The story of the week for May 1 to 5 is…
Pink Horizons by Andrew Nosti
All posts by Tim
RACHEL CANWELL: Not Dusting
Dear Love
It’s been a week. Seven days.
I miss your quiet breath, your constant steady being.
The cat misses you too.
I still lay two plates.
We haven’t dusted.
Because what if those feathery motes that dance in the sunlight are the final pieces of you?
Love Me x
Rachel Canwell is a writer and teacher living in Cumbria. Her debut flash collection ‘Oh I do like to be’ was published by Alien Buddha in July 2022. Her short fiction has been published in Sledgehammer Lit, Pigeon Review, Reflex Press, Selcouth Station and The Birdseed amongst others. She is currently working on her first novel.
KARIN DOUCETTE: Lost Appetite
When talons scratch the aluminum light pole, a clot of alarmed mallards skitters across the nearby pond. But Hawk focuses on the mammoth housing development blocking the skyline. Earth machines are stripping his meadow, releasing a feast of rodents and hares. No thanks. There’s already a lump in his throat.
Karin has published on thewritelaunch.com, fiftywordstories.com, and in The Antigonish Review. One of her short stories and a stage play were quarter-finalists in ScreenCraft’s 2023 international competitions. Born on a small Canadian island, Karin has lived/worked or travelled on every continent.
DEBORAH TAPPER: Found
I thought they’d never find me below this soaring cliff, broken rope coiling over my orange climbing shoes. I shouted, but the wilderness swallowed my voice and nobody heard – until the dog, whose barking brought rescuers at last.
My bones were gathered, zipped away. Now I can finally move on.
Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.
VERITY DUNCAN: Reminiscing
Remember that beach at night, phosphorescent waves murmuring, us seated on the cool damp sand, arms around each other, my head resting on your shoulder? The sea spray in our hair, on our sunburned skin, too tired, too content to return to the hotel?
Gulls called overhead.
Do you remember?
Verity Duncan (she/her) works in quality control, gets distracted by stories, and drinks flat whites.
ROBERT HOEKMAN JR: Pills
Our department is full of doors and people knock on them when they need something. It’s how the score gets decided. The more people need your things, the more you get points. I take pills so I don’t know I’m losing. When I take them, the score looks more even.
Robert Hoekman Jr is an anti-writer of inexplicable texts.
MIKE WILSON: Teenage Cannonball
She queues to jump in the swimming hole, swing out on a rope and let go.
She climbs the ladder, preparing to release the miracle in herself for the judgment of her peers.
She’s hormone bravado, lightning in a jar.
Jumping is the heart of everything. Splash is the applause.
Mike’s work has appeared in Mud Season Review, The London Reader, Amsterdam Quarterly, and other magazines, and in Mike’s book, Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic, (Rabbit House Press, 2020), political poetry for a post-truth world.
DAVE MYERS: Save it for the title
Seven words drop us into the action. Sprinkle exposition with the next six. Narrow in on a few details; figurative language reigns. Hyphenating and wordsmithing neologisms condenses ideas matter-of-factly.
“Dialogue can help,” she advised.
Leave space for inferring.
The last seven words resolve the story.
If any idea doesn’t fit,
Dave Myers (he/him) lives and teaches in Bend, Oregon.
KHOP MÖRICKE: the poet
He wrote like he spoke; he spoke like he wrote. Broken poetry, page after page, day after day. See him standing now at the window, reading the clouds for signs of the homeless gods who taught him how to speak, how to write, how to house them between the lines.
KHOP Möricke wrote this story.
MELINDA FARGO: Doppelgänger
Coaxed into the city for coffee with friends, I had not expected grief today. Dapper in a pink silk shirt, grey linen suit and flawless shoes, I inhale a familiar scent. Summer skin. Flirtatious blue eyes smile at my notice, and I shrink from a face that is not yours.
Melinda first discovered the craft of micro-stories as a way to hone long-form writing skills. She now believes words have the power to uplift, inspire and transform us – irrespective of word count.