Lies

By Megan Finsel

She was lying to me. I knew that because the truth was spelled out across her face. It was hypnotizing, in fact, how each word bled across her forehead. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Was I the only one who could see them? I couldn’t tell; no one else seemed to notice.

“I’m alright, a little tired…” she was saying. Maybe I had asked her how she was doing, I don’t remember. I just recall watching the words I’m exhausted appear and disappear on her cheek.

“…life has been treating me well, you know, and work has been fun.” she continued. “I couldn’t be happier.” I’m depressed spelled down her neck. My stomach twisted.
“My brother? Yeah, he’s good. Parents are doing well, too.” I could see sadness in her eyes, an unwanted emotion she was struggling to mask. I must have asked whether she was sure or not because she answered, “of course.” But her right arm spelled out no. I tried to smile as she did.

“Well, I’ll see you later.” she said with a wave and turned to leave, and I stood there watching as two words swirled down both of her legs.

SAVE ME.

Going Down?

By Riley Quinn

The space is cramped with all thirteen of us in here, but we couldn’t tell the woman in labor and her neurotic husband to wait for the next elevator with her looking ready to pop, and nor could we disclude the man with his son and daughter here to see their mommy who they talked excitedly about seeing while their father stood behind them with tears silently rolling down his face, but the annoying man yelling into his cellphone about how his mother had yet another heart attack and how could she keep him from meetings with these important high-rolling clients, so him we could’ve told to catch the next ride up though he had rudely shoved his way in pushing the nurses, just coming in for their shift, towards the back of the elevator and it wasn’t that the nurses were nice or anything, shoving is just rude, but I mean, there were three nurses and at the time when they got on the elevator we had plenty of room for them but it didn’t mean any of us particularly enjoyed their presence because one kept telling the other female nurse about all the crazy partying she did last night with a bunch of girlfriends since her boyfriend, who was nurse number three, was busy last night doing things with his family but judging by the look he and the other female nurse exchanged when she wasn’t looking, so we all figured the only thing he was doing last night was her, female nurse number two, but of course the three of them were oblivious to the doctor in scrubs with a surgical mask hanging from his face just under his chin with this almost broken look on his face because he had just broken the news to a family that he had lost their child on the operating table but at the back, the very back, was the passenger everyone was avoiding and it wasn’t because of the two orderlies standing on either side of him because they actually had friendly faces and were some of the nicest guys working in that particular part of the hospital, so, shocker, the other passengers were afraid of the psych ward patient in the wheelchair in a straightjacket muttering to himself about how they’re going to die, they’re all going to die, crash, bang, boom, splat, followed by a crazy laugh and then he’d start it all over again, and now I know what you’re wondering, that’s all thirteen passengers, so which one is he because he has to be one of them, and the answer is yes I am, but you have probably guessed already which one I am, and you are also probably wondering why I am muttering such things and telling you about all these people in the elevator and that would be because they are all going to die, myself included, and someone should know the truth of what happened here today because when people talk about the passengers on the elevator and say they were great people, but you’ll know the truth, that some of them were rotten and deserved the end that befell them, fell, I’m so funny, you see, the elevator is rigged so that once the door closed after the last person got on from the first floor, the elevator will make a direct trip to the top of the building and then one more express trip, straight to the morgue in the basement and so you see the hilarity of my word choice, and I laugh manically again and you can see them all flinch, they can’t wait to escape me, but probably noticed that we have reached the top, the thirteenth floor, that is until the elevator comes to a screeching halt and suddenly drops and over the deafening sounds of their terrified screams, my manic laughter can be heard.

Today As I Walked

By Annette Kinship

…downtown called upon me to notice the many beautiful sights. There are buildings of great importance: a well-known museum; a magnificent looking bank with a Gold dome; an old theatre where famous plays and dances had been seen and an Old Catholic church of great size.

It is fall and the leaves around town were at their height of beauty in color. The old church was wrapped around with leaves, on vines, of golden yellows, brilliant oranges and romantic reds. I stopped to look at this master piece of a building with all its glory: the pillars, the stone construction and stained glass windows.

