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Woods Estate & Plane
– Josh Olewiler
The hunt for Colonel James Woods had been on for the better part of a year when the letter arrived at his estate. News of his remarkable disappearance had reached adventurers from every corner of the globe. From the jungles of Peru to the sands of the Sahara to the frosted peaks of the Himalayas, his friends searched tirelessly. None was as committed to the quest as Rex Henshaw, his handsome young apprentice who had visited dozens of countries over the preceding months, and it was no accident that this document fell into his hands.
THUMP-schwoosh
– Emily Raffensberger
The heart is a crucial part of the human anatomy consisting of four chambers, which allow blood to receive oxygen as it flows through the body’s circulatory system. This definition’s scientific technicality fails to reflect my belief that the heart defines a person. I believe my heart has a distinct way of defining me. I am a patient. I am a patient who has a congenital heart defect. I am a patient with Truncus Arteriosus.
The Highway by the Puget Sound
– Jessica Clark
Across my window, green blurs by,
And Olympic Mountains tower high,
Rock-flecked beaches and blue-green sea,
A shining needle marks the Emerald City.
The highways are wet from the constant rain,
And a whirl of wind kicks up from the speeding train,
The Struggle
– Joe Notari
The forest’s canopy was dense and thick, branches twisting and writhing around each other, to the point that hardly any sunlight pierced its great barrier. The leaves were moist and dripping from a recent rainstorm, and many of the forest’s smaller inhabitants rummaged around the forest’s floor. The creatures scrounged for any food they could find, oftentimes each other.
The Hand Job
– Joe Notari
(A modestly well-furnished living room. At center stage is a couch with a small nightstand to its right. On top of the nightstand is a lamp with a removable shade, as well as a heavy, bronze statuette and a small cup. At stage left is a copy of “Starry Night” by Van Gogh. At upstage right is a frame, which represents the closet door. In relatively the same spot at upstage left is a door leading to the basement. At downstage right is a large TV resting on top of a small credenza. At stage right is the home’s front door. As the lights come up, we hear a fumbling outside the front door, followed by the doorknob shaking. After a few moments, we hear a click and DALE comes creeping through the door, followed closely by JEFF. Both are dressed in all black.)
The Electronic Ghost
– Thomas Delfi
I stare at your page like a lone death mask, etched in your eerie likeness and scattered among the throngs of the living. It’s all there, everything factual about you: how old you were, where you were born, your graduating class. I look through pictures of you and friends, smiling and laughing amongst one another without the grim shadow of oblivion about you. Your final writings reveal nothing profound, the scribbled, last minute thoughts before an unforeseen end. In the eyes of any other, you’re still there, working in a diner, listening to music, hanging with friends, and having a complicated relationship while remaining interested in men. But the numerous lamentations of friends and loved ones written upon your wall pay testament to the loss of you, a life cut short and randomly, leaving nothing behind but a hollow visage bearing your smile, your eyes, your face, and a colder world; the electronic ghost of you.
The Bell Ringer
– Heather Smith
I will not lose my desire.
I see them walking—
Dead women walking—
With rings on their fingers
And bells on their toes,
But there is no music.
They stand still—
Never looking,
Never watching,
Never wondering,
Never imagining,
Never straying.
Schrödinger’s Sheets
– Paul Harne
I can’t concentrate because a half-full can of Diet Coke is going flat on my desk across the room. And that’s just too loud. I can’t focus because the smell of Gillette shaving-gel residue is wafting off my upper lip. Every time I inhale through my nose, I can smell the blue soapy film. Taste my own stale-spearmint breath with every exhale. The hypersensitivity comes with the dark of the room. I can’t think straight because there’s a woman in my bed undressing me. I don’t remember her name. Friend of an old friend. I know nothing about her.
Saying Sorry
– Jaleasha Ruth
“Ellen Carpenter, you are a bitch. You are the scum of the Earth, and I pray that you burn in hell!” she said, smashing another one of the miniature, crystal figures she’d spent more than half of her 26 years collecting against the cream colored walls, as if they were the ones she was angry with. She threw an angel this time; it kneeled unsuspecting on a clear crystal cloud with its head positioned against pressed-together fingertips, sending a silent message to God. The angel veered to the left and flew straight into the wall, leaving another pile of crystal fragments like several of its figurine brethren had before it.