Benjamin Chandler

Jay Knowles

Jacob Sherman

Sean King

LyraMadeline

Phil Harwell

English

This is the story of the wrong pen which I grabbed when I was going to write a postcard to my best friend Abby while vacationing on Sao Beach in Vietnam.

See, when I grabbed the pen it fit snugly in my hand. I was utterly convinced this pen was mine, but then I went to write the postcard, and that’s where the trouble began. “Bear Baby,” it wrote, “I’m currently napalming the beach in Vietnam and massacring citizens. Wish me luck!”

All the leaves were brown, and the sky was grey. The fields were on fire, on a cloudy day. Or at least that’s the picture this occult pen tried to paint. I was no fortunate son. I was just a tourist visiting Vietnam. The pen moved in my hand, seemingly with a mind of its own.

I was just creating a pastiche, lines stolen from popular songs and poems. I needed to write from my own life, my own experience, my own gut. I needed to write the truth.

So, after weeks of writer's block and copying from existing work, weeks of feeling like no words could express the truth of what I felt, I sat down at the piano, pencil and blank sheet music in hand, and began to write.

Hours went by, and at the end, I played my new opus to the crowds. Turned out what I’d written was a note-by-note recreation of “Never Gonna Give You Up”… in reverse. Oh well. I’ve written worse.

The Ballad of Yeltsa Kcir

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Zoe Becker

Sam Becker

“Mudfoot, Ogre Extraordinaire” read the business card. I raised one eyebrow, and opened my mouth to speak. But I couldn’t phrase the question politely. “I know I look like a teenage human,” Mudfoot said. “It’s a terrible curse.”

“Ever since I drank that potion I couldn’t turn back to my ogre form. I was stuck as some angsty, acne-ridden teen for the rest of eternity. It sounded better at the time, I wanted to invite my crush to prom,” Mudfoot sniffled, “but she still rejected me. You know, somebody once

told me the world was gonna roll me, I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed.” Mudfoot elaborated on his crush, “She was looking kinda dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an ‘L’ on her forehead.” I patted him on the back. “Well, the years start coming and they don’t

stop—" Mudfoot stared at the pub's entrance. There she was—his crush, Aurora Scent. Her dark hair cascaded past her slim shoulders, framing her rosy face. Her eyes flashed. "What's a girl gotta do to get a drink around here?" she asked. "Go, Mudfoot," I said, "now's your chance!"

I watched with a mixture of nervousness and hopefulness as he meandered up to where she now stood at the bar. He tapped her on her shoulder and she turned around, her muscular frame towering over him.

"Um, hi," he began, "I just wanted to say, I think you're really pretty."

Her eyes lit up with equal parts surprise and bemusement. “I think you’re pretty too!” she says, and pats him on the head. He beams up at his Amazonian conquest, with visions of their wondrous future in his mind.

Muddy Feet Cute Meet

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Chris Dodds

Josh paced back and forth. He had never felt more nervous in his life. He knew Olivia loved him, but would she be ready for marriage? He felt in his pocket for the fifth time that afternoon, as if the ring would have magically disappeared while he was waiting for her.

The ring was gone! Josh checked his other pockets, but it wasn't there either. He got on his hands & knees, searched the sidewalk, ran fingers through the median's grass, checked the beaks of nearby pigeons. Panic chilled his gut. "What are you doing?" asked Oliva. She was early.

“I’m, um, wild gardening. Agribombing.” He looked up at her. “Not looking for a ring in the grass, no. It might look that way, but I’m planting native flora on this median. Oh, look at the time! Let’s go!”

He walked past me, hoping to escape in his pickup before I could say anything else. I grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks.
“Now wait just a minute,” I said sternly. “I don’t think agribombing involves a metal detector. Come clean or I’m turning you in to the police.”

“Alright, you got me. I’m really looking for Buffalo pennies. I’m not actually sure what they are, ‘cide from being pennies, but an old guy at Tucker’s said there’s buckets of them out here and I ain’t got nuthin better to do.”

