~Pink Motel by Cynthia~

"Pixies, my ass," the maid said to her reflection in the mirror.

She ripped off the sheets from the double bed and left them on the floor. She continued into the bathroom to scrub the tub, clean the toilet and empty the wastebasket that held several condom wrappers.

"At least she had the sense to use a rubber."

As the maid worked her way around the room dusting and vacuuming she wondered who was in here last night. It looked like it must have been some party - beer and vodka bottles, soda cans, pizza boxes, a white powder on the nightstand.

She just shook her head and kept on cleaning.

"Don't know why I work so hard. It's not like the people who come in here would even notice."

She put clean sheets on the bed and smoothed the thin bedspread until all the wrinkles were gone.

As she bent to pick up the dirtied sheets, she noticed a piece of paper under the bed.

On the crumpled piece of paper were the words, "Help me! I don't want to be here! Please help me!"The exclamation points all had little hearts at the bottom.

~At the Powwow by Ann Walters~

With a scattering of light in the eye the boy dances, his feathers weaving the colors of stone and corn, his head cocked in an attitude of supplication. His feet singe the ground where they touch.

Too many of the old men drink beer and shuffle from pickup to pickup comparing the size of their tires or the weight of the abandoned hopes that push their truck beds so low they threaten to scrape the road.

Some mothers busy themselves with costume changes and last-minute beadwork. Others sit on plastic chairs in the patchy grass and watch the girls with their subtle sways and hops, remembering vaguely what it feels like to flirt with only a flick of the hand.

A few old women sit in a circle, chanting softly to themselves. Whatever their words are, only they are meant to know. Behind them a baby crawls in the dirt and a pair of dogs mate quickly before chasing down stray crumbs of fry bread.

Back in the central ring, the boy bends. His fringed kilt sweeps the earth like a broom until he stops and kneels, quivering, on one knee. He would kiss the ground if he could, would love it into being with his breath, but a smattering of applause is the only answer to his prayer.

~Pilgrims by Dragon~

Papa said we was gonna be pilgrims, and I was even gonna get to cut school, but don't tell my mama. Papa says, don't tell your mama nothing, Punkin, cause your mama trying to take you away from me, that's how come she got them judges tie my hands with these restricted visitation rights.

Papa says, we're going to Graceland, Baby. You pack Suzy doll and John Bear up in your school sack and I'm gonna swing by for you Monday morning before they ring that first bell. You can have chicken nuggets and chocolate shakes all the way to Memphis.

Mama don't let me eat McDonalds much.

So I better not tell her how me and Papa's planning on being pilgrims.

~Resolution by Clarke O'Gara~

“How long does it take to feel the effects?”

He shrugged, “It’s probably worked already.” I didn’t feel any different though.

”I don’t feel any different.” I admitted. It was my friend who told me to try this guy, some weird mix off hypnosis and mind drugs to get over my ex-husband.

”Tell me about your ex-husband then.”

”He’s handsome.” I sniggered.

”What does his face look like?”

”I don’t know it’s kind of… he has…” I couldn’t grasp onto it, it was like a dream fading, where ever detail you try to focus on seems to disintegrate, the harder you try the more the details fall apart. Then the other details break up as well. His face was gone, I couldn’t picture anything.

“Shit it did work.”

~MY SUMMER OF KATIE by Diane~

That particular summer I had signed up to perform as part of the Pirates Extravaganza! show at Busch Gardens, just about 20 minutes from my parents’ house. I had a clear and selfish reason for choosing this particular summer job—Katie Winchester. Katie and I had gone through school together since kindergarten. I’d never taken particular notice of her, but then she went away to college. She slimmed down, got herself a pair of fashionably funky square-rimmed glasses, and streaked her shoulder-length blond hair with flashes of bright pink. The new Katie Winchester was first revealed to me at Mickel’s Dairy—she was enjoying a low-fat vanilla custard over Memorial Day while visiting her family.

When my buddy Matt told me she was playing the Pirate Princess all summer long I knew what I had to do. I seriously began to ponder switching my major to theater come fall. Or maybe switching colleges entirely. It would depend on how the summer ended…