Add One More Day

Positive and quarantined at home, my days edge along like a snail. Immersed in social media and Netflix, suddenly, I gasp for oxygen. Panting for a breath, I’m rushed to the hospital. Tethered to oxygen, I yearn to hug and cradle my child. I have to bake her birthday cake. I want to see her victorious smile when I lose at UNO. I must leave a lingering kiss on my husband’s lips. Flustered by my thoughts, I inhale into darkness.

Cool air blows as the blanket is snatched off me. “Mom, the Zoom password is incorrect.” I breathe in relief.

From Guest Contributor Hetal Shah

Hetal graduated with her Bachelor of Commerce from SIES. She lives in Mumbai with her husband, son, and daughter. She rekindled her hobby of writing over the past year. She is the winner of Mumbai Poetry League 2020, and her poem was published in an anthology by Poets of Mumbai called Guldastaa A Bouquet of Poems. She also writes flash fiction, and has been published twice on 101words.org. She loves to read, and especially enjoys reading and writing stories of romance and everyday life. Besides writing, she enjoys cooking new cuisines, traveling, and singing.

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.