The Face by Sherri Thompson

On a day like any other in a house just about the same as any other, in the playroom on the second floor she could be found. In the same computer chair, before the same television, playing and watching. Day after day. All the same.

What more could she do? What more did she care to do? There was only so much time left. How much she did not know. Nobody quite knew. There had been estimates but none had been accurate yet.

The day was rainy and gray, the room darkened by nature’s sour mood. She liked it that way. On sunny days she had to close the curtains so any possibility of glare on her precious television would be zero. The rain came down in alternating patterns of heavy torrents and lighter, steady drizzles. At the moment she could hear the finger-like pattering on the roof and the dull gurgle of the gutter as the rushing water attempted to squeeze by the dead, rotting leaves lodged in the small tunnel. Honey, her favorite cat, rubbed up against her leg and meowed loudly. She absent-mindedly reached down and felt for her, running her hand a few times along her back to her tail, the fur soft beneath her palm. After a few strokes she always lost interest and waited until the cat did also.

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The Last Ones by John Rabon

I can still see her there in the sunlight. Through the boards covering my windows, there are small streams of light that penetrate the defenses and allow me a chance to see the world outside. The beams brighten my house as best they can, but sometimes they’re like little floodlights trained on my position, challenging me to come outside. Continue reading…

Library by Jay Whitaker

Our dialogue, which I’ve begun to analyze in depth as of late, speaks differently than before, upon replay. Reading between the lines, I have found that you may have since inserted new clauses, sentences, entire paragraphs, cluttering the pages, flooding into the margins, aimless asterisks blurring any original meaning and intent, ushering in lengthy footnotes citing irrelevant sources, drowning out the initial context of whatever subject may have once been concerned between our nimble tongues.

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A Life In a Day (Of An Ant) by Elise Hopple

Somewhere outside a small village in northern Greece, a tiny green grape fell from its sun-baked vine. Long had it waited and ripened to its golden perfection only to fall upon the ground in an act of gross humility. No wine would take this grape’s taste for a tiny little
ebony-coloured ant had taken it. Quickly the little ant leapt, over cliffs and across canyons to a place much larger than he. An enormous mountain of rocky soil lay before him and many others like him who were also taking in the sight before entering the enormous palace.
Inside the palace, there were millions of little ebony-colored servants scattered all about who served the awesome winged queen who lay grandly and gluttonously in the centre hall. Some of the servants were taking food to the queen, others were looking after her children, still other servants were building, and some were training to fight. Continue reading…

Moonlight Sonata by Andrea Brinkley

I’m not sure what it is about the moon and the stars that get me; when they sneak in, I can’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment or gratitude. Each little star signifies my successful trek through one more day, twenty-four more hours have passed and I’m still here, I’m still alive. When that dark atmosphere blankets my thoughts, my sliver of bliss emerges; it’s like a momentary whirlwind of silence that I can feel in my bones, followed by the sweetest melody,
like a sigh of relief. My innocence emerges with the tune, and I bask in it for as long as I can hold on to it. The night air almost seems to flow through my body like a whimsical song, a stellar melody that rises and falls like my breath. I think about my life like I do a symphony, as a work of art with each measure or sonata contributing to the whole of me, my symphony. It is alive as I am, and it breathes with a crescendo and decrescendo. My melody floats a lot like the breeze on
a cool night, calm and steady, although it hasn’t always been that way; I haven’t always been in tune. It always happens that there’s a surge in my melody that rages painfully through a perpetual storm, the storm that is my life. As it seems, life has most certainly reached a crescendo, but I have to do what I always do and ride out the storm.

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