Al

He sat. Hands folded upon his lap. He gazed at the floor admiring his footwear. "Purple helps me to love me." Seated across from him, I listened. "The combination of my two primary states. Manic, my red days; depressed, blue. Purple is balance. Last week I spun out of control. First to red where I painted my world in its entirety without sleep. Then to blue where I cursed my partner. Today purple. Today just right."

Julia

At 2:47 AM, the time she died, I was asleep. Six hundred miles separated us, not much in terms of distance but too far in terms of years, resentment, blame. As I took the call the next morning, I imagined a hospice volunteer sitting by her bed through that night. I knew I wasn’t there with her, but I knew at once she had come to me, sitting by my bed in the wooden rocking chair that had furnished my room as a child, her presence so real that I stretched out my hand and felt warmth on the hard, varnished surface.

Francesca

Did I tell you, my nurse has teeth, she’s beautiful! Calls me king without a crown. That’s what I am. We’ll set up a bullring here with a coffee carafe and Salsa Brava. Me: I’ll make gazpacho! He: Gestapo? I’m dying, honey. Not enough Republicans are visiting me. But you have adventures, don’t cry. Me: Only in your mind! He: What a wonderful place for them to be. A little dementia’s a healthy thing. You know.

Cynthia

She awkwardly parked crutches. My clinic stay was for broken spirit not bones. Over meals we shared small stories. Unassuming, she wore a big pendant. Her personal secretary drove in daily. My dog visited with an ex-boyfriend. Her husband was on tour.
Her lakeview chalet had an elevator; 2 grand pianos. I knew ballet. We spoke of London, Paris … Sydney. Later I got her name. I had to look it up. Joan Sutherland.

Nathan

Mike sat on the hot black plastic of the truck's seat. Blue jeans protected the seat from sticking too the tender white skin. His hat was wrinckled and sweat stained. He looked out the cracked windshield and saw a another dusty truck barreling down the two laner. He nodded out of habit before he realized the face he saw in the other truck was one he knew. It took a full 30 seconds for him to connect that face with the one seen in his own bathroom mirror 67 years before. 

Nathan

Wondering what had just been, I fixed my thoughts on the crooked glint. It seemed the blindingly bright ray aligned with some plum that was not based on the planets gravity but some universal vertex. The words coming out of my throat were not words of  this age. Much older and higher than anything here. Petra was at the window echoing 17 languages all at once. This was it. This was the birth the baby that would grow for thousands of years. Grow to the size of a planet. Joshua's words were true and I believe.

David

How do you define darkness, he wondered? Even in the deepest night, or darkest room, there was some hint of light. Where would twilight end and darkness begin, at a hundred feet past the cave’s entrance, two hundred, a thousand?
When would he stand with his hand immediate to his face, and still be unable to see it as a part of his body, or totally, invisibly, lost in the darkness of that confining space.
He heard breathing coming from close by, and thought about who, what, and where that breathing came from.
He couldn’t see.
He needed light.
He couldn’t define what he was, where he was, who he was, without its definition.

Raven

Folks think you’re defined by where you grew up. This struck clearly, driving down the Carolina highway with my college mentor.
Glancing at a dilapidated trailer near the road, toys strewn in the yard, she observed, “Those poor kids living in there. What an awful situation.”
“I grew up in a trailer,” I said almost proudly.
She was quiet.
I hated that trailer. But, I knew it was the encircling love that defined me.

Diane

I’m 18, which used to be the beginning; now it’s old. The things in this box are all I can call home. I cherish the dragonfly. Yes, it’s silly to save coins, since they haven’t worked for years, but the details, so refined; the sound. The photos I’ve adopted: they were precious to someone gone, so precious that they’re nearly worn away. I imagine why. If you’re reading this, then I’m gone, too. Cherish the dragonfly.

nina

Failed tidal wave.Natives gone,where?Woke up,none fishing,edge ocean missing.Child ren can't play,no surf.Food where?Food died,dried,where go?Ember lustrous red coat ash.Lie on side, tongue licking air. People on shore say dead--or we alive,con fronting dead people?Things,tides going quickly.No natives.Less ocean play in.Em ber coat ashy,lie on side,licking air-- world enuf?

nina

Failed tidal wave.Natives gone,where?Woke up,none fishing,edge ocean missing.Child ren can't play,no surf.Food where?Food died,dried,where go?Ember lustrous red coat ash.Lie on side, tongue licking air. People on shore say dead--or we alive,con fronting dead people?Things,tides going quickly.No natives.Less ocean play in.Em ber coat ashy,lie on side,licking air-- world enuf?

