Frustrations typed, vented, deleted unposted. I type fears and hopes on Twitter, and suppress it, gone – no retweets, no favourites. Facebook is the better place for longer outpourings except the inevitable backlash of your friends and family, assuming you have any. I hone it, own it. Perfect my paragraphs. Words, words, words; hold CTRL, press A, then backspace for a blank space once again. If only you were easy to erase.

Santino Prinzi is currently an English Literature with Creative Writing student at Bath Spa University, and was awarded the 2014/15 Bath Spa University Flash Fiction Prize. His flash fiction and prose poetry has been published, or is forthcoming, in various places including Flash Fiction Magazine, the 2014 and 2015 National Flash Fiction Day anthologies, Unbroken Literary Journal, Spelk, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and others. For more information check him out at www.tinoprinzi.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter: @tinoprinzi.

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It was my first Thanksgiving abroad. Even the rowdy Spanish tennis players from my dorm had been invited to spend the holidays in a home. My initial instinct was to travel somewhere remote, gray, an ocean of sorts. I was broke.

The entire campus was a combination of empty parking spots, fallen leaves, and lingering breaths the wind had not felt the necessity to carry away. For once, I felt free to roam around.

I saw you pulling into your building’s driveway. You got out of the car and walked with your head down. I could still see the bruises on your face. I’m sorry.

Roberto Carcache Flores is a Salvadoran writer. His first poetry chapbook “A Condensation of Maps” has been recently published by Dink Press.

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I love to watch TV game shows. Always have. The long running show Hedge Your Bets is a nightly ritual in my household. My wife and I have watched the show just about every night of our married life and we’ve been married 25 years! I swear there are times when even the family pets seem to be paying attention.

HYB is set up similarly to the popular game show Jeopardy, though the questions tend to be more uptown – less De Caprio and more Da Vinci, if you catch my drift. Three contestants compete against each other in answering general knowledge questions with differing dollar amounts and there is a final round where the players can risk any or all of their accumulated stash on a single question. They all get to keep the cash they end up with and the winner comes back to play again the next day.

Over the years, I have observed an interesting phenomenon. When a man is in the lead going into the final round he invariably wagers enough to win the game. Not so women. Often times it happens that a woman, especially when competing against two men, will wager low and end up losing, even though she may have been ahead throughout the game and answered the final question correctly. If the monetary amounts involved were substantial then this approach might make sense, but a few thousand bucks? – come on!

An armchair psychologist will no doubt explain this behavior with catchalls such as “women are by nature less competitive” or “women tend to err on the side of caution”, but it happened last week with a female professional poker player, and one time with a woman who claimed she enjoys skydiving and bungee jumping! Go figure.

I cite one show as a case in point. Contestants Chuck, an attorney and the returning champ; Ramona, a waitress, and Todd. (I forget what Todd said he did but he was never really in the game anyway, so who cares.) The scores going into the final round were as follows:

Chuck: $4500
Ramona: $7200
Todd: $750

You can guess what’s coming next. Chuck wagered every last dime and Ramona zip. The final question was easy. They all knew it, even the hapless Todd, and Chuck doubled his money and got to come back. As for Ramona, I thought to myself, smart but not too smart and, somewhat to the annoyance of my wife, I could not resist trotting out a few of my old chestnuts: That’s why we’ll never see a woman president, Hope she invests it wisely, and my all time favorite, If she had a pair, she’d be a man.

As you will no doubt have gathered, I am something of a student of human nature and you’re perhaps thinking, there goes another armchair psychologist.

Well let me assure you dear reader, nothing could be further from the truth. It so happens that you are in the company of none other than the Assistant Dean of Humanities at Putzer College in New Hampshire and one of the leading experts in the area of psychology of gaming. Why, just last month I published an article on the very subject of the present discourse in the well-known monthly Psychology Now. I entitled the article “The Ramona Effect”.

***

Today I received the following letter in my mailbox at work.

Dear Professor Smithies,

I am a social worker in East Los Angeles. I am writing in regard to your article in Psychology Now. I would like to congratulate you on the article. One cannot help but be impressed by your insight into this important, and thus far overlooked, aspect of human behavior. The field of behavioral psychology has been greatly enriched by your work.

The letter included a postscript.

PS: I would like to bring to your attention a certain item. Please find enclosed a press clipping concerning a young woman who recently came under my care. I will not comment on the clipping here as it speaks for itself, but I am sure you will find it of interest.

The press clipping, which I hadn’t noticed before, fell out when I shook the envelope.

During the show, Ramona told the audience that she is twenty-four years of age and has a six-year-old daughter. She was more candid about her life with this reporter. “I am a single mother with no child support. I work at a local diner, bring home around $1200 a month with tips and overtime. The monthly rent on our one bedroom condo runs $750 and the landlord is threatening to raise it again…

Efficiency, this is the key to being a successful college administrator. I didn’t take the time to read the clipping, which promptly found its way into the trash. As for the letter, I had my secretary scan it for my files.

Denis Bell is a mathematics professor and a writer. His short fiction has been published in many literary journals, both online and print.

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We file into a conference room for the weekly meeting. Peter Mathson is going to present us with the new org chart. For the next software release there’ll be a bit of a reshuffle. Bert Pascal sits across from Katherine Thomas and looks at her dolphin earrings.

“Nice earrings. I love dolphins. One time I dropped acid and went swimming in Santa Cruz and I thought I was a dolphin for like two hours. I was rolling and tumbling through the waves. Diving and cavorting and splashing. It was amazing.”

Katherine laughs. “Oh yeah? Did you squirt a little jet of water out of your ass while you were doing this?”

“That’s whales,” Bert says. “I was a dolphin.”

Helen Carpenter says that would be a good title for Bert’s autobiography. He agrees. Peter Mathson listens to this but just shuffles a few papers. Then he introduces me. I’m replacing Marci Templeton while she has a baby.

“This is James. He’s gonna be our ersatz Marci for the next little while.”

“That’s a cool job title,” Scott Jones says.

Helen agrees. “You should get a nameplate made.”

Tom Pedersen, the guru of Testing, comes in last. He looks sleepy. He’s the hardest worker in the group. Also the longest serving employee. Now we have a quorum. Peter Mathson closes the door and starts putting the org chart on the whiteboard. He draws an oblong box around each name and lines between the boxes. For me he uses the initials E.M. I notice this spells ME backwards.