I became curious as I saw movement through one of the windows. I wondered, “A woman?” Then I saw two bodies. “Are they kissing?” I said, wondering as I turned around to see if anyone had heard.

Why would it seem so strange for them to be kissing? What deemed such importance to my soul? Possibly because the Catholic Church has such an incredible reputation of self-control.
. . . (I began to sing a song from the 70’s)?

Gazing upward into the window, I realized they were definitely kissing and hugging, even more intently now. They appeared relentlessly not wanting to release. Suddenly they backed away from one another relinquishing their lust. For a moment I thought to walk away, but they swiftly and ravenously molded back into each other’s arms. I could see them fairly clear as they were behind a window that had obviously been replaced with clear glass, as the stained glass in all the rest of the windows seemed, still, to be intact. The windows height revealed them from thigh to above there heads, which allowed me to see the closeness in which they stood.

Were they so encapsulated that they had forgotten about the clear window? I stood gazing, exhilarated by the beauty of the stone and fall leaves, and the passion of two human beings within a high society catholic church embracing their desires with such efficacy. Romanticism engulfing me in this rare and courageous moment they were sharing.

As I thought upon these things, he reached for her leg at her thigh and pulled it to his hip, her inner thigh being raptured into his groin with such passion. I could feel the excitement. Beginning to feel guilty I wondered should I walk away and give them their privacy. Is anyone

watching me watch them in this passionate moment. I could not look away.

In the church…, I kept thinking, the Roman Catholic Church of worship! Passion discouraged if not shunned especially within the cathedral. They did not know I was there watching them. If anyone belonging to the church knew of this would they be forced to leave the church and never return? Would they be shunned to the body of the church and through eternity? Though I see love as a gift from God, and intimacy of this type, relished by the God I would want to know, they were making love in the church!

They had removed clothing sometime when I was in deep thought, and the passion had worked its way to me where I stood on the sidewalk. She embraced him tighter while he pulled her closer, then she lay back, allowing him to move in closer and deeper as she welcomed him into her.

They had absolutely, unconditionally made passionate love in the church, the Roman Catholic Church. The heart of legalistic religion. The influence of man’s means to survive. They were now my idols.

Space Aloner

by ThatSynGirl


This is Moore.

I’m one of the pilots from the spacecraft that went rogue.

It’s lost all contact with Earth.

This is just a journal entry. Just some thoughts. No one to talk to.

May as well talk to a camera.

It’s quiet up here.

The most solitary silence that you will never know.

You’ve heard the saying “silence is loud,” yeah?

Yeah.

It’s excruciating. And it’s heavy.

It can cause claustrophobia in even the most iron-minded individual.

It’s just me up here.

The other guy is still frozen. He’s as good as being a corpse.

He doesn’t supply much conversation.

 

I’m alone.

 

I’d be grateful if he woke up, but that could be well after I’ve perished.

Our cryogenic freezing tubes were set for a millennia in the future.

But, our ship must have been knocked, because we’ve lost contact with earth…and our displays are all flashing incoherent data.

Nothing about the year.

Nothing about what happened to us.

Nothing about our fate.

I question my sanity by the second.

I remain hopeful that I’m sane….because I’ve heard if one were truly insane…they wouldn’t even question it.

So there’s my silver lining on that.

And I really…I really hate this window.

It’s a big, dark, ominous hole.

It gives me sight directly into the heart of the vast, deep and desolate space that is now my captor and home.

I don’t want to see that.

But this ship is small…and the window is looming. Large and imposing.

It encompasses one entire wall of this cabin.

Try to ignore it.

But you can’t help but see it.

I see it.

Always.

I see nothing but the darkest darkness, speckled with dots of light.

Cold, unwelcoming, vacuum.

The feeling of hopelessness weighs heavy on heart as I peer out this taunting window.

Hope all but vanished.

