thief.  Despite its quiet profile, it’s the one artifact that promises to fracture the Thief’s world and reinvent it anew.  Gingerly, the Thief opens the chest….

A scroll, written in ancient Aramaic, tells a story.  It tells of a world where Mashup Month was never possible.  Where thegooddoctor rose, put on his man-panties, and never enriched my weblog with delightful synergies of truth and fiction.

The Thief places the scroll in her bag.

Apocrypha of Natural History - Act II

Deep beneath the museum, the Thief discovers a cavernous warehouse – the burial ground of suppressed truths.  Searching the labyrinthine storeroom, the Thief moves past the delicately jointed skeleton of a thunderbolt hanging from the ceiling and the limestone fossils of clouds, dense with capillary beds.  Past tall shelves laden with jars of preserved fetuses that link man, not to primates, but to a race of loping salamanders.  Past photographs that prove mountains are the work of one very prolific man, now over 4000 years old and living in East L.A.  Suddenly, the Thief stops short before a modest little chest….

Apocrypha Of Natural History - Act I

The Museum of Natural History is closed.  In exhibition halls, the deposed kings of the earth hold eyeless court over rooms emptied of all visitors.  All visitors save the Thief.  Quickly passing through Pleistocene and Cambrian periods, the Thief opens a utility closet.  Behind mops and brooms is another, older, door.

Stay out late enough and you’ll hear the wisps of whispers as bold men speculate on the apocrypha of natural history.  They say the Historians have protected their version of nature.  Somewhere, they’ve hidden the artifacts and evidences of the world that contradicts them.

The Thief opens the door.