When he’s through, there’s this silence. Everyone in the room except Tom is represented in the network on the board. Everybody looks at everybody. Then everybody looks at Tom. Tom looks at everybody, looks at the board, and looks at Peter Mathson.

“Er, I think you made a mistake,” he says. “You left my name out.”

Peter Mathson’s face goes stiff.

“You’re both right and wrong, Tom. On the one hand, I did indeed leave your name off the board. On the other hand, I didn’t make a mistake.”

None of us, including Tom, have any clue what this is about. Perhaps it just means Tom is going to be working on some other project? Tom himself is confused.

“I don’t understand. Where do I fit in the org chart?”

Peter Mathson answers stiffly again.

“That’s just it, Tom. You don’t fit in the org chart.”

There’s another silence. Everybody looks at everybody again and then everybody looks at Tom again. He looks crushed. Like all of his family have just been killed in a car wreck. He gets up from the table and heads for the door without a word, shoulders hunched. The door clicks closed quietly behind him. Mathson asks if there are any questions but nobody can think of anything to say. We sit there in silence for a few moments. Then, one by one, we start to file out.

Mark Crimmins has published flash fiction in Happy, theNewerYork, White Rabbit, Columbia online, Tampa Review online, Eunoia Review, Flash Frontier, Kyoto Journal, Portland Review, Pif, Gravel, Eastlit, Restless, Prick of the Spindle, Atticus Review, Apocrypha and Abstractions, and Dogzplot.

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You’re not the type of person to go to poetry readings, but tonight you came anyway. Now you’re sitting here, in this café, on this stool, looking for something. The next line to your poem. How does it go? Cataracts like raindrops on the windshield / She leans over to—to what? What would she lean over to do? Kiss you? Fat chance. Not even the fictional women in your poetry want anything to do with you. Not even you want anything to do with you. You’re shaking on a stool in front of fifteen people on a Wednesday night, mumbling your way through a poem you wrote in ten minutes before you left for work, and you can’t even remember how it goes because you left your notebook on the bus. Life, for you, is cruel in a casual and disinterested kind of way.

The room is quiet.

In the audience, someone coughs. You think it might have been a fake cough, but you’re not sure. You contemplate reaching for the microphone and asking the guy with the beard in the tweed if his cough was a real cough or a fake cough, but the microphone seems so very far away and your hands are shaking in your lap and besides you don’t really think you want to hear the answer anyway.

The room is quiet.

Two girls are sitting near you, looking up. Every few seconds the left one leans over to whisper in the right one’s ear, and you think the left one’s kind of cute but her friend scares you because blonde women in general scare you and suddenly it comes to you the way sleep does and you don’t know how you could have forgotten—whispering, She leans over to whisper in my ear. You say the line. It comes out halting, pausing, skipping, breaking, stumbling, stammering, faltering.

Okay, what now? What does she whisper in your ear? Something profound, no doubt. Something you could have thought of only in those ten minutes before work. You sit there and wait for it to come to you but it doesn’t—you are waiting for a boomerang but have thrown a banana.

The room is quiet.

You look at the girls. The one on the left is still whispering, but the one on the right has started shaking, laughing silently, covering her mouth with one hand and crinkling her eyes the way people do. All around you the silence beats down like a sun. You want to get up and leave but you can’t, not until you finish this poem. Can you end it now? End on She leans over to whisper in my ear? No, you’ve waited too long. The only way out is to keep going. Next line, last one.

The room is quiet.

What does she whisper in your ear?

The room is quiet.

People shift in their seats restlessly.

The room is quiet.

Everyone is leaning over to whisper in everyone else’s ear.

The room is quiet.

Everyone is covering their mouth with one hand and crinkling their eyes the way people do.

The room is quiet.

Everyone is looking at you.

The room is quiet.

You pick a line.

And take a breath.

And say it.

It wasn’t in the poem when you wrote it, but it works. It’s five words long and ends on life. And even though your mouth is dry and your voice cracks on the first word and you stutter twice on the second you do not look down at your hands which are still shaking and you do not start over. You sit there, in this café, on this stool, and feel glad you came.

Mark Baldyga is a Brooklyn-based writer, poet, and digital artist currently pursuing a BA in Written Arts at Bard College. This is his first publication.

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I was alone in the house when the electricity went off.  It was very  dark.  Hurricane Agnes.  I was eight.  In the basement of what was a two-story Duke, the model name.  My mother moved us every five years to bigger and bigger houses, told us the names and the builder and then left me to wander bigger and bigger spaces.  Shirley construction wanted people to think of Dukes living there, but we weren’t dukes, my mother, my sister and I.  I lived in a matriarchy.

My sister had gone to her friends when the winds started raging.  She was 13 and mean.  I don’t know where my mother was.  I never did.  My father was alone in his apartment talking to voices, I suppose.  I didn’t know then I wasn’t supposed to be alone.  That I wasn’t supposed to have to take care of myself.  We didn’t have a flashlight.  I wasn’t allowed to light candles.  I sat in the basement and got scared.  So scared, I fought hurricane force winds and rain to get to my sister’s friend’s house, where my sister got annoyed at the sight of me.  But her friend’s mother gave me pigs in the blanket.  I got to eat real food made by a mom.

One memory sticks with me: I was three, laying on the couch watching my favorite show, “Star Trek.”  I wanted Captain Kirk to guide me safely through the universe.   He didn’t.   I had the flu.  Mom tossed me a plastic tub and told me to throw up  in that.  And then she was gone.  I don’t know where.  My sister? Gone.  Later that night my father barging in and sounds of slapping in the kitchen.  There was yelling. “You let my baby get sick.”  I smiled. Someone was trying to help. My sister looked at me and cried.

But, mainly, I don’t remember my childhood.  I see this as a choice.  Like, be depressed as hell and hate or forget and enjoy the day.  But there are a couple of things I would like to mention given the chance: No one taught me how to wipe. No one taught me to wash my hands after.  I would go hungry.  Getting on the school bus, the boys laughed.  No underwear.  I had dressed myself.  I had to learn how.

Maybe no one knew my plight.   Maybe somehow the truth of the neglect was never seen.  But one thing I could not hide: the mat of knots of hair at the base of my skull.  Me, alone, couldn’t get them out.

Carroll Ann Susco holds an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and has a chapbook on Smashwords.com titled True Fiction: A Pseudo Autobiographical Chapbook in Three Parts.  She has numerous publications, including three publications in The Sun Magazine.

