Do You Need a HoloDay?

by Emma Burnett

I am surrounded by family. I tell the joke. They laugh. I reach out to tuck my daughter’s hair back. It almost feels real. I smile at them.
“HoloDay off.”
I return to work.
#
I dust off my hands. The seeds are not growing. The ship scans my stress.
Need a HoloDay?
I do.
“Yes.”
I return to the holoroom. I am surrounded by family.
#
The news packet catches up to the ship, information travelling faster than me. They’re all gone now. Everything is gone now.
The ship scans my stress.
Need a HoloDay?
I do. With them. Forever.
“No.”

Reflection

by T.L. Beeding

You are not me.
I know all the faces you put on to fool people into thinking they know you. Thinking they love you. Thinking you love them. But I know what you really are inside.
I’ve seen the fangs come out, the scars, the lies. The contempt for dreams achieved that you wished were yours. The countless times you’ve taken someone’s life beneath foul breath, another aggressive fantasy masked by a porcelain face and endearing eyes. But though people see us as one and the same, I’ll always know what you really are.
You are not me.

Children Are The Stories You Can’t Tell

by Christina Kapp

Shredded baby blankets, stuffed pigs with holes in the neck, Lego forks long divorced from Lego spoons, abandoned crutches, empty mittens. What did I learn from twenty years of parenting? Hermit crabs eat their molt, ingesting their pasts to fortify their futures, but children shed and leave behind ripped tutus, paper tulips, pencil stubs, and clanking sports medals like artifacts of a civilization you remember, but did not live in. Who owns the rights to the retelling? Who is the native, and who is the colonist? I know. I am old enough not to ask questions I don’t want answered. 

Disjointed Custody

by Nina Miller

Arvin stands at the doorway, watching as his ex runs around putting together Kalin’s backpack. His weekends stay the same, yet she’s never ready for him. He watches his son’s long lashes fluttering as he sleeps. Wonders if he’s dreaming about their planned zoo trip. Kalin knows all his animal names and the sounds they make. More than two weekends a month is needed to acquaint himself with his toddler’s developing personality and to share all the love accumulated while away.
“He needs sleep,” she says in an accusatory way.
“I’ll stay until he wakes,” Arvin replies, prepared to wait.

Gerry The Missionary

by Seth Steinbacher

While alive, Gerry was a khaki-souled Christian who never smoked nor drank. In death, after a mix-up at the rural morgue, the Chicha people put cigarettes between the grinning jaws of his skull and fed it tiny shots of maize liquor. They covered his eyes with wrap-around sunglasses in respect to his spirit. When the elders brought out his skull for festival days, the children tried to make him laugh with their jokes as they painted his bald pate. Stripped of the flesh, Gerry seemed to enjoy himself. In this way, the Chicha learned not to fear death.