The story of the week for February 27 to March 3 is…
In a quiet Hawaiian neighborhood where nothing ever happens by Erin Gilmore
All posts by Tim
SHOSHAUNA SHY: I Don’t Want Kids, She Told Me
Took me three winters to finally get over you.
And there you are–in line at 40 Flavors Lickity-Split. I’d know that red braid anywhere.
Someone shifts their weight, and a cherub comes into view. He’s riding your hip.
I’m a cardboard bucket, my insides scraped out with a spoon.
Shoshauna Shy loves the word “nevertheless”, but wishes it had the counterpart “alwaysthemore.”
TIM BOITEAU: On Reflection
Sometimes a girl appears beyond my window.
Brushing her hair, preening, smiling, puckering up.
Sometimes, when I reach out to touch her, she also reaches out for me.
Then she exits through the door on her side.
I long to exit too, but beyond the door my little everything ends.
Tim Boiteau is a Writers of the Future winner and lives in Michigan.
BILL COX: First Steps on the Dark Road
The little boy runs out into the garden, throwing shards of bread onto the lawn. He watches as sparrows come and feed. After five minutes, he nods with satisfaction. The formula works. He skips back inside, leaving behind a dozen small corpses, wondering who he should try it on next.
Bill lives in Aberdeen, Scotland, yet another time-travelling refugee fleeing from the Ant Dictatorship of the Twenty-fourth century.
JIMOH ADEIZA ABDULRAHAMAN: Of a god’s negligence
She first got a bowl filled with earth, and planted two seeds.
She watered it daily. And I saw the seeds sprouted into lovely green leaves. She displayed them for photosynthesis and the leaves’ greenness deepened.
Until she suddenly stopped. And the boisterous greenness of her creature slowly withered away.
Jimoh Adeiza Abdulrahaman writes from Nigeria. He’s a fiction writer who’s passionate about humanity.
ANNA SANDERSON: The Allotment
Alan reads aloud the text relaying Ken’s funeral plans. The more he reads, the less colour adorns Jackie’s face.
“You didn’t know,” he says.
“What happened?”
“Stroke. Last Saturday.”
She pictures Ken’s smile peering up from the cabbages, hand raised in acknowledgment. “But I saw him at the allotment. Yesterday.”
Anna Sanderson writes about the world as she sees it (with the odd twist and turn). You can follow her story on Twitter at @annasanderson86.
FLORENCE TURNER: Bewitched
I gawped at the picturesque countryside spread out in front of me. Natural beauty everywhere. Fruit and flowers left to flourish in abundance; verdant trees made fluorescent by the glowing sun; and deck chairs. Yes. My beloved, crimson-coloured, disheveled, food-stained deck chairs: just perfect for watching the world go by.
Florence Turner believes that we should protect the natural world at all costs.
PATRICK YU: Mr. Black
Polarized
Analyzed
Hypnotized
Sedated
All the king’s horses
All the king’s men
Never put Black back together again
All flights canceled
All ships docked
Sunrise
I kick the can
It’s heavy
My coffee waits
Stirs a young man’s dreams
Into these old bones
I pack the tent
And transistor radio
Patrick Yu notes that sometimes things can get very dark, but life is like that.
CONNIE TAYLOR: Visitors
We’ve been here for years, laughing among ourselves at your silly stories of UFOs, balloons, and Roswell crash. Visitors from outer space! your newspapers say. Cover stories, we say. Not understanding your culture and language made us stick out at first, but we’ve learned. We mingle freely among you now.
Connie Taylor left California to become a commercial fisherman in Alaska. She fished salmon, crab and shrimp for twenty years before settling in Cordova to become a printer and art gallery owner. Now she’s a publisher, photographer, and author. See more at fathompublishing.com.
ERIN GILMORE: In a quiet Hawaiian neighborhood where nothing ever happens
In a quiet Hawaiian neighborhood where nothing ever happens
we steal lilikoi to make them “splot”
wriggle through squishy red dirt, under fences, to escape the enemy
collect every flower in sight (a lot)
In a quiet Hawaiian neighborhood where nothing much happens
to our neighbors
we are what happens
This story was written by Erin Gilmore, who has to imagine the stories her grandparents never told her.