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You’re in a dusty bar in western Oklahoma, an outpost at the edge of the Cross Timbers, where the flora turns sparse and freckles the red dirt like an archipelago.  The pumpjacks appear as naturally as the dogwoods and serve as a reminder of all the money out there to be had if only you understood the rules of the game.

At twenty minutes to open you’re looking at Al and his Popeye forearms working over a pint glass with a dish rag as he tells Russell, the Sudafed man, about the State Championship game back in ’91.  The new millennium’s two months away but this story is still the only reason Al gives two shits about you, the only thing keeping opportunity within reach, and your chest tightens because there’s nothing you can do as Al starts in about the Boston Celtics and that big buck from Ardmore who starts at center – Marcus Moore – who back as a high school freshman already stood at six-foot-ten and was the most dominant player in Oklahoma.  This is when Al points to you and tells how we were down in the title game after three quarters when you took the floor to start the fourth and positioned yourself behind Marcus so you could bite the back of his arm so hard the tissues in his triceps rearranged between your teeth.  You’re there now.  The stunned, violated look on the fifteen-year-old’s face.  The way you knew that even though he had you by six inches and twenty pounds you’d push him all over the court those final eight minutes and to leave no doubt you stepped into his throat and said do something you nigger I fucking dare you.

You watch Russell weighing you like a hand of blackjack and know that Al told him you’re half Cherokee and half nothing and Russell’s probably thinking you’re the type of win at all costs goon he’s looking for so you stare back at him with your jaw locked and squared to give him reason to buy into every myth ever whispered while you trace your decisions back through time to determine how the only value anyone sees in you is this story you can’t escape.

Geoff Peck received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of North Dakota.  His fiction and poetry have appeared in over a dozen journals and was nominated for Best New American Poets after winning the Academy of American Poets Thomas McGrath Award.

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Dale Nelson takes his kids out to Kansas City International airport on Sunday afternoons while his wife works at Katz drugstore downtown.  The boy is eight, the girl four.  He likes to watch planes soar overhead, streaks of silver across the blue.  Sometimes those approaching seem still, as if contemplating whether they should remain aloft or descend.  He’s never been inside an aircraft but photos of the new Boeing 727 hang along the walls of the corridor that leads to the observation deck.  He tries to imagine what it would be like to sit in one of those seats.  Escape the hold of gravity.  Touch a sliver of sky.

“I’m going to get on one of those things someday,” Dale says to his kids, a fever in his eyes.

This afternoon, the last Sunday in April, wisps of plane tailings drift in slender lines and fat swirls that look like feathers and the air feels as if winter is finally over.  They dress in their best clothes, Dale in shirt, tie and jacket as if he’s a businessman or lawyer, anything but a janitor who cleans up other people’s messes.  The little girl wears a red and white polka dotted dress and black patent leather shoes with white ankle socks, the boy navy blue pants and white shirt. Dale brings a large brown, fake-leather suitcase with him, the corners frayed, a buckle broken and two thick strands of rope wrap around it twice.  He walks quickly, the kids several feet behind him.  The terminal is quiet, nearly empty.  Instead of heading directly to the area that leads to the gates and observation deck he goes to the TWA ticket counter.

“Where’s the next plane out going?”

“There’s a flight to St. Louis in an hour,” the agent, a woman with a short honey-blond, beehive hairstyle, says.  The letters TWA are embroidered in red across the pocket of her white short-sleeved blouse, a gold pendant shaped like wings pinned beneath them.

Dale takes some bills out of his wallet.  Counts them twice and hands them to her.

“One ticket,” he says.

The agent looks at the kids, but doesn’t say anything.  Dale places his suitcase on the scale at the counter.  The agent tags it then hands him his ticket and boarding pass. Dale holds the small hands of his kids, one on each side of him.  They walk through the checkpoint, no line, hardly anything in the way of security.  Just a nod and smile from the airport worker.  The boy looks at him as they walk.  Their eyes meet and Dale sees the questions in his son’s eyes.  The questions that will not be asked, the questions he couldn’t answer.  When they get to the boarding area he lets go of the boy’s hand and squats before them.  From his jacket pocket he takes an envelope with writing on the outside and some bills and loose coins inside.  He hands the envelope to the boy.

“This is the phone number for where your mom works,” he says.  “Call her.  Tell her to come on down here and get you two.”

Then he gives the boy his car keys.  “Keep these in your pocket until she gets here.”

The loud speaker announces boarding for the flight to St. Louis.  The little girl looks frightened.  She squeezes Dale’s hand and won’t let go.  He pulls his hand away from hers, but holds her close and kisses her forehead.   Runs his fingers through her soft, wavy brown hair that smells of baby shampoo.

“Be a good girl.  And remember Daddy loves you more than anything.”

She nods, her eyes watery, the flesh around her lips puckers.  Something comes apart inside of him but he ignores it; so much is already broken.

He gives the boy a hug, “You take care of your sister.”

The boy takes his sister’s hand.  The loudspeaker calls final boarding.  Dale stands, straightens his tie and walks to the TWA agent who collects his boarding pass. He looks back one time at his kids then proceeds through the glass doors, across the tarmac and climbs the stairs to the aircraft.

Roxanne Lynn Doty has recently published short stories in Forge Winter 2014 (www.forge.journal.com); Four Chambers Literary Magazine, Issue 1, Dec. 2013; Soundings Review Winter 2015 and Lascaux Review May, 2015. She also published a prose poem in I70 Review Summer/Fall 2014.Two of her short stories were a finalists in the 2012 and 2014 New Letters’ Alexander Patterson Cappon Prize for Fiction.

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“Umm. . .” he said, eventually.

“Hmm?”

“Sorry, my uh. . . my legs, they’re. . . I can’t feel them anymore.”

“Oh.”

“Can we shift this a little?”

“Sure.”

“Sorry they’re. . . totally numb.”

She put the Ouija board flat on the floor. He wiggled his toes and slapped his calves.

“You feel anything?” she asked.

“Just pins and needles now.”

“No, in this. In the board.”

“Umm. Not really, no.”

“We have to concentrate.”

“Can I sit like this, though? With my legs like this?”

“Yeah sure.”

“Instead of crossed.”

“Just make sure you concentrate.”

“I will, yeah.”

He shifted his weight and adjusted his legs. Once he was comfortable, he put his left hand on the pointer, then his right, then his left again. “Does it matter which hand I put on it?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“The people on the box have both hands on it.”

