By A. Alan Beck

Myths from Caves

“The Dark taught him how to see, what to see: the shadow-puppet images of itself for which he had invented a thousand reverent words. He had no words for what happened next.”

By Bettina Tison Bennett

The Upside Down Ocean

“Pebbles dug into her flesh as the salt from her tears merged with the earth. Sedona was home, and her mother was gone.”

By Jerry G. Erwin

Prayer For Alana

“She was just one more dead body slowly finding its way home on a phlegmatic sea of official procedures and paperwork, and . . .”

By Greg Harris

Mosaic

“Mosaic needs all the pieces to fit. I claim that nothing is out of place. We have just moved in together.”

By Kay Jordan

The Secret Is

“Then, slowly, deliberately, he opened his hand and dropped the bowl. It did not hit the carpeted floor. It did not break. It disappeared.”

By Kathy Kincade

A Season of Uncertainties

“I cannot do this, I want to tell them. The one time I tried . . . my ankles kept buckling and I hugged the railing for two hours before giving up.”

By Kathryn Kulpa

Platonic

“You're writing a letter to a man you've never met. He lives on an island and you'll never meet him, or perhaps you will, perhaps geography will soon be as extinct as vinyl. . .”

By Charles Ries

Albino Prunes

“He loved this chair. When he fell into it, it seemed to embrace him. She knew him and gave him quick, affirmative comfort. . . . He wondered if he had known the chair in a past life.”

By Beth Thomas

To Know of Things Tired

“He carries a dozen old cigar boxes. . . . He strains to wrap his arms around them; his back bends to the wind. The dead are heavy.”