Open your eyes and ears.
Don’t make selections based merely on appearance.
Mix, knead and prove. It may take years.
If friendship does not rise, mix in more dough or start again.
May require variations depending on ingredients.
Joey believes there is at least one recipe for everything but many are not easy, especially if it’s important. But at least getting to his website, joeytoey.com, isn’t hard.
It’s not your fault, Son. After all you went through, they still didn’t follow instructions.
“It didn’t work. There’s too much suffering. What can we do?”
Shut it down. Just like I started it 6024 years ago.
And God said, “Let there be no light.”
And there was no light.
Harry Demarest wrote this story.
I get home from work. My dog leaps into my arms and I bask in his unconditional love. I think, Dogs are great, but I’m glad I’m a superior animal.
I sit and flip on the TV: racism, rioting, and Tiger King.
I look back at my dog.
Am I?
Joshua Addison resides in the foothills of Appalachia where he attempts to write historical fiction. Occasionally between bouts of writer’s block he attempts to put together something that resembles a micro-fiction.
I confront curiosity’s curse daily. Shrubs rustle and I sense faraway beasts. At midnight, I hear the wolves’ distant howls. I wonder what it’s like to be—not live—with the wild. But I resist temptations to go and see. Nature knows I’ve settled here; its citizens acknowledge my space.
Cristina Marie Pagan is a Hispanic writer from North Carolina. Her poetry has appeared in Glimpse and the Mystic Blue Review. She’s also the former cover artist of Seshat Literary Magazine.
“Your box of sunshine is here,” the cheerful delivery man said after ringing the bell.
I watched him skip down the steps, ever mindful of social distancing.
Since the pandemic, almost everything suddenly became available for home delivery.
Almost.
My delivery of friends and family is still on back order.
Susan Gale Wickes is from Indiana. She looks forward to a return to normalcy.
Poseidon drew the short straw.
Hera sighed. “Yes, they’re irredeemable. But I’ll miss those goofballs. Their bridges, computers, MAS*H… Genius.”
The trident swung. The floodwaters flowed. The underworld gained eight billion souls.
Hephaestus prepared the drafting table. “Okay. Humans 2.0.”
Aphrodite nudged Ares aside. “This time, I’ll lead the design.”
Jen Mierisch draws inspiration from science fiction, ghost stories, and the wacky idiosyncrasies of human nature. She lives, works, and writes just outside Chicago, Illinois.
Like the rain,
A poem falls
When conditions are propitious.
Emotion builds
Like condensation,
Then drip-drop,
Words patter down
Sometimes the flowing
Quenches your thirst
Or washes you clean.
Sometimes the flooding
Strips you bare
To your foundation.
When a poem falls
Into your heart,
It is best to listen.
Casey Laine comes from a long line of talkative women. She works as Fantasy Editor at Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores and publishes an annual anthology of fiction and poetry for her writing group, Writers Assembled. In her spare time, she chases butterflies with her camera. Find her on Facebook.
When that Trickster God
created beings to amuse himself,
He had an eye toward evolution,
but was certain,
whether it involved opposing fingers,
eventually walking on hind feet,
or thinking they got the joke,
whether they did or not,
they would never be free
of the nuisance of bellybutton lint.
After a lifetime of writing, Jackie has embraced the 50-word story as a life form, bringing clarity and concision to the world around her.
The curator stands next to a tall glass case filled with a dark liquid and pauses a moment, before flipping a switch to illuminate the creature inside it.
The visitors recoil in shock at its bare flesh, piercing eyes and white teeth.
“I present to you our predecessor: homo sapiens.”
Daniel doesn’t visit museums much these days.
Minuscule irritants in nasal passage of the cosmos, we insist on festering and aggravating, even destroying the dust particle on which we blew in.
While some continue solipsistic hedonism, others try to repair the sins done by action and prayer.
Watery-eyed, The Maker sneezes.
We end.
“Gesundheit!” an archangel declares.
Irish writer Perry McDaid lives in Derry under the brooding brows of Donegal hills which he occasionally hikes in search of druidic inspiration. He even finds it on occasion.