“I don’t think it matters.”

“No?”

“No. The important thing is to concentrate.”

“Right, no. I will.”

They put their hands back on the pointer. She closed her eyes, repeated the question. “Is there anyone with us?” she asked.

They sat very still for two minutes.

“Dammit,” she said, eventually.

“What?”

“This isn’t working.”

“No, eh?”

“No.”

“I was trying, though. I even thought of my grandfather.”

She frowned.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“You’re not supposed to do that: invoke someone you know.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“Sorry.”

She made him move the pointer to the word “goodbye,” just in case.

“Wait, but… wouldn’t you want to evoke someone-”

“Invoke.”

“Invoke someone friendly?”

“Yeah, but it means. . . It’s a Catholic thing. Sort of. It’s painful for them. The dead. They can’t rest.”

“Oh. . . Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, Gramp-.”

“Ssssss – . . .”

“Hmm?”

“Look look.”

The pointer began to move.

“T. . .”

“‘T.’”

“O. . .”

“‘O.’”

“N.”

“‘N.’”

“O,” it said. Then it stopped.

“Did you. . ?”

“No.”

“Did. . .?”

“Did you?”

“No…”

“Huh,” she said. “That’s. . . kind of. . .”

He nodded.

“What do you think that means?”

“Umm,” he said, stretching his arms.

“‘To no’. . . To no what?”

“Dunno.”

“Should I ask it?”

“I, uh. . . Huh. Arm’s asleep now.”

“To no what?” she asked.

Slowly, haltingly, the pointer began to move.

“T. . . O. . . N. . . O,” it said, again.

“It said ‘to no’ again.”

“Hmm.”

“What’s that mean, I wonder.”

“Umm,” he said, wiggling his fingers.

“To no. . . ton o. . . A ton o’ something, maybe.”

“Maybe.”

“Or is tono a word?”

“. . .”

“Is it like Latin or something?”

“. . .”

“Google it.”

James Guthrie studied English at the University of Toronto. His work has appeared in The After Happy Hour Review, The Molotov Cocktail, Red Savina Review, and is forthcoming in Apocrypha and Abstractions.

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In grade school, Joyce was the good little girl with the starched white blouse sitting in front of the room.  But in her mind, she was like Tonya who sat in the back whispering with the bad boys.

In high school, Joyce was the girl with the ponytail who tutored in math and blushed when one of the boys made a crude joke.  But she longed to grab hold of Anthony Terrelli’s waist and speed down the highway on his Harley.

Soon after high school, she married a good man who drove a Honda Accord with the windows closed.  She followed him where his employment led, all the while imagining leaving a note saying, “Off to see the wizard.”

Three children followed, and she dutifully treated their skinned knees and helped them with their homework while she fantasized slipping out of the house as the family slept to dance naked in the rain.

Ovarian cancer took her life at fifty-five.  Cassandra, her oldest daughter, gave the eulogy praising her mother as her role model, declaring how she had lived a full and satisfying life.

Wayne Scheer has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net. He’s published hundred of stories, poems and essays in print and online, including Revealing Moments, a collection of flash stories, available at http://issuu.com/pearnoir/docs/revealing_moments. A short film has also been produced based on his short story, “Zen and the Art of House Painting.”

Wayne lives in Atlanta with his wife and can be contacted at wvscheer@aol.com.

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If your sister only knew the animals
she loves are not too bright and often head first
for my speeding sedan where their tender bodies
are crushed into a thick red paste
erupting through a furry matted mess of instant death.
My garden hose reluctantly baptizes every tire
with a religious fervor not seen since that last time
I ran over rabbits, raccoons and other righteous rodents.
I don’t see the romance of Mother Nature
I only feel rain ruining my manliner
I only get annoyed by gnats chewing
my olive complexion and I shovel the spattered remains
of forest critters like so many slices of street pizza.

Mark Antony Rossi’s poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and photography have been published by The Antigonish Review, Black Heart Review, Deep South Journal, Ethical Spectacle, Flash Fiction, Japanophile, On The Rusk, The Journal of Poetry Therapy, The Magill Review, Sentiment Journal, Death Throes, Vine Leaves Literary Journal and dozens of other worthy publications. He currently writes a weekly science humor column “Atom and Eve” for the online publication “Cherry Creek Review.”

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During their final year of marriage, Maddie set the yard on fire. The lilacs, having bloomed late that May in ’44, banked the clothesline that bore the twins’ cloth diapers, her stained nightgown, and an abundance of rags. But the sheet into which she’d given birth had no place among the breezy linen.

Later, as her eyes hardened over the scorched carcass of yard, the fireman asked Maddie why she did it; why did she lock her children in the house and run for the lilacs?

The lilacs. Her husband called them her harbinger of spring, but she knew better; they were a reminder of how ephemeral life could be. Still, she had pressed the violet petals inside the pocket of his army uniform, tracing the stripes with her fingers before crossing herself. The twins bobbed on her husband’s knees to Old King Cole. Then he was gone, dust scattering under his polished boots as he walked to war, a war that would take him from Lenover Lane to Normandy.

The summer had been plagued with drought and tornadoes, forcing Maddie to sleep with the twins on the screened-in porch. The lingering fragrance of lilacs had begun to smother her, threatening to last all summer. The sooner they were gone, the sooner her husband would return home.

She had been clipping their blooms, the faded and the vibrant, when the Western Union telegram arrived. She buried the paper stating the death of her husband, finding the dirt below the lilac bush hard and cracked. By the time she returned to the house to feed her children lunch, the labor pains had begun.

Three days later she gave birth to their stillborn son.

She carried her baby in a soft white blanket to the lilacs. Holding him in one arm, she took a spade to the ground until she reached the roots. His too-small body soon disappeared under her hands as she spread soil and clay over her son. She trembled through her Hail Marys until the lilacs bowed overhead, scraping her neck and shoulders. Reaching up blindly into the branches, she began to hack at the flowers.

When the wind picked up and the wet linen slapped on the clothesline, Maddie crawled away from the lilac bush. She retrieved the bloody sheet and threw it into a metal trash can at the back corner of the yard. She ignited the sheet and turned her back to it. The mound of dirt under the lilacs had already fallen into the shade. Behind her back, the volatile, dry air teased the flames. They jumped and licked the edges of the trash can. The wind whipped harder and the flames spilled over the metal sides into the overgrown fescue. The sheets snapped once more as blades of tall grass bowed to the ground. She smelled smoke and spun. Her hand shot out over the burning yard.

