QB
Staff of QB
After September
BETTY STANTON
I walk toward the place where we first stepped when we had no homes, no reason to stop for relics. The air was swollen with laughter then, loud with its own wealth before cameras swallowed me whole and you kept the moon on a leash.
Today it is different. She runs into you now, frantic with her need to be everything to you. She holds herself out like an offering, and you take her in. I move slowly. I will not rearrange my body for you. I will not fracture into your shape. Time chisels us into acceptance. There is no winning. Only waiting. She believes you two can be one. I believe it too. Belief is nothing but surrender.
The wind is humid. It brushes past like the breath of something already buried in these backyard echoes of childhood. Play collapses into schedule. Love collapses into habit and I walk toward the place where we first stepped when we had no homes, no reason to stop. I carry the silence that comes after.
—Betty Stanton
Please, Cheese Me, Whoa Yeah
Lee Hammerschmidt
“Man,” Detective Garnish said, looking at the encrusted cheese covered face of shady real estate tycoon Monte Rayjac. “All he needs is some marinara.”
“Add bread and salad,” Detective Galangal, Garnish’s new partner said, “and you’ve got a full meal.”
Both men chuckled.
“So, Doc,” Garnish said. “What happened?”
“Well,” Dr. Humphrey Dowdy, medical examiner exemplar said. “He was restrained and the melted cheese concoction was poured over his face, filling his mouth and nostrils, cutting off his breathing. He died of suffocation.”
“He couldn’t just spit it out and blow his nose?” Garnish asked.
“No,” Humphrey said. “Fried mozzarella sticks.”
Lee Hammerschmidt is a Visual Artist/Writer/Troubadour. He’s authored 10 collections of short stories and illustrations.
Travel Journal Entry #3
E.J. LEROY
A plastic bottle
Remnant of humanity
Universal thread
Odd thoughts while writing this travel journal entry. Faces and feet pass in a blur in front of arches and mosaics. Everyone talks about the architecture or cuisine while traveling, maybe the language and national dress. But there’s a plastic bottle in the road, a universal sign of both littering and global capitalism. In a flash, I see the commonality of all mankind, not through family, friendship, or love, but litter. The familiar packaging, the international brand name—how can anyone fight when we share the same water and imbibe from the same companies?
E.J. LeRoy is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer with a forthcoming mpreg novella. Curious? Visit http://ejleroy.weebly.com.
Tiny House
PAUL HOSTOVSKY
It feels so good
to throw stuff out,
toss what’s unneeded,
which is just about
everything as it turns out,
declutter the rooms,
consolidate the stanzas
into one tiny poem
about spaciousness.
Paul Hostovsky’s poems appear and disappear simultaneously (ta-da!). His new collection is Perfect Disappearances (2025).
Space
E. FLORIAN GLUDOVACZ
They say that in space nobody can hear you scream. The endless void and its hostile vacuum are not welcoming to human life. I check my helmet a final time and press the button that engages the air lock. I peer through the porthole, gazing at the cold blackness and the brilliant shining stars. There is no twinkle to them without an atmosphere to refract the light.
The lock cycle completes depressurisation and the door slides back. I step outside and float in a lazy spin. I joyously yell me lungs out, because in space, nobody can hear me scream.
Florian writes long and short stories, likes cheese, and is a friend to dogs and pandas everywhere. @ndbag.bsky.social
Room for One
MONICA LYREHART
Radiation Imminent, T minus eight minutes.
Liz shoved another water jug into the shelter, hands shaking. There was room left for one adult, but it would be weeks before rescue.
She scraped everything from the pantry into a box.
Six minutes.
Sirens blared, briefly stunning her.
Deep breaths.
She secured oxygen canisters to masks and ran back.
Four minutes.
She wedged the box into the shelter, rapidly checking:
Water. Food. Waste container. Oxygen. Favorite Blanket.
Two minutes.
“Mommy?”
She grabbed Toby. Kissed his sweet hair. Shoved him in.
“Drink. Eat. Potty there. Breathers here. Like we practiced… I love you.”
Monica is a speculative fiction author, poet, writing contest goblin, and “the best mommy ever.”
Death Euphemisms in 2250
LISA TIMPF
pushing up gen-mod daisies
taking a dirt nap on Mars
buying the moisture farm
sleeping with the fishes on Enceladus
wearing a wooden onesie on Weywot
Inspired in part by a list of Earthly death euphemisms listed in a press release from mariecurie.org.uk
Lisa Timpf’s writing has appeared in Star*Line, Polar Borealis, Scifaikuest and other venues.
This month...
Contributions from...
Nicole M. Babb, Rachel M. Hollis, Ian Stewart, Mike Range, Marissa M. Zhu, Lisa Timpf, E. Florian Gludovacz, Paul Hostovsky, Monica Lyrehart, E.J. LeRoy, Lee Hammerschmidt, Betty Stanton, Zary Fekete, Christopher Collingwood, Alaina Hammond, Kenneth M. Kapp, Meghan Murphy, Adrienne Rex, DS Maolalai, Claudia Wysocky, Chris Doty-Dunn, Alethea Paul, Ken Kakareka, Moira Richardson, Jan Cronos, Barb DeMoney, Rickey Rivers Jr, Mike Murphy, Brett Abrahamsen, and Jaina Cipriano.
Cover art
featuring photograph from Rolle Pass, Italy by Damiano Baschiera (2018)
