The story of the week for July 13 to 17 is…
Plot Hole by Jenn Linning
All posts by Tim
JAMES GALLANT: Just Like Home
The Tokyo lad bicycling Canada had been warned in advance: Nature there would frighten a city boy. Wheeling around a shaggy tree-lined bend at dusk, he understood what they’d meant. But then the road straightened, and when McDonald’s golden arches dawned in the West, Quebec felt a lot like home.
James Gallant’s short story collection, “La Leona and Other Guitar Stories,” which won the 2019 Schaffner Press prize for music-in-literature, has just been published, and is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.
LAURA BESLEY: Shapes of Loneliness
Paying for company isn’t new to Alfred.
His father shoehorned him into a high position in the family business, and Alfred was keen to splash his cash about town. He dated, he married, he dated some more.
These days company is in the form of a television, programs carefully chosen.
Laura Besley writes short fiction in the precious moments that her children are asleep. Her fiction has appeared online, as well as in print and in various anthologies. Her flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers, was published in March 2020. She tweets at @laurabesley.
JAMES BURT: Dog-Walking
Revenge kept Miss Felpham alive. As she outlived the rivals and tormentors of her youth, she took pleasure in walking her terrier among their graves. It had taken some training, but the dog would now do its business on command.
Each morning, she took her time picking the day’s spot.
James is a writer from Brighton, and is currently working on a book of stories about the South Downs Way.
DAVID HENSON: The Prize
Life is about winning the prize. He thinks nothing can stop him but always ends up back where he started. Get after it again. Success requires dogged determination, and he has it aplenty.
Again he attains the prize. Again it’s tossed away.
Never give up. Never.
Squeak squeak. “Fetch, Boy.”
David Henson and his wife reside in Peoria, Illinois. His work has has appeared in numerous print and online journals. His website is writings217.wordpress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @annalou8.
CELINE LOW: Woman by the Window
He knelt, burying
his face in her waist,
the knowledge
of how many times he’d die
for her
choking
so he
could only say
you have no idea.
Held fast, she
(looking out the misted glass
at the crabapple trees with their pink heads
thinning)
echoed
you have no idea.
Celine Low lives in Singapore, a tiny country in Southeast Asia with a hodgepodge of cultures. She holds an MA in English Literature and loves to dance and take long walks. Her works have appeared in Blood Moon Rising Magazine and 9Tales From Elsewhere.
ANN KATHRYN KELLY: Shine
She smiles at the young woman in the photo: bottle-blonde, bright-eyed. Her hair always drew compliments. It was freeing, being 22, radiant, at the start of everything. Her fingers comb through current locks; tinsel strands that wink. She smiles again. Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but nothing shines brighter than silver.
Ann Kathryn Kelly lives and writes in New Hampshire’s Seacoast region. Her essays have appeared in a number of literary journals, found on her website at www.annkkelly.com.
BEN MIMMACK: A Better Place
Frank used to hold shells to his ear so that he could hear the sea. But there are no shells here.
He’s not sure why Mom likes this place. There’s no beach. No swimming. No nothing.
If Mom keeps smiling though, Frank thinks he won’t really mind about the shells.
Ben lives in Dallas where he is viewed with tolerant amusement by his wife and two small boys. He has just started writing micro fiction and hopes to get better at it.
ROBB LANUM: Last One Awake
Dan remembers being the last one awake: tucking legs under blankets, clearing toys off pillows. Then years when he couldn’t compete with PS4 and streaming, asleep before the texting stopped.
He’s here again: last one awake. Closed doors, lights that haven’t been on in years.
He thought it wouldn’t hurt.
Robb Lanum is a failed screenwriter in Los Angeles. His longer, epic works have been appeared on 101words.org.
ROBERTA BEACH JACOBSON: Funeral Flowers
It was the job of Sharon’s dreams. The interviewer rattled off a string of easy questions: “Professional goals?” “College grades?”
Then… “Any personal hobbies?”
Sharon squirmed. Should she tell him about the three bodies buried in her backyard?
A long pause. “Um, I garden,” Sharon responded. “White lilies, white mums.”
Roberta Beach Jacobson won first place in the Iowa Poetry Association’s 2020 competition for her haiku.