Suffrage

I clear the breakfast plates as a dutiful wife, while my husband, Robert, legs crossed, newspaper in hand, clears his throat and faces me.

“Are you seriously considering going to the parade, Grace?”

“Not considering, I’m going,” I say and slam the cabinet door, dishes rattling.

“There’s no reasoning with you,” he says and leaves the room.

I want more than keeping a home and obeying Robert’s commands. I want the freedom to choose.

I hold my head high, grab my “Women have the Right to Vote banner,” and walk out the door to Fifth Avenue to make a difference.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Wifely Advice

HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:

“Gaius, dear, you know you don’t have to go. You do look quite ill and the vote will wait till tomorrow.”

“Yes, but I am Consul and it is my responsibility,” he answered while slipping into his toga.

“But the augurs said that today is inauspicious. Why don’t you stay home?”

“I suppose I could. You are very convincing, my dear.”

A loud knock on the door interrupted their conversation. The door opened and Brutus said, “Hurry up, we’re late for the Senate.”

“I won’t be long, dear. We’ll dine together,” promised Caesar as he walked out into the atrium.

From Guest Contributor Janice Siderius

Election Day

Yesterday was election day. I went to the local high school to vote, but I was denied by one of the polling volunteers. I'd remembered to bring two forms of ID as well as a copy of my voter registration card, just in case the new voting laws made it necessary. When she still said no, I started to get slightly upset.

She claimed it had something to do with the string of severed ears I was wearing around my neck, but I'm pretty sure America stills allows for freedom of religion, so I don't know what her deal was.

In The Hall Of Magi

In the Hall of Magi, ballots were being counted. Never, in countless centuries of magical practice, had attendance been so high. The last hundred years, however, had been the worst. Spells, once isolated to nomadic shamans, were unstable in the growing metropolises. Magic, by nature, was exceptional, and it thoroughly resisted regulation. Even without some dark lord, how many villages were regularly lost to innocent prodigies of pyrokinesis? Families to inadvertently summoned demons?

The final vote was tallied; the expected result announced. Unanimously, the gathered had voted to break their staves. And so, by consensus, magic disappeared from the world.