It spread, as suddenly as the first labor pain that had hit Maddie in surprise. The baby was too early. The fire raced toward the lilac bush.

“No!” she screamed.

Her body leaped forward, molting out of her skin. She ran to the door of the house to locking the twins inside, before falling upon the fresh mound of dirt. Her fingers, digging, digging. The fire singed her hair. Pale purple petals vanished into ash that floated on the smoke. She clawed at the dirt for her baby. Maddie began to melt among the lilacs.

She was still digging when the trailer carrying a water tank buckled down the gravel country road. The fireman grabbed her muddy arms and lifted her from the flames.

She slashed at his neck, painting him in stripes of blood and dirt.

“My baby!”

The faces of her twins appeared against the glass squares of the door. Maddie watched their eyes as they tracked the fireman, his uniform wavering in the heat. The fire roared and toppled the lilac bush before the fireman could gun it down.

She collapsed in front of the twins, pushing one hand against the glass, smearing it with blood-dirt streaks, while the other hand, gripping a dirt-covered blanket, fell lifeless and empty.

Kimberly Zook holds an M.S. in Biology and an M.A. in Education. She’s currently working on two novels: a short story collection based on her experiences of living in a tropical rainforest and a YA dystopia story. She blogs about writing at The Good Hook. (http://thegoodhook.blogspot.com)

http://www.kimberlyzook.com

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The barrel of the pistol presses into my temple and I can feel the anger in the hand that holds it.  The barrel does not touch my temple:  it seeks to enter, it pushes the scant skin found there into the round of its mouth.  It seeks to scrape the bone clean.

I am telling myself not to think.  Blank mind.  Blank mind.  I do not look to the side to see the man or woman holding the instrument.

Blank mind.

“Lewisburg, 2011.”  It is a man.  Sounds to be in his forties, but I cannot really tell.  That is not my talent.

“Yes, that was me.”  I have to be honest about the F3 tornado.  Took out four houses.  Two people died.  I did not see any of it coming.  But it was a poor place for a pick up truck to cut me off, then follow with hand gestures crafted as anglo-saxon exclamation points.

“Johnsville, 2013.”  He pushes a little harder, the barrel becoming a pain in the temple, my frontalis muscle creasing in sympathy.

“Yes, me too.”   Snow.  About a foot and a half of it.  The wet, fat, clinging type. Two roofs fell in.  One killed an elderly man as he sat in his underwear watching a “Mayberry” rerun.

From the edges of the barrel I can tell this is a revolver.  Probably a traditionalist holding it.  Someone who has lost a friend in a flood, a child in a tornado, a spouse in a lightning strike.  Or someone who keeps good files, follows patterns, keeps his eyes open, and is piously aggrieved.

“Look,” I say, “it is not something I can control.  I don’t direct it.   You have tracked my movements apparently long enough to know disaster follows me.  My bad thoughts make for bad weather.  It is a curse.  I try to have good thoughts.  I try real hard.  How difficult do you think that is these days?  How long do you go on, exuding nothing but sunshine and rainbows, unicorn feathers and fairy dust?  Sometimes you get the short end of karma.”

I can tell from the ever increasing pressure that he is not buying it.  The other side of my head begins to hurt to even out the pain load.

“Middleburg, 2013.  Suffolk, 2014.  Easternville, 2014.  Hadley, 2014.  Mineral, 2015.”

“Gee,” I say, “you have done your homework.”

I hear the shot.  I think I also heard the trigger, but that last explosion wipes out the memory of any earlier, more subtle scratches or pops or clicks.

And then I am hail, and my breath is thunder, and I come down as the rain that, in these parts, people will be talking about for years.

Soon I am the stream erasing its bed, dragging with it all the town’s lost causes and splintered bridges.

This time I am the storm, the atmosphere taking its revenge on the unperceiving locals below.  I have no control what form I will be with each of my petty or real angers.  I am lightning by no mechanics I understand, but I discharge my electricity as soundly as any natural event.

And later, I am again me, ordering a coffee at the diner I nearly washed away, leaning in, working with the ear now just gone near deaf, to hear the damp murmur of the rain-seasoned waitress.

Ken Poyner’s latest book of microfictions, “Constant Animals”, is available from Amazon and www.kpoyner.com.  His book of themed speculative poetry, “The Book of Robot”, is due in early 2016 from Dark Renaissance Press.  Most recently, he has been seen in “Analog”, “Asimov’s”, “Corium”, “Mobius” and many elsewheres.

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“You obey too literally what I say,” he stated, commenting on our inability to get together, do things together, spend time together. Was he asking for more initiative on my side? Was he asking for me to force his hand, overcome his evasiveness, intrude?

I was not sure but I took his remark seriously. I flipped it around like one of those toys with a piece of lead taped at the extremity. “Maybe,” I muttered, “you take too literally what I don’t say,” realizing how timidly, how prudently I always expressed my desire (of getting together, doing things together, spending time together).

As if it should come from him first… desire, mine as well. As if I didn’t own it, therefore I couldn’t pronounce it. I had to wait for circumstances to express it, in the passive state of an infant, a baby. Thus I usually remained quiet – and he took such lack of directions at face value. I asked nothing… he didn’t reply. What impeccable respect. Who did it serve indeed?
*
What did he guess about the extent of my devotion and longing? Maybe he guessed it all… my adoration and my shyness. It might have been a kind of perverse pleasure. Thrilling. Obviously he wasn’t responsible for it, since it was my fault.

How does it feel someone dying for you yet tongue tied, hand tied, arm tied, all tied by her incapacity to formulate passion?

Normally these roles are reversed. “Normally” women are those stringing around their wrist (what a pitiful sight) those deflated balloons called “suitors” – among other names. They are officially followers, incapable of action, devoid of initiative.

They never take the lead but they are useful: they provide a characteristic backdrop to female identity, making a woman’s power of attraction manifest. Confirming her status of desirability in view of more consistent parties.
*
Strange that I gave myself that appointment, generally confided to unhandsome and especially un-wealthy males, moving like melancholic dolphins in the train of high-heeled beauties.

When the role is taken indeed by a female, she must be in bad shape: too old, too young, lacking the most basic sex appeal. Otherwise, most women would try their seductive skills at one point or another. And they would be sure of succeeding… at least getting a primary form of satisfaction.