“As I suspected. A penny picker. Ever since Jack Changerson discovered pennies in that old fountain folks have lost their minds. Wishes don’t come true, boy!”

“But sir, I wished for pennies.” I said.

“Well if it isn’t the false cause fallacy!” the old man retorted. “There always was pennies in that well! Don’t be smart on me, boy! Wishes don’t work, that’s just proven fact!” Now I really looked stupid. How did I really think I could get away with that? I guess it was sarcasm.

Whatever. I went over and collected every last penny, then laughed at his face. Wish granted, I guess.

Metal Detecting

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Marta P

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"No!” I shouted. “You can’t leave! Not now!” But my cries were barely audible over the roar of the sirens. My vision was blurred by tears. I couldn’t take it. I wanted to run after the ambulance and tell the doctors that he would be okay, but I knew he wouldn't.

Inside the ambulance the EMTs puzzled over the origins of the patient. Who had made the 911 call? The house had been empty—just a pale man barely breathing, lying in the foyer, a green vial in his hand. Much of his hair was gone, lying in clumps beside his head.

They still had a pulse on the man, but just barely. Suddenly, his eyes began twitching uncontrollably. The EMTs lifted his eyelids, their sight unexpectedly fastening on a pair of bright red irises and dilated pupils.

"I—" croaked the man, "I—" The EMTs leaned forward, trying to make out his words—perhaps his last. The man reached up with a trembling hand, to tap a beat on the heart monitor. "I—" he spoke again, "I—I—I like big butts & I can not lie. You otha brothas can´t deny."

And like that, he was gone. The EMTs broke simultaneously, falling into to each other’s arms as they wept. It was the most poignant moment either had experienced as part of someone passing.

“He was too wise for this world.”

“I sure am going to miss him,” said Ethel. “I listened to his radio show every day for thirty years.”
Doris took the remaining donuts and tried to discretely leave the room, but she

failed to navigate the black rubber phone cord spiraling off the desk near the door. Doris felt it tighten on her stockinged leg the moment before she hit the floor in a puff of powdered sugar and rainbow colored jimmies. Ethel fumed. So I’m the only sentimental one, she thought.

For a moment Doris thought a snake had coiled around her leg, and she wanted it nowhere near her boot, so she wiggled her foot and got up and ran. Turns out, the Doris shut. She slammed her face on the door, leaving an imprint. Ethel pondered the ethics of this enigmatic dilemma.

Doris Shutt had an unfortunate name. It made the first week of school a chore every year. More than one substitute teacher accused her of lying about her name. Her parents thought it was hilarious. But the joke was on them when she changed her name to

Jacqueline McCafferty becoming the most notorious female serial killer in history, pole dancing by night, and killing… also by night. She didn’t do much in the day, except rearrange her macabre trophies in a huge glass-fronted freezer. Well, that’ll teach them she often thought.

One more for the collection

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I stand at the bottom of the stone steps and look up. Ridgegate Academy is tall and wide, almost grand, with pillars and columns reminiscent of old Roman architecture. I look around at the other students. Some are like me. Others are sitting and talking in groups.

Mostly, they flow around me like I’m a smooth-worn stone in the middle of a river. I have never felt more alone. The well I thought was empty fills my eyes with tears and it feels like my heart is being torn out all over again.

Seeking peace, I find a bench in the park & watch sparrows peck at the loose sesame seeds that fell off someone's burger bun. A bicyclist zips through them, & the sparrows sweep into the air like autumn leaves, but one was hit by the bike & hops lamely about with a crooked wing.

I make a gentle coo and the bird hops over to me. Cradling it in my hand, I whisper to it as my hands warm. I heal the bird’s wing and it flies away. That’s all I want to do: heal. But they want so much more from me.

They want me to become a dog wig maker, despite my own longings and ambitions, wants and needs, aches and yearnings. Thus, I find myself torn between my dream and theirs: to wig or not to wig, that is the question.

What DID I want? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever known. Wigs? Why? I turned the question over and over in my mind, my indecision driving myself mad.