The loneliness absolute and ever present.

I am lost in the ever expanding, yet infinitely confining space which we call our universe.

We.

There once was a we. But now, there is just me.

And him. Kind of.

Those people. Those creatures whom I once thought so ill of, and wanted nothing but to be away from…

I now yearn for their contact.

Solitude can do strange things to my kind.

Humans.

We overcame all other species, dominating with intelligence, and yet…we are one of the weakest.

The most flexible and changeable.

Adaptable.

Breakable.

We can be twisted to do funny things.

Jeff keeps laughing at me and he won’t tell me why.

I don’t know if he speaks English.

He’s stuck here, too. But he can leave when he wants.

I saw him one day…in a corner. In a shadow.

I heard him laughing, and I saw him.

All he does is laugh.

It makes me insane.

But I’m not.

Sometimes I wish he’d just go away for good, but other times I’m grateful for his company.

I tell him all my thoughts.

He doesn’t talk. He just sits there.

He doesn’t eat, which saves me supplies.

The ship was stocked for four years.

If I stretch it, it could go maybe five.

That’s before the other guy wakes up.

Shut UP, Jeff.

Jeff was snickering behind my back the other day.

I saw him over by my comrade.

I bet he isn’t even frozen. I think him and Jeff talk about me… I hear them whispering sometimes, but when I look, Jeff’s gone and my shipmate pretends he’s asleep.

That bastard is a LIAR!

I don’t know what he wants, or why he’s plotting behind my back, but I’m not gonna sit here and the laughing stalk for these two.

There’s an emergency axe in the storage container…

I’ll see who’s laughing at who when I bust him out of his tube.

Let’s see who’s laughing then.

SHUT UP JEFF!!!

YOU’RE MAKING ME CRAZY!

But I’m not crazy. I’m not.

I’m NOT.

 

 

Bio: In my day to day life, I am known by Nikki. But in the realm of my creative works, I’m Syn. I don’t waste time telling people who I am; people don’t listen. I show people who I am. And just like any good work of art, people will form their own opinions of you, regardless of what you tell them or show them. And that’s why I leave that up to the individual.

Human Seed

by Donald Reich

The drops of rain came down like a torrent against the window. The rushing sound like a snare drum counting down, varying as the belts of rain subside and roar. Carleton sat on his favorite chair, a firm green armchair with a floral pattern. The floral pattern was an eyesore but the chair was so comfortable. In his periods of wakefulness, he would confine himself to the chair, resting in its firm caress. The chair faced the window from which he could watch the long dark road in the distance. To his left was the fireplace, it never burned very hot, Nilec would not allow it. She was fearful of the harm which could come to her children in his home. To his right, within his reach, was one of Nilec’s children. She stood two feet tall in a pot with dark soil around her roots. Her branches reached out like hands towards his chair. He would frequently put a mason jar with homemade hooch in her grasp. He could feel her imagining the taste and burn running down her trunk. He had begun to call her Helen, after his first wife, the only one he ever loved. Helen loved him with every fiber of her being. Helen was the first child of Nilec, her sapling had sprung shortly after his offering.

“Helen, how many times have I told you how much I love you?” asked Carleton. He stared her up and down longingly, remembering the curves of her body and the smell of her perfume. Her lingering touch seemed to rest on his heart even after the last one hundred and fifty years.

“Many times, dear, when you sleep it escapes from your lips with every breath.” He could hear her voice in his mind. A secret they both hid from Nilec. For if Nilec ever knew their love continued to burn like fire, she would end Helen’s life. A life he had stolen, for his own selfish gain.

He rose up from the chair and grabbed his watering pail. Four times a day he must water Nilec’s children. Each one a soul, taken by Carleton at the behest of Nilec. A task which confronted him with his guilt concerning their deaths. He always tried to start with a different child every day, their branches reaching forth, beckoning for water. His farmhouse used to be a very spacious and inviting place.

