In The Spirit Of Amusement

Amusement Park. Strange name. Bet there are more unamused adults than young children. Heard Uncle Max scream. Saw him vomit on the Ferris Wheel, again. After he said he couldn’t stomach it. Cousins bashed themselves manoeuvring bumper cars. Their dads were not amused. Neither was the ride operator. Too much cotton candy caused my sweet tooth to sour at the dentist’s. We tried the Swing Carousel. I sat with Dad. The swing in front of us was empty. Would’ve been filled if the father of a toddler didn’t have a tantrum. They relocated at the merry-go-round. I preferred the Pendulum.From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. She resides in Edmonton, Canada with her husband and stuffed animals and many friends.

Overindulgence

She was tired and had too much to drink. Her eyes drooped to provide the perfect screen for strange imaginings. Time passed.

Chloe jolted awake to a shift in the buzz of conversation, her vision presenting a weird split screen of a now empty hotel bar, a new day’s sun barging through the large windows and reflecting off each polished surface to sear through the fog in her brain: judgmentally bright.

Her clothes smelled of staleness and smoke. Stale vomit prowled the back of her throat.

Chloe waddled to the bathroom, suddenly aware of another need.

She’d open late today.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

General Gelid

If Milton had a weakness, it was the cold. Anything below room temperature would make him start to shiver uncontrollably and if it got down to freezing, he'd begin vomiting.

Milton knew his comic books though. Every hero had a fatal flaw, his own personal kryptonite, so to speak. Milton's susceptibility to the cold would be his. Obviously, his mortal enemy, his arch-nemesis, would be a villain who used cold as a weapon. Maybe his name would be General Gelid or something like that.

Sadly for Milton, while he might have a weakness, he didn't have any discernible super powers.

After Thanksgiving

Kurt returned home after several hours at the bar, slightly buzzed and no longer furious at his wife. He expected the house to be spotless after that disaster of a Thanksgiving dinner.

Instead, when he opened the door into the kitchen, he discovered chaos. The entire house smelled of urine and vomit, and what might have been blood was smeared on the walls and bannister.

Fearing the worst, he ran upstairs, but although he encountered the same state of disorder, Andrea and the kids were nowhere to be seen.

What he found was that damn turkey sleeping in his bed.