Rachel A

Sean King

Yolanda W

Jacob Sherman

Benjamin Chandler

Emily J

Sam Becker

English

A band of light could be seen in the sky that night, channeling down like a knight’s sword, slicing through the terrible dark. The entire population had all turned their heads right at that moment—either asleep or ignorant—completely unaware of the astronomic oddity.
All but one.

One child with a cheap telescope and a hand me down smart phone captured the proof. Evidence of the focused light probing earth’s atmosphere. Wisely, the child shared the footage with the scientific community first.

They couldn’t rack their brains about it either. Soon after little Billy Bob’s discovery, it had spread to national news, then worldwide news. People from all around the globe speculated at how and why this strobe of light came to be. Little did everyone know this would be

the first alien invasion in a million years. In the previous one, an entire species was wiped out. Let’s hope this time the humans get to survive. Anyways, little Billy Bob unzipped his pants and out came a little lizard. He demanded on the news that everyone bow to him, or else…

Of course, the press had a million questions. "Are we supposed to bow down to the lizard or Billy Bob?" "Is that lizard an anole or a skink?" "How did you keep that lizard in your pants without it nipping your nipper?" "Do you listen to the Dead Milkmen?" "What's the point of ∑?"

The people waited anxiously. “Listen, these aliens may take some time getting used to but—“ his face rippled. People stirred uneasily. The man’s face fell away to reveal a lizard. “Damn it! There goes the plan.” He held up a neuralyzer. “Sorry, folks. This won’t hurt at all…”

Undercover Alien

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Pennywise  

If you asked me where I thought I would be at 31 years of age I certainly wouldn’t have said dead. That was never my intention. I’ve never been plagued with a day of ill-health or suicidal ideation a day in my life. But here I am laying cold on the floor of

an International Harvester school bus. I collapsed half way down the aisle, facedown in a puddle of what I hope is apple juice. I think it was my heart. Now I’m trapped, floating above my body, waiting for someone to open the door. I thought ghosts could go through walls?

My disembodied spirit hovered past the windows, watched the world beyond them slowly change from the one I knew to something broken, confused. Instead of buildings, giant eggshells filled with scaffoldings stood. Here were lizard dogs, there owls with empty eyes. The bus stopped.

The door opened. Thousands of little lizards ran out the door with little backpacks on their backs. They even have reptile school? They seemed to take to their human predecessors. Ironic. Reptiles dominated the world in the past, and now they have returned stronger than ever.

“Dude.” I’m nudged hard out of my trance. The reptiles morph into teenagers. On their way down the hall, Jessica and her friends roll their eyes at me and laugh. I preferred when they were scaly and small. “You high?” I still feel the pain of rejection to prom, “Hey, Jessica!”

Fitting that all the cool kids at school were monitor lizards: cold blooded, basic. But I knew something they didn’t. I felt my legs slowly wrap around the group—the last thing they saw was my menacing Burmese Python head, fangs bared, as they experienced collective asphyxiation.

Lizard High

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Damaskox

Jay Knowles

Adia Reynolds

A majestic beast stands on its strong legs in a distance. Should it get too close it can easily rip limbs off any living things. It sways its huge head in the wind and looks around. It almost looks like it's sniffing the air. Should it be ogled at, or evaded, or advanced towards?

These are all tempting options. I guess I’ll ogle at the beast? There are two giant wings on the creature, and its scales reflect the sunlight. Yep, just a dragon. Oh, brave and noble knight, do you choose to slay the dragon, befriend the dragon, or make a deal with the dragon?

None of the above! I choose to Google the dragon instead. I find a roller coaster, a space capsule, a heavy metal album… ah here we are. Scaly, breathes fire, loves gold. Learn more? Don’t mind if I do.

“Dragons originated from the Dragon Dynasty of the year 1337 BCE, only to be hunted to near extinction in the year 666 CE.” Thank you, Google. Now what do I do with this newfound information? Take down the dragon? Tame a dragon? Ride the dragon?

"Dragons originated in the Dragon Dynasty, yeah duh."
"None of this tells us what to do if we find one in real life!"
"Call animal control?"