“I think Timothy has waited the whole year to be first. Fitting you should be chosen on your birthday,” said Carleton. He bent down and lightly grasped his son’s leaves. A loving gesture, the only present he could afford his son. He bent the pail ever so slightly, rushing the water out of the spout and into his pot. “I love you, son.”

The weight of the air turned dark and unholy. The moon lost its light and left the glow of the fire in the house. “Nilec is coming,” said Helen. “Her mind is afire with jealousy.”

“Let her come,” said Carleton.

The door seemed to groan inward as Nilec approached. Her dark hand turned the knob as it screamed against her unnatural, perverse touch. The closer she grew to achieving her full strength, the bolder she had become. The door opened slowly as the visage of Helen entered. “Carleton, my love,” said Nilec. “Why have you neglected me? My children can survive for a few days without water. I need another heart.”

“I have run out of children and wives to supply the hearts,” said Carleton. His eyes looking downward in submission. “I cannot find another wife of suitable ancestry. The women of this generation of childbearing age are self-absorbed and more concerned with having careers.” A half-truth in all honesty.

“The fruit of our labor is almost in fruition,” said Nilec. Her dark, sultry eyes tore into his heart. “I saved your life all those years ago. The least you can do is fulfill your end of the bargain. You wanted to live forever, all I ask for is hearts of British descent.”

His mother had saved his life by begging Nilec to grant him a long life as they faced starvation. Nilec is the guardian of the forest which surrounded his family farm. His family had been secluded from the Protestant religion of the earliest settlers from Europe. Nilec granted them food and shelter as they built their home. She had just been a large basswood tree in those days. As the years past, Nilec had begun to have a corporeal being as the number of hearts in her roots grew. During the Revolutionary War, the British had burnt down a large portion of her forest. Her hatred would be eternal for those of British ancestry. A British heart being the toll was her way of revenge.

“Why must you assume Helen’s form?” Carleton asked.

“Her body excites you. Her smile makes you long for me.”

“You torture me!”

Her eyes grew furious at his accusation. “I love you. How could I torture you?” Nilec said.

“How could I not be tortured? My soul is so corrupt, new life dies under my feet as I walk,” said Carleton. “You want to become my Helen. You will never be my Helen!”

“I will be your Helen. She is a part of me just like she is in your heart,” Nilec said. She moved toward his chair. Her eyes rested on Helen as she stood near her. “I have brought every aspect of Helen into my almost complete body.” Her clothes fell away to reveal Helen’s nude body as she ran her hands down it. Inciting his body to action.

He moved toward her as he longed for her body but Helen’s voice stopped him cold. “No, Carleton!”

“What is this?” said Nilec. “Your wife is dead. Just like the others and all of your children! Buried to give me a body for my perfection. You married those women, killed them and their children… for me!”

The tears streamed freely from his eyes as the moment had finally come. He and Helen had spent the last few weeks finding a way to end this. “I have spent the last one hundred and twenty years living with their souls in my home. You turned them into plants as you absorbed their hearts. It was not enough to have me take their lives, I also had to water them and hear them grow. They did not lose their humanity until you finished with them,” said Carleton.

Nilec reached out and grabbed Helen’s branches. “Find me a heart or I kill your wife,” said Nilec.

“No. I must let her go,” said Carleton.

Nilec screamed as she tore Helen’s roots out of her pot.  “Do it, Carleton!” was audible as she was cast into the fire.

“I love you, Helen,” said Carleton.

“Love will not save you, Carleton,” said Nilec. She sat in his favorite chair, naked and beckoning him. “You will be mine.”

He looked her up and down as the visage of Helen fell away from Nilec like a shell. She had ended her possession of Helen’s soul by throwing her into the fire. A vague silhouette was all that remained as Nilec struggled to recover from the loss of vitality. Carleton seized upon her paralysis and begun tearing his children out of their pots while flinging them into the fire.

“What are you doing, my love?” said Nilec. Her form faltering as even more vitality drained from her with every burning root.

“Setting my family free.”

“Stop, we could be free together.”

