Ties That Bind

Sam always used rubber bands to hold up her ponytail; I'm still finding them around the apartment, lost during sex, or when she shook out her hair after a long day at work, or in any of a dozen different ways. The trust between us proved less elastic, and snapped.

Everything came undone when she found that bobby pin in the bathroom. I told her that Jodie had just needed to wash bird crap out of her hair when she dropped by, but clearly I wasn't believed. Now, in every sense, there's no way left to hold things in place.From Guest Contributor Alastair Millar

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

Cage

The town came to the zoo based on the promise of a special exhibit of animals captured with great difficulty. The audience was truly impressed.

“My god, they are ten times our size.”

“They are bellowing so loud they can be heard ten towns away. The shrieking hurts my ears and might leave me deaf.”

Despite their fear people stuck around, mesmerized by the crazed beasts. They trusted the extra thick bars in the cage.

Their trust was ill-advised. The humans broke out of the cage and stomped the crowd into the ground. Three thousand Xanians died painfully.

From Guest Contributor Doug Hawley

My Father

My father says it’s okay to be scared, but now it’s time to be brave. I trust and look up to him, so when he tells me to hide under the floorboard because the Nazis are coming, I do so.

There’s banging at the front door, and then it bursts open. Footsteps and yelling are what I hear. My legs are cramped and I’m sweating from my forehead to my cheeks.

My father is crying, pleading with the Nazis and I feel helpless hiding. I want to show myself, but I’m too frightened.

Gunshot, thump, silence.

My father is dead.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Illusion

“Do you love me?”

“Yes. I do love you. Don’t you trust me?”

When his love was gone, the reality hit him and it was very harsh. He wanted his love back in his life but it was impossible. He didn’t know what to do, where to go. He had lost everything. His love was gone forever. When things became unbearable, he lost his mind. He could feel those eyes staring at him. He could hear them laughing and screaming. When things went beyond the walls he tried to resist but failed. His dreams turned wet and became an illusion.

From Guest Contributor Sergio Nicolas

Trust Issues

The tears stung as they traveled the well-worn grooves on her cheeks. Susan swore her wrinkles were his fault, her aging caused by all the grief he brought into her life.

The stories, always complicated, always full of unlikely detail, astounded as much for their audacity as for their content. After all this time, why he expected her to believe them seemed the greatest insult of all.

"Why should I keep trusting you when all you do is tell such awful lies?"

"It seems to me that if you really trusted me, it wouldn't matter how bad my lies were."