Diana

Ship Wreck

The life boats line the horizon yellow. I watch from the top deck, the gray water looming ever closer. The people in the boats don’t look back as they drift gently, their shoulders rocking in confident unison with the sea. I rest my elbows on the cool, metal railing and let my gaze fill the empty seat in Boat 16, whose occupants are smugly unaware that they are one member short.

Ayesha

The mortal keeps watch during the night attempting to flee the grips of the heat seekers. He roams amongst them during the day undetected, but as night falls the cold gives him away. The warmth of his body clashes with the chill of the night and a fog escapes his lips. It flows out like the smoke signal of a welcoming host. Heat seekers flock to him desperate to obtain the life preserving heat of his veins. He flees.

Paolo

I was drowning in sweat as I dragged myself through the jungle and as I crested the hill, my eyes were met by a strange tableau.There stood 3 policemen, 2 training pistols on me and one filming me with a movie camera. I almost swooned at the unusual sight, rubbing my eyes that still burned with salty perspiration, when I looked up again, things had abruptly changed.The 3 cops were, in fact, a crystal table lamp, and the jungle was my bedroom.These bizarre hallucinations continued through the night.When I woke the following morning and read the scrawled notes I'd taken on my odd mental ramblings, I decided then and there that these vivid side effects of the drug Poraxydill were too frightening to endure just to cure a toenail fungus. I discontinued its use.Unknown to me however was the fact that the phantasms were actually the work of the highly intelligent fungus.

Jason

We used to believe the universe was expanding, until we realized we lived in a vast black hole, the waxing of space just the event horizon swelling as worlds & stars slipped into suddenly pitching space. So we compress like a poem, like a Whitman haiku, a wanderlust inverse to our dim confines, always drifting into the elegiac. But one day we will erupt in radiant plumes, we will once again be ecstatically unwritten.

Candace

On a lazy Saturday morning, my three and a half year old granddaughter and I were watching cartoons. One came on with a wise older horse counseling the younger ones on the duty one has to be a useful and productive member of society. My granddaughter turned to me and said – That’s just for horses, right?

Megan

We drew a big snake on the driveway. The snake started in the backyard and ended at the sidewalk. It was green and wide. We drew things in the snake: a clock, a house, a mouse, a fish, the moon, a hurrying man, clouds, a car, and other things. “Draw me,” she said, “draw grandma, draw the cat.” We drew until dinnertime. “What lovely colors!” grandma said. While we were eating, a summer shower erased almost everything.

Tori

“I’m the father?” “Yup,” she answered. “But I’m married.” “Duh,” she said with a laugh. She was glowing; dazzling. Dammit, he thought. “But, it’s half my child,” he said. “You’re right. Let’s say for argument’s sake, the left half.” “This isn’t funny,” he said. She smiled, “It’s not not funny.” “Are you keeping it?” he asked. “What do you think?” She was far along. “Don’t worry,” she said, and meant it.

Junius Stone

I see the bright star looking at me. This is the first night in Kabul the haze parted enough to allow me to see them. It doesn't matter that this star is a planet, Venus, I think. I look at this star and know my loved ones on the other side of the world see them, too. I know the light from this world will continue to reach them, no matter what happens here. I know not how this year will go. But the constant of stars under Afghan skies fills me with a confort transcendant.

Joe

Jake did the math. A head shot on school property meant suspension. But that goddamn bully in his rusty black Camero. That stupid cigarette hanging from his mouth. He was begging for it. Jake cupped a perfect sphere of hate from sloppy snow. He knew he had the arm. Many winters with older brothers had prepared him for this day. Then, in an instant, it was done. Two hearts raced. One with fear, the other with rage.