My case, though, was desperate. I adored in silence, swallowing the bread of my bitterness at each missed opportunity… missed for I didn’t take it. I even avoided it, mystified by emotion and panic. Waiting for his invitation to dance, I was the perpetual wallflower, withering in my silken ball dress.

And he won’t invite me, of course, though he probably liked me… my shape wasn’t bad and I didn’t lack the needed erotic attributes. But he enjoyed the game better: it made him a constant winner, at no risk. He had the upper hand without the effort of lifting it. Without any muscular strain.
*
Did I draw any advantage from being a perpetual loser? Yes, though the gain wasn’t planned on, that I knew… But if nothing happened, if I didn’t openly play my cards, taking risks, frankly asking things that could be frankly denied… I’d keep something virgin, untarnished. Not my hymen, that in the meanwhile I had got out of the way with absolute nonchalance. But my hope, but my dream intact. That I’d carry to my grave. What for?
*
Don’t ask me. Think of those laced nightgowns passing from a trousseau to the next, until they yellow and fall apart. Grandmother’s beaded purse, the one she wore once to the Opera. Those too large river pearls, mounted in white gold, mother locked in the velvet box then she lost the key. Or were they stolen? They belonged to grandaunt, the one who never married but once went to Paris. I’m sorry if it sounds remote…

There are things too precious for use. There are things you can’t handle. Look in awe but don’t touch. You just sense that if you brushed your fingers on them, disaster would be as granted as unforgivable. Did I sense that about him?

Somehow. Somehow he felt larger than life. That he were or not doesn’t matter. He was more than my narrow life could contain. I had to save him for something wider, way wider. Eternity, for instance.

Toti O’Brien was born in Rome and lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Journal of Microliterature, Synesthesia, Wilderness House and Litro NY, among other journals and anthologies.

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She promised to baste you today, but here you are almost done and she still hasn’t arrived. She visits you often now. Usually before noon, for she has business to conduct in the afternoon and she likes to eat early.

It’s so hot in here, you feel like you are about to croak. Your skin is peeling and for the last hour or so you’ve been oozing juices from blisters on your back. You’re sitting in the oven in a cast iron roasting pan, surrounded by potatoes and carrots, a pop-up timer stuck into your chest. You’ve prepared yourself like a turkey, the way she likes you. Trussed up with your legs tied neatly together in front, seasoned with garlic salt, stuffed with apple dressing and covered with sun blocker to facilitate browning.

Hard edges rounded to a fault, she can chew on you without cutting the inside of her mouth. So you let her. After she spits out the gristly parts, if you’ve been good to her, she might show you into one of her soft places.
She has so many soft places, sometimes it overwhelms you. You count them at night to help you sleep. When you dream it is about being inside her, filling those places. But not in the sexual way; in the lining of her stomach, her liver, her spleen…

Sharing oneself with another human being, this is the meaning of love so you have heard. And it is a kind of love, you tell yourself. It’s all a matter of chemistry. The goal, of course, is absorption, and if you will only invest enough of yourself in her, eventually it is sure to come.

Denis Bell is a mathematics professor and a writer. His short fiction has been published in many literary journals, both online and print.

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We’re having a hard time understanding each other. The two walkie-talkies we purchased at Radio Shack, so we could communicate between our separate cars in remote areas without cell coverage during our cross-country move, crackle with static.

“What?” Annie asks inside her car, packed with all her possessions – including the wobbly wooden chair with the worn orange cushion she hadn’t been able to bring herself to donate to Goodwill earlier this morning.

“Do you need to stop for gas?” I repeat, then consult the handwritten list of walkie-talkie terminology taped to my dashboard. I had taped a matching one to her dash. “Do you copy?”

“Copy that,” she replies. Chuckling, she takes a moment to consult the list. “Umm … negatory on that.”

“Do you need to stop for a bathroom break?”

“Negatory. Do you need to stop?”

“Affirmative.”

“For gas?”

“Negatory.”

“For a bathroom break? Already? Are you, like, a little kid? We pull away from the curb, and you immediately need to—”

I cut her off. “Negatory.”

“For what, then, Charlie?”

“For this?” Annie asks as she climbs out of her car in Downtown St. Paul. Above us stands the pyramidal red-tiled roof of the pink granite Romanesque Revival clock tower of Landmark Center. “You are like a little kid.”

“This won’t take long,” I promise as I open one of the cardboard boxes – labeled with the word “t-shirts,” written in black permanent marker – in my trunk. The black zigzag on the chest of the yellow shirt I retrieve from it looks similarly hand-drawn.

“Good grief!” she exclaims at the sight of the shirt.

“That’s supposed to be my line. After all, I’m—”

“A blockhead?” she suggests. “What else did you pack in that box? A kite for that tree to eat? A football for me to pull away at the last second?”

“Is that what you think I think? That, by asking me to move to California with you, you cost me the chance to actually kick in a college game?”

“Is that what you think? Because I didn’t think that – until now.”

Suddenly desperate to look anywhere but her eyes, I pretend to study the shirt in my hands. The zigzag, I suppose, wasn’t meant to symbolize anything in particular – just a simple pattern that was easy to draw over and over in thousands and thousands of comic strips. At this moment, though, it seems to symbolize the constant ups and downs of a relationship – of a life spent together. Or apart.

This down? I doubt it’ll take us too low. Just to the base of such a steep up – if only we can end this detour and get back to our trip.

“Look,” I say, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to communicate in some sort of passive-aggressive secret code by bringing us here.”

“So, you didn’t pack a football?”

“No,” I assure her, “just a camera. I just thought … Charles Schulz was a little like me: a German-American – a Charles who was the son of a Carl – who was born in Minnesota, but then moved to California. I just thought … there’s this statue of Charlie Brown and Snoopy in St. Paul, near the start of our journey, and there’s another one of the two of them in Santa Rosa, near the end of it. I just thought … take one picture here, take one there.”

“That’s so sweet. You are like a little kid – one who hasn’t taken geography yet.”

“Geography?”

“I’m pretty sure Santa Rosa and Long Beach are on opposite ends of California.”

“Totally worth the detour: It’s where they filmed my second-favorite Hitchcock movie, Shadow of a Doubt, and my second-favorite Coen Brothers’ movie, The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

“We’ll talk about it during the drive.” She shakes her head, then pulls her walkie-talkie out of her hip pocket. “Do you copy?”

“Copy that.”

“All right. Let’s take this picture, then start this trip.”

