by Kirby Hobley Get straggled along after the other little cats jumbling down the path. “Don’t stray!” the line leader reminded. “It’s dangerous,” she threatened. But the evening wind was whipping at his fur in fits and starts. It bothered his whiskers and tousled his thoughts. He itched to let it blow him up into the treetops. Get was afraid of nothing and the forest believed him. It wiggled, promising mischief, so, without a moment of consideration, he disappeared into its tangles. The forest was pleased to have a willing subject and slathered its affection on him. It worked its sappy fingertips into his fur and tickled his heart with…

by L. J. P. T. Krallek “Where were you today?” he asked, looking up from his book as she came into their bedroom, her jacket halfway down her arms. She shrugged her shoulders and went to sit at her antique vanity, placing her back to him. In the first years of their marriage, she’d turn and look at him while readying herself for the night; the last several had held only cold, squared shoulders and rigidly straight backs and stilted answers to half-hearted questions. “I wasn’t sure you were coming home.” “I nearly didn’t,” she replied, pulling an earring loose from her right lobe. “There’s not much reason for me…

by L. J. P. T. Krallek They had called it a house of hope when they first came. There were young still, and after the dark storms of war, life seemed to hold new promise once more – despite the scars sustained by both from the days of fear and fighting. His scars were easier to name – the bullet wound in his leg, the loss of his tear-ducts in Africa, the horrors that woke him screaming in the dark stillness of the night until he cursed dreaming and hated sleep and turned to whiskey to deaden his memory and render nights calm and without terror. It was harder for…

by Shadow Silvers Feet shuffle and glasses clink to a steady, silent rhythm. Swish, clink, swish swish, clink. After a while the beat stops and the bartender looks up from drying a glass, asking if I’d like another. Toying with the peppers and onions in my rancher omelette, I peer at the sad tear-drop remnant of a terrifyingly spectacular double straight whiskey. Taking a melted cheesy bite of my boozehound’s breakfast, I contemplate leaving the tally at three. This contemplation reigns my consciousness for a mere second before I decide it isn’t enough. Hell, it’s never enough. If it were up to me, I’d have a bottle. But they get…

by L. J. P. T. Krallek Tsura blinked in the searing light, and looked about. For a moment, the light was too bright and the whole world seemed white and burning. She felt neither heat nor cold, and slowly, she opened her eyes again. As the light subsided, she begin to make out the shape of the land around her. She swayed a moment, her knees giving slightly, as she realized she was standing in the midst of an ancient forest, her thin skirts brushing against small drifts of snow. Fir trees towered far above her head, glistening in frost and bearing great armfuls of snow on their needled boughs.…

by Sarah Cooley It was six in the morning and Adrian was getting up for the day. She didn’t want to get up, but there were credits to make and they never had enough of those in the first place, so up she got. The sky outside her small window was overcast and dark. In an hour or so it would start tinging purple as the sun came up. The weather had been worse than usual for weeks now, mirroring the insidious gloom hanging over her and her friends, as of late. She pulled the shutters down. While quickly going through the motions of getting dressed—pants, shirt, comb through the…

by L.J. Bosela Dandelions are a generally misunderstood flower. I think that is why I like them. Amah told me once, when I was just a child, that I was like a dandelion- brightly golden, in laughter and in countenance, set amidst a dark and solemn family, and like a dandelion, I was indefatigable in my tenacity at life. She didn’t mean it as a compliment. I knew that. But I took it as one. Growing up, children all love dandelions. It is only when your soul grows old and tired – tired of the drudgery we humans are so apt to turn our life into – that you see…

by Evan Nasse Go. Go on and jump towards the darkness. What are you waiting for? You want to do it, and you aren’t fooling anyone by saying you don’t want to join us. Me. We. I. That terrible, echoing, dulcet voice. That was how it always started. A soft whisper into the ear, a slight tickle that made the hair at the tip of an ear tingle. Every single time the lulling timbre echoed behind eyeballs and made a chill run through each inch of skin, like the tell-tale signs of water beginning to boil—slow rhythmic bubbles at first, then a loud, roiling assault an instant later. In each…

by L.J. Bosela All she had ever wanted was to live quietly, simply, away from noise and crowds, in a safe cocoon of her own making. Over the years, that dream-haven changed in her imagination–sometimes resembling a monastic cell with stacks of books and little else, and other times a eclectic and bohemian den with overstuffed armchairs with mismatching cushions and funky crocheted afghans and hand-dyed curtains. There, she would be happy in a paper-filled, ink-scented life of words and writing, including others only when she wanted, and only those whom she really liked and who understood her. Now, however, she questioned that completely solitary life and wondered at how…

by Evan Nasse Waking up that morning on the couch I got a whiny earful of what it was my room mate truly thought of me. I wish the turdblossom could have at least waited until after I had drank some coffee before crawling up my ass. He’s an eBay power seller, or so he likes to inform everyone, which means all he does is stay home and buy other peoples crap, then he repackages it and resells it for a menial profit. All god damn day. My lifestyle was surely cramping his. “Will, You smell like a fucking bar all the time and your room is a god-damn biohazard. I’m…