We all squabbled between each other for a couple of minutes before eventually resorting to calling the police. I mean cmon, what’s animal control gonna do?! Tell us to put the poor thing down. It was only a baby, cute little thing with purple iridescent wings and twinkly eyes.

It was decided each of us would take turns caring for it every night. Kimmy Farnsworth made a little bed for the fairy out of an Altoids container with cotton inside & a blanket made of a Kleenex. It was during the night of my turn that the baby pixie finally awoke & spoke to me.

"Why did you do it?" she said in a tiny voice. I drew closer in a daze at her starry little eyes. "Do what?" She giggled: "Leave me to die!" In an instant the pixie's face contorted into a goblin-like scowl. I jumped back & before me, the corpse of my sister stood. "No!" I sobbed

What manner of beastie?

Lauren Coles

Abbey loves books and always wanted to be a writer. This poetry workshop was going to be awesome if not for Joel green.

Joel green, the mean machine, long and lean and full of spleen. Yes, he is pretentious enough that he only capitalizes his first name. He wears green track suits every day. His specialty is poems about potted herbs. The crazy thing? The critics EAT IT UP.

The brownies. Green eggs and ham, with spam, with fruit jam. They were laced. Then they crash in their chair afterwards, thinking thoughts they wouldn’t have thought low. Joel green, like a bean, never clean but often seen, peeling off a tangerine while dancing with a tambourine.

They could taste colors, smell darkness, hear the voices of the candles burning on the coffee table. "Woah," said Abby. "Yeah," said Grant. Slowly the buzz of the brownies faded away and the world seemed duller. Abby and Grant looked at each other. "Wanna go again?"

“Heck yeah!” Replied Abby. But little did she know she was about to go one brownie too far.
She scoffed it down all in one and the next thing she knew she was waking up in a cold, damp alley face down in a manhole laden in cuts and bruises. She was too weak to move.

"Ma'am?" I grunted in response. "Are you alright? Do I need to call an ambulance?" I barely lifted my head and squinted at the man, puzzled. "Where am I?" "Downtown, ma'am." "No, what time am I?" "I'm sorry?" the man looked disturbed. "The year?" I say, rolling over. "2082."

One Brownie Too Far

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Davi Razuj

Nonexistent. Not around. A figment of my imagination. My best friend does not exist, no, nor do my regular friends.

Do I even exist? We’re all just spinning on this big ass rock through space. But what even is space?! Can anything really be proven or justified? Anyway, that’s enough philosophical contemplation for today, I’m heading off to bed.

“Wait, Professor?” A student asked from the back row. “Yes?” “What’s an ass-rock, and how big is big when it comes to ass-rocks?” Suppressed giggles through the room. “That’s an intentional hyphen misplacement and you know it!” He yelled back.

But ever since that day he was plagued with the thought of ass-rocks. As much as he’d tried to suppress it, forced his whole life into the role of academic, he could no longer hold himself back: the time had come for him to leave the classroom and become a sculptor.

So then he tried making a sculpture he made it and tried to sell it… it was the ugliest thing people ever seen

The sculpture's ugliness was so intense that a 3rd world dictator tried to buy it. She wanted to use it as a form of punishment. All criminals against the state would be forced to sit in a room with this ugly statue & stare at it. She was willing to pay the artist $2 million.

"Not for sale." The artist knew this woman only wanted to buy the sculpture for its profound ugliness. "$10 million," she countered, imagining the torture she could inflict. "$100 million," the artist said, offended, but weary. Under the shadow of the grotesque form, they shook.

Butt Ugly

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The tower looks very tall and mysterious under the evening sun. The perimeter is empty and rocky and the wind blows dust around. Nobody knows what's inside...or who's inside. Is this going to be an opportunity, an adventure or just a false call of gluttony, leading to only death?

Time to climb that tower, I guess. I whipped my rope as hard as I could and let it loose on the tower above. I yanked on the rope. It caught on something. I began to climb the walls, eyes fixed on the treasure that might lie above. But then I looked down, and the world shrank.

It was literally much smaller. I stood up straight and was taller than the tower I’d been climbing. Of course the world was the same size, I’d just grown by a factor of 10.