“Let’s,” I agree.

Hand-in-hand, we walk toward the bronze statue sitting in the shade of a tree there in Landmark Park. As far as I can see, there are no kites stuck in the tree.

A graduate of the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California, Chad Greene is an assistant professor of English at Cerritos College. Whenever he isn’t planning lessons or grading papers, he is attempting to put together a novel-in-stories tentatively titled Trips and Falls.

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Gare d’Austerlitz.  Monday morning, eight o’clock.  The overnight from Barcelona pulls in on time.

He stares out of the compartment window as if he needs to memorize the scene.  It’s raining hard and the station looks as grim as the Paris weather.  Only the self-important pigeons flapping and strutting about don’t seem much bothered.  Commuters waiting for a local to work, though, who see this every day, gaze blank-faced from the crush on the other side of the barriers as the carriages start to empty and people wheeling suitcases, hefting backpacks, checking their ’phones and the whereabouts of children, crowd onto the long platform.  It isn’t leisurely, but they’re anonymous individuals again now, not names on the train manager’s list and after twelve hours cooped up together they’re impatient to be away, to the Métro or a taxi, back to the comfortable bustle of their separate lives, minds busy with schedules, already looking forward to what they plan to do next.

Tomorrow beckons, he thinks, watching the blurred, preoccupied faces.  Foolish to be so sure, though.  The thought produces the flicker of a smile which he displaces, calming himself by checking his watch, letting his eyes settle on the locked suitcase at his side.  In the predictions game, you don’t always win.  It’s inevitable.  In a heartbeat, he’ll have left the train, made himself invisible among the flow of people on the concourse, just another stranger wearing crumpled clothes and lugging a heavy case, a nobody who won’t rate a second glance.

Ken Head lives in Cambridge, England where, until retirement, he taught Philosophy and English Literature.  His work has appeared widely both online and in print, most recently in Prospero’s Bowl, a collection of his poetry published in 2013 by Oversteps Books (www.overstepsbooks.com).  

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Six weeks into a brutal ten-week winter tour of the Midwest, he checks into the Fargo Travel Lodge. The roads are beginning to ice up. He took the bus from Madison, timing his arrival so he could grab a pre-show nap. He takes the nap, wakes up an hour later and checks the paper. His set at the Giggle Hut or Chuckle Coop—whatever it’s called—is at eight-thirty. Just enough time to shower, early dinner and maybe catch a movie.

Problem is, the movie theater’s a mile away and he’s on foot. The only movie playing that he hasn’t seen is Schindler’s List. There’s heavy buzz about ‘List. He needs to see it, work a few references into his act. The only thing he knows about the movie is that it’s set in World War II. There ya go—a war picture: guys in foxholes, bang-bang, bomb-bomb—joke heaven.

He grabs a burger. The comely waitress at Bennigan’s across the road will not be joining him back at the Travel Lodge for a pre-show quickie. He sets out for the mall on foot. It is twenty-one degrees outside. This morning’s now-frozen rain coats everything like Varathane. Cars drift across medians and collide with oncoming trucks. By the time he gets to the mall, the temperature reads eighteen degrees.

Two hundred minutes later, he steps out into an eleven degree night, numb with depression.

He only has only minutes to get to the club. His heart feels frozen and dead, head full of concentration camp horror. Ice skates would not be out of place here. The north wind begins to pick up. The mercury soon hovers just above zero. He tiptoes down the side of the road as if barefoot. His halting gait on the treacherous ice reminds him of the unforgettable little girl in the movie: a lone blot of doomed color.

He takes the stage ten minutes late, still in threadbare jacket. His shriveled gonads click like a pair of chilled ben-wah balls. Despite the weather, there is, astonishingly, almost a full house. His body core temp warms into mere hypothermia. He begins to shiver like a junkie forty-eight hours into withdrawal. But the only synapses revived are those serving sensations of pain. His brain has not yet defrosted. He mangles every joke in his repertoire. Then he tries to riff on the movie he’s just endured. When they start to boo, he makes the mistake of turning on the audience. He directs improvised barbs at them. But they are hardy native North Dakotans fortified with liquor. They answer his insults by hurling bottles, glasses and chairs at the stage.

Bang-bang, Bomb-bomb.

He hobbles back to the Travel Lodge. It is now nine degrees below zero. He crawls into bed.
He wakes the next morning with pneumonia and moderate to severe frostbite. He spends a week in the hospital. The outside temperature never rises above zero. He bails on his remaining bookings and returns to Los Angeles a broken man, heavily in debt.

After a year of working at Thrifty as a stock clerk, he is fired. An old lady asks if the tube of Vagisil she is holding “works.” He replies: “It keeps my cooter pretty crunchy!”—which doesn’t even make sense, but has the percussive C-words of a good punchline.

Four months later, his meager unemployment about to run out, he gets a call from a friend of a friend about a possible gig at a nationally-syndicated radio network. It’s a job writing and performing comedy. Getting paid for what he loves to do and what he’s good at. Lunch with the head writer is arranged.

He does not dazzle at the lunch meeting. Some common ground is established: they’re both from the Irish-Catholic School of Comedy as opposed to the Borscht-Belt School. But he needs this job too much. He tries too hard.

Bomb-bomb.

They finish eating. Head writer picks up the check. They walk back to the network building in silence. Head writer readies his “don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you” farewell.

The elevator door opens.

Head writer boards the elevator, about to deliver the kiss-off.

Our guy stands there, ready.

Head writer holds the door for a second. Our guy stares at the floor.

The head writer hesitates just long enough for our guy to notice the brand name of the elevator—SCHINDLER.

“Hey,” our guy says. “Schindler’s LIFT.”

Head writer looks down, shakes his head.

He beckons.

Our hero climbs aboard and ascends.

Robert Morgan Fisher’s fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review Soundbooth Podcast, The Huffington Post, Psychopomp, The Spry Literary Journal and many other publications. He has a story in the forthcoming Night Shade/Skyhorse Books Iraq War anthology, Deserts of Fire. Robert holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, where teaches for Antioch’s online I2P Program. (www.robertmorganfisher.com)

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“Can’t you shut the baby up?”

“Baby is our daughter and maybe if you held or rocked her or even sang to her she’d stop crying.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

“I do it all the time. Can’t you see I’m using the breast pump now and can’t hold Baby?”

“I don’t know if I can take this forever.”

“What’s forever? She’s only six months old!”