“I am free,” said Carleton. He had run out of her children and had one last life to take. He reached down and grabbed a can of gasoline he kept under the sink. The cool liquid running over his face and body, ensuring his death. The frail form of Nilec was withering away. He grabbed her and embraced her as the fire engulfed the house.

 

 

Bio: I was born in Rodchester, MI. I lived there until the age of 14 until my parents moved our family to FL. We bounced around a little bit during the first year but finally settled in North Port,FL. I attended North Port High School and an alumni of their Thespian Program. I joined the Army after high school and stayed in for four years. After my term, I moved back to North Port to go back to college which is where I am now. I will be graduating this semester and moving on to USF, where I will be attaining my Social Science Secondary Education Degree.

Pecans

by M. Parks


Madness is a gradual process. Talking to myself, wandering aimlessly around the house, or just sitting and spacing out for unknown amounts of time. That was how it began. It was like a drip by drip deterioration of my giving-a-shit. Maybe it was that she was never coming back or that I lost my job or the argument that has kept my sister from talking to me all year. Or maybe, it was the apparitions that had begun to walk around my house…. but honestly, it began before all of that. Those were more like the results. The results of my mind slowly going blank.

Loneliness. It will force the mind to find something to relate to. I began talking to the stray cats that hung around my house–having full conversations with them. We were getting into heated debates about the origins of consciousness and the creation of the universe. I had begun yelling at them angrily about their ignorant philosophies and eventually they stopped coming around and I stopped leaving my room.

I never even would have walked outside that day but it just happened to be that bug up my ass kinda day and I decided to take out the trash. I grabbed the putrid, month old, plastic bag from under the sink and walked outside. Shirtless. Shoe-less. In my boxers. Then I saw him. Sitting on the ground, digging with his bare hands and screaming into the hole. It was Old man Willy. I used to listen to him rant about his politics and his constant losing battle between him and the squirrels over his pecan tree. They were hardly discernible, one-sided conversations that would begin to shoot back and forth between completely unrelated subjects but it always ended with the unforgivable sins of the squirrels. Willy had been alone in his house for longer than I’ve been alive. He had begun the madness process long ago but I had never seen him like this before. He looked like a child playing in a sand box. Digging and pilling the dirt but screaming.

“Am I a coward?! Is it all for nothing?!” he said as he continued to dig.

Something between him and I resonated inside me.  I could hear the desperation in his voice as he was catching his breath and wiping tears from his face. I couldn’t even remember the last time I thought of something as beautiful. It takes strength to dive that far into insanity. I’m not sure how long I stood there watching him. Time seemed to be standing still and no one else even noticed the scene. Eventually, I was back inside and found myself turning on music and cleaning my house. A week later, I had a job. I was doing things. I was exercising, I was going out in public, I was having conversations with strangers. Somehow, I had hardly even thought about that day afterwards and Willy had seemed to go back to regular crazy Ol’ Willy but that scene had changed me.

Two months later, I finished cooking dinner, cleaned the dishes and took the trash out. As I came around the corner, I saw Willy. An eerie chill ran up my spine at the sight of a familiar scene. This time it was much more grotesque. Willy was knelt in his drive way. He looked as if he was in a trance.

He was sitting in the middle of a hand drawn circle of blood and holding a dead squirrel up towards the setting sun. It wasn’t that what he was doing was so odd to me, and some might say that that truly makes me more insane than Willy, but again, there was a resonance between him and I. I realized how, just two months ago, I was sitting on the edge of that same cliff that old man Willy seemed to have jumped off of. He had mirrored my insanity and brought me back to my senses. I felt bad for the innocent squirrel he was sacrificing to the pecan god that resided in his head, but it was his insanity that brought me out of my own darkness somehow. He only does it twice a year now and I observe through my window as not to disturb him.

