Ramone Luna was flying to the United States to visit his brother. Now, the FBI is accusing him of trafficking drugs from Brazil. He is locked in solitary confinement. After time passes beyond his recognition, Ramone begins to recede into a world that he cannot distinguish between his current reality.Rudolfo San Miguel earned a bachelor's degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University. He has written fiction for ten years and continues to develop as a writer, drafting stories that amuse him. He hopes they amuse you as well.Rick Patterson has pushed his five-year-old son Jason to be an achiever. When the boy is invited to a birthday party, Rick believes everyone will like him. However, Jason attacks birthday boy Ben Cowley after he tries to hog his friend Greg. When Ben's parents ask Jason and his mother to leave, Rick and Mr. Cowley break into a fight. Rick gets over his pride though, and his family apologizes to the Cowleys.Norbert Kovacs lives and writes in Hartford, Connecticut. He has published stories in Westview, Thin Air, Headway, Corvus Review, and The Write Launch. His website is www.norbertkovacs.net.Love and tennis: An epic club tennis match reveals more than mastery of winning tennis skills.Kenneth N. Margolin is a retired attorney, and lives with his wife, Judith, in Newton, Massachusetts. As an attorney, Ken made it a sacred mission to avoid legalese in his professional writing. Still relatively new to fiction, Ken's stories have been published in print and online, in Pif Magazine, Evening Street Review, Twenty-Two Twenty-Eight, Short Edition, The Literary Hatchet, among others; poetry in Shot Glass Journal. A couple become disillusioned with their life in Echo Park. When an old friend comes to visit them, he triggers a different perspective on their relationship, and thus they become increasingly alienated by one another. What is unclear is whether the friend has unwittingly helped, or deliberately hindered, the long term partnership of an old college buddy. Chris Viner is a writer based in Los Angeles. He is the author of Lemniscate (nominated for a Pushcart Award). His work appears in Ash, Colorado Review, Critical Read, The Festival Review and The London Magazine, among others. He holds degrees from Goldsmiths, University of London and St Anne's College, University of Oxford, where he was a recipient of the Pasby Prize for his writing. Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He's had over two hundred fifty stories and poems published so far, and six books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of six review editors. https: //twitter.com/bottomstripper, https: //www.facebook.com/EdAhern73/?ref=bookmarks, https: //www.instagram.com/edwardahern1860/"The Souvenir" tells of an attraction repressed by distance and the constraints of friendship until the connection vanishes, leaving only longing.David A. Carrillo lives in Benicia, California. "Harvest of Bittersweet Plums" belongs to a collection of short fiction about family relationships that he has written. Carrillo also writes travel literature and historical fiction. His story "Vengeance Was She" is scheduled to appear in a 2021 issue of Frontier Tale.What kind of father disappoints his daughter by waking her up to wish her a happy birthday only to say goodbye? I hope you like your presents, sorry I won't be here when you open them. Being on-call 24/7 sucked. How do you explain to a seven-year-old the crappy choices adults have to make? Kids see through the bullshit. There was no excuse for him to be anywhere else but home: blowing up balloons, barbecuing hot dogs, and singing Happy Birthday. Will she ever forgive me?www.WapshottPress.org