“By now you should have developed a routine where she is quiet when I get home from work.”

“She’s not a puppy.”

“Well, maybe we ought to trade her in and get a puppy. I’m going to go down to the shelter and see what they have available.”

“And what about our daughter? We haven’t even named her yet.”

“You seemed to have named her Baby and keep saying there’s no rush, naming her will be easy when her personality comes out. Now her new parents can give her a name just like we’ll give the pound dog a new name.”

“Is this a joke?”

“No joke. Baby wakes me two or three times a night and I have to wake you to take care of her and then she cries when I get home from work. Everything’s about Baby. With a dog we can put her in a crate and go about our business.”

“So we either get rid of Baby and get a puppy or you’re going to split?”

“Blame yourself. You gave birth to a screamer, not me.”

“Listen to me. Pick up Baby. Tell her you love her and sound like you mean it. Tonight after we put her to bed we’ll try to decide on a name and talk about getting a puppy when she starts to walk.”

“I want to start with the puppy, name it, soundproof  Baby’s room and give her a name when she’s earned one by being a sweet little girl.”

“I’m not going to marry you and I no longer want to live with you. Go be fucking crazy on your own. I want you out this week and you can find yourself a puppy and an apartment in any order you want.”

“I suppose you’re going to want me to support you two.”

“No, Eva and I will do just fine on our own.”

“What’s this Eva all of a sudden?”

“That’s the name I’ve decided to give my daughter.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of Martha or Helen.”

Paul Beckman’s stories are widely published in print and online in the following magazines amongst others: Connecticut Review, Raleigh Review, Litro, Playboy, Pank, Blue Fifth Review, Flash Frontier, Metazen, Boston Literary Magazine, Thrice Fiction and Literary Orphans. His work has been in a number of anthologies and a dozen countries. His latest collection, “Peek”, published by Big Table Publishing weighed in at 65 stories and 120 pages. His website:  www.paulbeckmanstories.com

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Deacon Gordon Lavoy walked into the Shore City Market with long, purposeful strides and grabbed a basket.  There was a nearly palpable crackle of energy as every eye in the market followed the Deacon’s movements.  The residents of Shore City just couldn’t see enough of their handsome and charming new clergyman.  He didn’t need much in the way of food, but after the night he’d had, he could certainly use the pleasant atmosphere.

He walked into the fresh fruit area and perused several oranges, pretending to ignore the giggling and whispering women.  His relaxed demeanor, handsome features, and ready smile meant no female in the town skipped his weekly sermon.  He smiled and saw one particular young lady smile sheepishly in return.

Feeling more like the Gordon Lavoy who had taken this town by storm this summer he made his way to the frozen foods section hoping to find his favorite brand of ice cream.  He would find it of course.  The middle aged divorcee who ran this store would make sure it was stocked for him.

He grabbed the pint of Black Walnut and wiped away a bit of frost.  He was about to close the door when he felt a tug on his sleeve, he turned and his smile, so recently found, was instantly lost.  Looking first left and right, he angrily spat, “I told you to never speak to me again!”

She blinked, her long lashes brushing her cheeks, and said, “But, I need to talk to you.”  Leaning closer, she paused, and lowered her voice.  “You see, I’m…”

Gordon dropped his basket and tossed his ice cream into the freezer.  He grabbed her arm firmly and pulled her close to him and walked her into the employee’s entrance to the freezer.  He did so with his most winning smile.  The one he reserved for the most faithful servants of the lord.  Several of the shoppers noted not only his smile, but his close quarters with this woman.  Smiles which had been sweet became decidedly sour.

“Deacon Lavoy, what-” she began.

“Don’t talk.  Just don’t talk.”  He said.  He ran his hands through his hair.  She opened her mouth one time to talk, but he put his hand up and she closed her mouth slowly.

Things had been going so well until now.  Gordon had this town eating out of the palm of his hand.  Cash was flowing into the church so fast he couldn’t keep count.  Not that he was keeping accurate records on anything as trivial as cash. The problem was he needed several more months of cash before he left this backwater beach town behind him and the only way that was going to work was to keep the local women on the hook.  As long as the possibility of winning the heart of the “sweet Deacon Lavoy” existed he could drain these lonely women of quite a bit of cash.  It was a perfect plan.

Until last night, when he’d broken the cardinal rule.  He’d bedded one of the lonely women.  Once word got out that he was laying down with the parishioners things were bound to unravel.  He could kiss the money good bye, and possibly his freedom if anyone bothered to look into his background.

He finally looked back at the young woman.  She was certainly not a desperate middle aged woman and he could hardly blame himself for his indiscretion; or indiscretions if he was being honest with himself.  She was just out of college with a perfect body and intensely blue eyes.  She was wearing glasses today which she hadn’t been last night, but he had to admit it just made her that much sexier.

“Listen,” he said.  “I’m sorry I snapped at you.  I had no right.  I was just upset about last night.”

She tried to speak again, but Gordon again shushed her.  He moved her close to him and held their bodies together.  She gasped a bit and tried to pull back, but relented to his strong grasp.  The remembered feel of her body pressed against his caused his breath to shorten and he looked into her eyes.

“I won’t say it was a mistake.”  He said.  “We made love last night.  It was everything a man could want.  Pleasure.  Passion.  Pain.  But it can’t happen again.”

This time when she opened her mouth to speak his kissed her slowly and deeply.  Gordon was reliving the passionate lovemaking of the night before and was grasping at her body when he realized she wasn’t kissing back.  At least not with much passion.  He must have done something wrong.

“Jessica, what is it?”  He asked, hoping to salvage the situation.

“Well, the thing is Deacon Lavoy,” she said.  “My name is Jamie.  Jessica is my twin sister.  She was very upset this morning and wouldn’t tell me why so I thought I’d talk to her Deacon about it.”

Gordon took an involuntary step back.  Jamie adjusted her glasses and fixed her top where Gordon had nearly managed to pull it down.  “I’ve never been much of a churchgoer myself.”

Jamie smiled at him.  It was a smile she reserved only for the worst people she encountered.  Gordon turned as she walked out the door into the market.  As the door swung open he saw several faces staring back at him.  They wore no smiles at all.

Jeff Ferry was born and raised in New Jersey.  In 2014 he published a novel, The Dawn of Mars.  He also had a recent short story, The Book of Shadows, published on Printers Row of the Chicago Tribune.  He is a Mailman and member of the United States Military.

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