 

The Culvert

by Anonymous

 

Curled up in the culvert, I spun the cylinder on my revolver as I struggled to release the last shred of emotions that had once made me feel human. To my surprise and discomfort, a black crow landed by my feet. To me, it was a sign that the loaded gun in my hands was ready to be used. If I wasn’t going to travel outwards, then I would surely either die from the cold or the heartache of infinite solitude.

Although I had no real way of tracking the days anymore, I figured that it had been almost a year since the plague had wiped out humanity. Ironically enough, one could assume that my immunity to this severe, lethal pneumonia would have made me incredibly fortunate, but as it turned out, no one else in the city of Albany had been quite as lucky.

For months on end, I made radio calls that were never answered. I considered traveling south to avoid harsh winters as well as potentially finding others, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the borders of my hometown. I wasn’t sure whether I was more terrified of impending disappointment or simply feared interacting with strangers again.

It was late February when it happened, right after most of the snow had already fallen and melted for the season. I assumed that it was around late October or early November by now. The weather was becoming crisp and I had an intuition that snow would soon fall. Survival had been slightly challenging without electricity so far, but I made do. The city had an endless supply of candles, blankets, canned goods and water to last the rest of my lifetime. My main concern was the amount of snow that would fill the streets. I could only shovel so much by myself. Soon enough, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

“Goodbye,” I said, holding the barrel to my head and making direct eye contact with the bird.

Just then, something happened that inevitably saved my life. Perhaps the bird was not an ominous sign of death, but God creating a split second distraction so I did not pull the trigger before I was able to spot the beautiful woman walking towards me. Did I still believe in God? I wasn’t sure of anything at that moment. I wasn’t even sure if I had been hallucinating or not. Maybe I had finally gone mad. Although my mind was mesmerized, my body reacted instantly. I jumped out of the culvert and tucked the handle of the gun in the back of my waistband.

A petite, blond and incredibly attractive woman approached me with the sudden movements of a small rabbit. Her appearance was not nearly as grungy as my own, so I assumed that she had remained more secluded.

She was obviously nervous, but I knew that she was just as excited to see another human being as I was. I finally heard the soft, timid voice of this angel say, “Hi there, my name is Angela. You are the first person that I’ve seen in a really long time.”

Angela. Of course, she had the name of an angel too. I held my hands up in surrender and said, “It’s okay Angela, I’m friendly. You are the first other survivor that I have met so far.” I held out my hand for her to shake. “Blake. Nice to meet you.”

She smiled with teeth whiter than those one would imagine seeing in the apocalypse. Then again, I’m sure that she has had just as much access to the endless supply of toothpaste as I have.

“What have you been through, sweetheart?” I asked tenderly.

“Well, I’m from Troy. I’ve been held up in my home, for the most part. I’ve only wandered three times. Twice I have filled my van with food and supplies, which lasted me for months. This is my third time. Before now, I didn’t want to leave the walls of my home, for those walls were the only true thing that I had left that made me feel safe and helped me remain sane. I think that I finally faced the fact that I was going to die alone and I also feared the harshness of the winter, so I decided to head south.”

“That’s what I considered doing, but I had essentially given up on trying. Angela, you truly don’t realize what you have just saved me from,” I said, carefully revealing my gun, ensuring that it was pointing at me, not her. She jumped back instantly. I could tell that she was not familiar with it’s presence. “Please, don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”

“Were you about to…”

“Yes, I think so. I mean I know so. Either way, thank you. I really owe my life to you.”

She looked at me expressionless, eyes wide. I could sense how terrified she was. I felt as though I was trying to coax over a baby deer in the woods. I unloaded the gun, pouring the bullets into my tattered shirt pocket and placed the gun in the culvert. She had to know that she was completely safe. We stared at each other in awe for a moment. She was so beautiful. Instantly, I was no longer the most unfortunate fellow on the planet, but a man of incredible luck. What were the odds that the first person I found would be this stunning? I wondered if I would have a chance with a girl like her during domestic times. We inched closer and closer together, examining every detail, as if we were reassuring ourselves of each others existence. The sensation I got from being next to her was remarkable. I held my palm to her cheek, craving to touch and taste and smell every bit of her. I pulled her in for a passionate embrace and we held each other there tightly, surging with the longing desire that we each possessed. Angela, the delicate angel, saved me from myself.