That caterpillar had been right about the mushroom! I still had a few bites in my pocket. Should I eat one and get bigger? Or what if I ate the other bite & it made me smaller? A pigeon landed on my shoulder, thinking me a clocktower. Distracted by the bird, I lost track of which

mushroom would make my mushroom bigger. I was quite the self conscious man. Oh well, you accursed pigeon! Have a bite of my mushroom! The bird shrank to the size of an ant. Well at least I now knew what not to eat. Alright, let’s Alice in Wonderland this. Here goes nothing…

So I took the whole thing in one massive gulp, like a seagull swallows a whole fish. I mean…it was probably as elegant as that too.
I didn’t feel anything straight away, I was rather disappointed. It’s not like how it is in the movies. But half an hour went by and suddenly…

I felt a tingling on my forearms, then a warmth on my scalp. I raced to a mirror to confirm what I already knew: I was a feathered being, sleek and powerful, ready to join a rarefied flock. Would leaving my nest of human connections be worth it? Only time would tell.

The Trail to True Treasure

When Lincoln came back from the forrest he was a changed man. You could tell by his body, it was leaner. You could tell by his eyes, they were wearier. You could tell by his feet, they were redder.

The day he returned from the forrest, he bore the name Gump. Lincoln Gump. No one knows why, but his exhausted body told a story.

Prior to retreating to the forest, Lincoln Gump lived a very vanilla, humdrum life. Perhaps this is why he ended up there. So sick of the 9 to 5 lifestyle, putting a fake smile on his face to get through the day, and seeing the same bunch of people day in, day out.

He retreated into the forest and learned the language of the squirrels. He learned the flight patterns of the birds. He understood the ways of the moss. He lived his gnome life.

Or at least that's how he had played it out in his head. That was this gnome's happily ever after: basking in the quiet of the forest, rather than the bewitched halls of the Queen's castle where he now finds himself. "Well?" she sneers. He looks up with a twinkle in his eye.

The gnome slipped his hand into his pocket & withdrew a pebble of fools gold. The witch gawked, "Pyrite?" The gnome smiled. "Aye, Witchie, the 1 thing that can uncharm a witch's charm." Holding the stone barely aloft, the castle disappeared & his forest came into view—home again.

Gnome Sweet Gnome

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Sam Heller

Emma wiped the dust off her pants. I was just going to go through some things up in the attic. Grandma was a pack rat. I know that she was your mother but I bet you are happy that she is gone

off to the retirement community in Florida. She can play golf, or bingo, or swim in the pool if she likes. But she left all this junk for us to deal with. There are a few treasures in this attic, so we’ll have to go through the boxes carefully.

This box is filled with 13 different air fryer cookbooks. Does she even have an air fryer? Here are my old toys. Snuffles, my old stuffed elephant! She told me she threw him away! A broken lamp...toss that. But what's this? A crate full of books with her name. She wrote a novel?

“The Little Air Fryer”, “I Believe I Can Fry”, and many other novels. All about air fryers! She dedicated her whole life to air fryers ever since the day of its invention, truly the best invention, since sliced bread! If you don’t get it, well… Clearly you don’t own an air fryer.

But who needs an air fryer when you have a deep fryer? What does an air fryer fry? Air? And what do toasters toast? Toast? As an Italian plumber once said, “All toasters toast toast.” Miss that guy. But I digress. Speaking of novels on air fryers, the writer now released a book —

‘Air Fryer’s 101’. To which I scoffed to myself. See the thing is, gadgets have become far too complex nowadays. What’s wrong with normally frying something. God forbid if I ever showed a youth a frying pan, they’d probably ask me “Where’s the on button?”. But anyway I continued

"How hard could it be?" I chuck the instructions to the counter. It slides off and into the trash, and I couldn't care less. I crack my knuckles, "Home made french fries here I come."

The first step was arguably the easiest. I gathered all the ingredients: Potatoes, oil, salt, and ketchup for later. Next I began peeling the skin off the potatoes, I had seen my father to this plenty of times. Of course, he was a three star chef.

The following step was where things got substantially more difficult—the start of the ritual. I placed the skinned, oiled, and salted potatoes in a circle around the dog, then drizzled the ketchup across them. The dog whimpered longingly at the potatoes surrounding her.