Or maybe I didn’t want anything. I was content as I was. I lived in the moment. Freeing myself from all desires have brought me a lifetime of peace. I suffered no more. I was enlightened. I became a virtuous man who was not corrupted by worldly desires.

Nothing bothered me anymore. It also appeared that I had lost the desire to live. Living or dead, did it really matter? With all illusory desires abolished I ascended to a higher plane of existence. Seeya peasants.

Wiggin Out

KotarouKun

Chris Baroody

ayesha wells

I can’t stop thinking about the boy next door. He moved into town a few weeks ago and hasn’t said one word to me. He seems to live by himself and doesn’t talk much. I often see him playing with his golden retriever in his front yard or reading on his porch while the sun sets.

One night, I saw him looking at the sunset that evening, that of which was a vibrant explosion of purples and oranges. I imagined that I wanted to jump into the sunset with him, but then I realized that he doesn’t even know me.

I thought “one way to change that!” I walked over and introduced myself, then showed him my favorite card trick. Nothing like a close-up illusion to break the ice!

The first trick worked like a charm. With bated breath he awaited me to show him another one, and this time I decided to step it up. Halfway through one of my more impressive feats of prestidigitation, it hit me. I'd forgotten the doves for the grand finale.

The doves though, had not forgotten me and filled the room in an angry cloud of white and grey. As they began to claw at my face, I realized what a mistake it had been to not feed them for these last few days.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I cried against their battering wings and needle-like beaks. The birds settled & one lone dove approached me. It was the queen. "Are you truly sorry?" she cooed. "Are you ready for pigeon penance?"

“Oh God, my God! Please don’t!” The words quick and involuntary. But the dove queen, her eyes’ve got no mercy in them, no mercy for me. “I’ll swear on my kids, my parents, anyone: let me live, and I’ll live only to tell the world about the glory of pigeonhood!”

The dove queen cocked her head to one side and stared down at me. “Brrt brrt,” she began, and ruffled her gowns up and then down from her throne. “Your children? You’d trade your children for your, brrt brrt,” she continued, “for your life?” I glared up at her beady eyes and said

“No,” I said patiently. Now was not the time for anything else. “What I said was, I would trade my life for my children.”
“Oh, brrt brrt, I see. I like my version better. Guards! Seize the children!”

The guards lured the kids in one by one with promises of free candy, then grabbed them like a mousetrap. They wriggled and wriggled but they couldn’t break free. Then suddenly the guards took out some sweets and gave it to them. “Happy Halloween!” They all left the haunted house.

The Boy Next Door

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Rietje Becker

A mysterious figure cut through the haze-distorted beach horizon: long beard, tan skin, jeans, no shirt, bracelets for miles. Amazingly, his name was Ted Americano and the waterfront would never be the same after his arrival.

“Espresso! Water! Mix em up!” Ted bellowed. He had a way of speaking that sounded like laughing. “Just chock full of nuts for your maxwell house!” He laugh-shouted. “Sip it and see for yourself, sir!”

Mr. O'Brien did not see the humor in Ted's raucous nature. He grabbed his cup of coffee & sat as far away from the counter as he could, stuffing himself in a nook between a window and the garbage can. How could he finish writing his historical romance novella with all this noise?

He sat there, trying his hardest to focus on his work, when he heard a voice from nearby.
"Are you a writer?" the voice asked him.
Mr. Obrien looked up from his laptop to see a young woman smiling warmly at him, a frappuccino in hand.
"Yes, I am." He replied.

"What are you writing about?" She was soft spoken, yet confident. Mr. Obrien stared solemnly down at the empty mug beside his laptop. The mug had dark rings and droplets all around the rim and an empty packet of sugar stuffed inside. "I don't know yet," he replies.

“Looking for inspiration?” She whispered seductively. Mr O’Brien was visibly caught by surprise. ”Wh-what?” He said. She came closer and put her face next to his. Her hot breath on his cheek. “Well” she said “You can always try searching for cat gifs on Pinterest.”

LyraMadeline
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