Choosing Work Over Sleep

/

The alarm goes off and it wakes Jasmine up but she doesn’t want to get off of her bed. ‘Just a few more minutes,’ she tells herself after every five minutes that pass by. But she can’t stay in bed all day. She can’t stay home. Jasmine has to go to work. She must go. She needs to, she’s told. She goes to work for the money and nothing else. Money for food and rent. Money for the car’s gas and insurance. The money she makes she uses to take herself back to that miserable place. To a place where the boss isn’t really in charge and her coworkers act like children. Jasmine rather stay in bed than go back to that zoo but the alarm keeps going off, telling her that it’s time to go.

 

By Blanca Snow

Read More

Emergency Lane

/

In the middle of a deep starless night, I’m driving down the highway when I come across a car in the emergency lane ahead, hazards on. I slow down long before I’m anywhere near the car and I debate what my actions and their possible results might be. The paranoia guides my impulses and as I close distance on the car I opt out of helping this individual out of fear that it’s some illusive robbery scheme taking place at night’s peak. As I drive by I see a woman in tears behind her steering wheel, but I continue to drive, afraid my involvement would backfire. A week later I find out, through the news, that this woman took her life in the woods alongside the highway that night. I could have saved her.

 

By Anonymous Writer

Read More

A Not So Yummy Choice

/

In the big rock candy mountain children go and never return. They disappeared into the yummy unknown. No matter what the adults tried to do; no warning signs, no traps, and no fences could scare their children’s curiosity away. Every month another child was lost. The mountain must’ve been eating them whole. Finally, the adults came together to come up with a better plan. Their plan was simple: blow up the mountain. What could go wrong? It rained of rock candy and body parts that day.

 

By Eric Wells

Read More

Corona Shampoo

/

A packed party and too much alcohol turn my stomach on me. The fear is embarrassment and humiliation. The bathroom is occupied. I can either revisit the day’s meals and the night’s alcohol in the sink or over the balcony. The kitchen is packed with people ready to watch. The balcony it is. Regretful decision. Poor girl’s night is ruined.

 

By Seth McAllister

Read More

Lost Dreams

/

Alexander wiped his wet face and tried to smile. Tried to hide the regret and hopelessness that came with seeing his dream get away. He knew this would be his only chance and he wasn’t good enough. He felt the moment of his sadness was unescapable. Like it stretched, and stretched, and stretched, but never snapped. It’d only get thinner and stringier the more stretched it became. Eventually indistinguishable from a fishing line.

Back at home, Alexander told Lisa how it went. She held his hand with watered eyes, sympathetic to his lost cause. Alex told Lisa, “It’s not important. I still get to come...

 

By Matthew Strobe

Read More

Neon Sea

/

Eyes and teeth, faintly visible reflecting jumping neon glow sticks and glow paint in a nearly pitch black room. The bass in the music vibrates alongside heartbeats and dancing colors. Intoxication fills everyone’s veins regardless of the form taken. Smoke clouds, dilated eyes, downers, uppers, injections, pills, tabs and drinks all show up to the party. The purple pills roll across my tongue and slide down my throat before a stranger’s hand grabs my own and we find ourselves in an intoxicated pretzel in a grey lifeless bathroom. No regrets exist when neon colored red cherry condoms come into play. Lights off, clothes off, wrists, ankles and neck wrapped in glow tubes so this faceless stranger can find what he searches for...

 

By Amber Black

Read More

A Moment to Keep

/

The plane lands. We’re driving by the windows. He said the shirt would be an impossibly bright neon red. He’d stand out. I hadn’t yet looked when I found him in the crowd.
There was no resisting the smile that overtook me.
Leaving the plane I began to hear a familiar melody.
One that played faint in the background of when we met.
Like a bad romance movie he stood there, behind his guitar and cheesy grin.

 

By Amber Black

Read More

The Wolf at the Door

/

Her problem began after letting him in. She was just being friendly. She had made a huge mistake. Her new friend became her greatest nightmare. She had gotten herself a stalker. Her and her sister had became fearful of the outside world. He was out there. He was waiting. He knew where they lived. He had her phone number and pictures of her that he found on her online profile. They were just three little girls and he was the big bad wolf waiting outside their door.

 

By Jenny Roberts

Read More

Fear Not the Leader

/

My grandmother told me of the time a terrible man ran for office. There was fear that he was going to take us back to when things were bad. Fear that he’d change the way the system was run. I always thought those stories were myths until my mother told me the same story of a different man. Another person who would destroy life as we know it and take us back to when things were worse than her present. Now I’m realizing they were in fact myths. There will always be fear that the next leader isn’t right and will take us to a darker place than our current, but it’ll never happen. We the people would never allow it. The government is there to serve the people and when its services are no longer required, we’ll assure its absence.

 

By Bradley Anderson

Read More