I chanted the ancient words that would bind the dog's soul to mine. Her snout elongated, her fur receded, then, miraculously, standing before me was my long lost sister. It made so much sense—tater tots were her favorite food. We hugged and cried amidst the smell of fried spuds.

A puppy with brown fur greeted the woman and jerry. The puppy licked their face. The dog name was lucky

Night Owls

Night Owls: Part II

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Leyre g

When I arrived in a park, the streetlights turned off, everything was dark. I walked towards the exit to search light, but a foot blocked my way and I fall. I wanted to get up, but a hands grabbed me by the neck

and tried to strangle me. I grabbed the hands and moved it away, then ran through the park in the dark trying to escape the madman.

He was fast, but no match for me. I made it back home, a mere 600 yards from where the hands grabbed me in the park. Locked the doors and threw myself onto the couch in disbelief as to what just happened. Then came a knock at my door. I froze in fear and remained silent.

I recoiled back to my youth. Those days where I pretended to be home alone. I didn’t dare make a sound for fear of my life. I wouldn’t have budged if my curiousity didn’t get the best of me. I crept silently to the windows and peeked out of the curtains.

I saw them right outside my house. Clanking, strumming, bashing, and wheezing. 5 people, each wearing the equipment for a one-man band. What do you even call that? Not “pleasant” or “musical”, for sure.

But I must have been alone in my opinion for dozens of my neighbors emerged from their homes & cheered the cacophonous band. Soon the 5 were carried on their shoulders, still clanging & banging away on their junk. They were named heroes! So I moved to distant, quiet Niue Island.

panic

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Rietje Becker

Miriam sat at the train station clutching her purse. She was dressed formally, wearing sunglasses despite the fact that it was raining.

She took a sip from her flask, placed it to the side of her on the bench and proceeded to get up and walk to the edge of the platform. Before reaching the very edge Miriam stopped, looked up at the grey clouds above, let out a sigh, and then slowly closed her eyes. This was it.

She felt a strong breeze on her face, and her hair was swept to the side. Miriam opened her eyes again. The train whistle rang. It was time. She put one feet through the door, and looked back at the station. Goodbye, she thought, I’ll never forget this place. She finally entered.

Nothing would hold her back now. Not her family, not her past, not the hand reaching out to grab her by the shoulder.

Consequences didn’t mean a thing to her anymore. If she wanted to set everything right, back to how it was, she would have no choice. She held her head high and walked firmly into the portal. What lies ahead? Nightmares. Her nightmares.

Her nightmares involve clowns and claustrophobia. She thought she was prepared, but she wasn’t ready. She spent a seeming eternity running down tunnels being chased by screaming Bozos. Until she finally awoke, drenched in cold sweat, to the light of a new day.

The Platform's Edge

Jayla did as she was told. Jazz was her favorite music.

So she practiced, man. And she dug. She dug all the cats. Dug and practiced, living eating sleeping Jazz. She took her trumpet and a duffel bag and headed west on the bus. She wanted to walk the streets Chet Baker walked on.

At famous LA jazz clubs like The Haig & Tiffany Club, she would sit in the back shadows, listening, fingertips sliding against the condensation on a cold glass of tonic water sweating a ring into the tablecloth. When she felt confident, she would hum along, thinking no one heard.

“Will you cut it down, your humming sucks!” a voice came from the room. She immediately stopped humming, and at the same time jazz music stopped. She gingerly drank her water.

Trying not to make too much of a scene, which she clearly had already, she got up from her chair - trying her very best not to scrape it along the floor she headed to the toilets. As she flung open the door…

There was a lady behind the door who had been so frightened that she dropped her bag with many spoons that made a lot of noise when they fell. After the noise, she ran out into the street in a direction she didn't even know.

Reluctantly, she opened the door to the pantry—a place she seldom visited—and a wall of Sofa Cola™ crashed over her. “You ready to rock?” she scarcely heard from a corporate Sofa Cola musician, who continued without waiting for a response, “then drink up and take a seat!”

Yolanda W
@yolandaw

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Yolanda W@yolandaw

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