 

 

 

A Way with Words

By: Bluefin Jones


…then she left in an emotional outburst but with no words to express it; just an enraged look about her. When she returned, Fredrich realized tonight would be the last night of his life. She finally snapped and got out the butterfly knife he gave her on their ten-year anniversary. She walked towards him with a hint of madness shining from her glazed eyes. As the crazed woman advanced, she only said six words over and over again in a fury of speed.

The same six words he told her 41 seconds ago as a means of separation; the same six words cried out while peeling his flesh to ribbons; the same six words that sliced into her heart, and now into his.

“I gotta cut you loose now.”

 

Bio: In a time different from this, on a distant sea, Bluefin Jones, while riding his domesticated Dinoshark, spoke to another man simply named Redwing Smith, who was held by the claw-hooves of a giant flying Pot-bellied pig, about the quality of peanut butter in this timeline’s supermarkets. Bluefin chose the leading market brand name while Redwing chose the generic brand, and promptly so, they entered an epic battle of wits, loud noises, scoffing, and theories of the sandwich crafting. They went their separate ways and never spoke again, but Bluefin still thinks about that fateful encounter and adjusts his sleeping schedule for 20-minute crying fits of frustration. Bluefin Jones seeks an outlet from the separation and found that his creative outlet is best expressed through the written word.

 

 

Suspended

By: Danielle Dean


I’m dozens of feet up in the air, suspended inside of a clear plastic box that is dangling by one thick, metal wire. With each shift and nudge of the wind, the box moves; swaying back and forth like a pendulum with no purpose. The holes, which have been cut craftily at the top of the box for breathing purposes, allows me to hear the excited, anxious chatter of the crowd that has collected so far below. I hear one man exclaim that I’ll never make it…and I fear he may be right.

Glancing down at the scene before me, fear ripples through my body; my anxiety at being trapped so high in the sky pools in my stomach, and then cools and hardens into a dull, throbbing ache. Petrified of the wire holding me snapping in half, I lean forward and press my sticky palms up against the cool plastic of my prison; I can feel my pulse throbbing and thudding erratically within the palms of my hands. My fear is a tangible thing—real and raw—and it’s threatening to swallow me whole; to devour me until not a single shred of my sanity remains.

In a sense, it almost feels like I’m drowning; the air is forced out of my lungs and lodged in my throat, igniting a fire in my chest that spreads to the tips of my fingers and curls my toes. My body aches for the sort of relief that it cannot possibly obtain; relief from this all-consuming, soul-gnawing fear. It defines me; it shapes and molds me into a disfigured being that threatens to break apart at the seams. And as I squeeze my eyes shut in a vain attempt to block out my senses, I almost feel myself stretching thin as my anxiety overwhelms me. If I could shut down the height, shut down the drowning, shut down the fear…if I could just shut down it all, I’d be okay. I murmur these inane words of comfort to myself over and over again, hoping and praying that something—anything—could save me from the feeling of those clear plastic walls closing in around me; smothering and taunting me with the promise of falling.

But I don’t fall; I never fall. Instead, I dangle precariously, as though I’m teetering on the edge of a cliff or close to toppling off the side of a mountain. Breathe in, breathe out; it’s all I can do, trapped between falling and drowning, and the simple task of inhaling and exhaling becomes my anchor. Steady, reassuring, concrete.

I open my eyes…and find myself wrapped up in my own embrace, hugging a blanket to my chest and threatening to shove my fist down my throat.

“It’s okay,” a woman’s voice tells me, and as I blink rapidly and glance up at the familiar face of my mother, my body and mind comes careening back to reality.

“It’s okay,” she repeats. “Your panic attack is over.”

 

Bio: My name’s Danielle Dean–I’m an English major with a passion for creative writing of all genres and platforms; I’ve always viewed writing as one of the greatest ways for people to express themselves, and I hope to continue on with it for the rest of my life.​

 

Long Meadow Rd.

By: Megan Finsel

 

18 Long Meadow Rd.

12:35pm Monday, 2014

 

I was terrified to die, but the day I did I was surprisingly calm. It was an average day; I took the kettle off the stove, called my mother, lit a cigarette. But I was putting the wash on the line when I saw it coming toward us from high in the sky.

My cell phone rang. I answered.

“Do you see it?” My husband demanded in a panic.

I nodded, although he couldn’t see. “Yeah.”

“This is it, Vikki, this is it.”

I swallowed. Yeah.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the backyard.”

It was hurtling through the mid-summer clouds; a bird, a rocket, a nightmare.

“Vikki?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

He was at the office; he wouldn’t make it home in time. This was goodbye. I exhaled a cloud of smoke and, briefly, the sky was hidden from me.

“I love you too.”

Those were my last words.

#

16 Long Meadow Rd.

12:36pm Monday, 2014

 

It’s finally happening, he thought, grabbing cans off the pantry shelves and dumping them into a laundry basket. “Lizzie, get my gun. Philip, grab as many blankets as you can.”

The TV on the counter was shouting the newsreel. The four-year-old came down the hallway, dragging a teddy bear. He quickly picked her up and hugged her tight. “Come on everyone, into the bunker.”

“Is this another drill, Dad?” Philip asked from behind an armload of blankets.

“No, this is real.”

They ran outside, across the backyard to the bunker. They called me crazy for building this. Now look whose laughing, he thought, ushering his family inside. Maybe it wasn’t zombies like he predicted, but at least his efforts weren’t a complete waste.

He glanced at the sky and saw it burning the clouds, coming right for them. He shut the door and bolted it securely.

 

#

14 Long Meadow Rd.

12:37pm Monday, 2014

 

“Don’t leave me!”

“I have to get out there…”

“There’s nothing you can do, Arthur please stay with me!”

His fingers slipped through hers as he ran for the door. She lunged to catch his arm but he was too fast. Flinging the door open, she stumbled out into the hazy light. The sky was on fire, the air crackled, the cul-de-sac was rippling in heat waves.

He stopped in the yard and turned to look back at her.

“Arthur!”

It was upon them.

#

12 Long Meadow Rd.

12:38pm Monday, 2014

 

He burst through the front door, his tie crooked and his shirt rumpled. He’d left work in a hurry. She met him in the foyer and flung her arms around his neck.

“Hurry, downstairs. Into the basement.” he said. She followed without a word, clinging to him. The cat ran by between their legs; he scooped it up, tucking it under his arm.

They rushed downstairs as the rumbling got louder and it got closer and they could hear the china rattling in the cabinet. This is it, he thought, this is what we’ve all been waiting for… They hadn’t gotten down the stairs when the world exploded around them.

She screamed and hugged him tight.

The cat hid between them.

He buried his face in his wife’s shoulder and shut his eyes.

But there was no other place he would rather die.

 

#

10 Long Meadow Rd.

12:39pm Monday, 2014

 

She sat in her rocking chair watching through the bedroom window as the clouds caught on fire. The ceiling cracked and the walls shuddered. She knew it was all over the news and people were panicking.

Would anything be left? She thought about her neighbors; Vikki and her husband, the single father and his three little kids, Arthur and his wife, and the newlywed couple who just moved in next door. So young, they are all so young.

She felt ready to die, but their lives had barely begun. She had lived her life, but they had so much more to come. Such a pity, she thought, such a shame.

There was a bright flash of light. She closed her eyes. The Earth convulsed as it struck, the world went dark………………..… and that was how it ended.

 

Bio: I’m a Special Education major with a love for books. Writing is my passion; it is how I connect with the world and share my thoughts and emotions. To get to know me more you need to read my stories because I put a piece of my heart into each one. My goal is to inspire at least one person through my work; then I know I’ve done my job. ​