Festive streamers and balloons decorated the kitchen.
“Mommy, can I?!”
Janet handed Katie five bright pink candles to place on the cake. She lit them, as her daughter beamed excitedly.
Friends gathered round. Closing her eyes… making a wish… Janet extinguished the candles, tearfully smiling.
Five years breast cancer free.
Lisa Chambers is a Texas girl who believes 50-word stories can speak volumes.
I was sitting in my office cleaning my .38 when in she walked. High heels. Legs for miles. Lipstick.
“You Mickey Lewis?”
“That’s what the sign says, sugar.”
I cracked a deck of Luckies, dug out a jug of Jack.
Lousy time to be cleaning a gun. She shot first.
Bradley Harris is a Canadian freelance writer and editor. He is a two-time winner of the 3-Day International Novel competition, with ‘Ruby Ruby’ (Anvil Press: 1999) and ‘Thorazine Beach’ (Anvil Press: 2013). He loves and lives with his wife Liz Deeley and their fictitious dog Webley in Memphis, Tennessee. He despises and refuses to live with semicolons.
Temperatures rose, sea level too.
Melting glaciers flooded more land.
Some struggled to reduce emissions.
Others shrugged, undaunted by growing evidence
Of fires, floods, and environmental chaos.
Politicians dithered, totally impotent.
Humanity stood staring at the abyss,
Desperate for saviours, but none appeared.
Look to yourselves, a tiny voice said.
Alan Kemister is a retired scientist experimenting with more fictitious writing. He’s currently working on a climate change novel. Get the gory details at alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com.
The cat walks away, padding across the floor, its rough tongue sanding the red around its chops. Behind it, the pigeon lies in a carpet of feathers, waiting for the cleaning lady to sweep her lifeless body into the big blue dustbin. In a nest, two eggs wait for warmth.
Rhema Suresh lives in Kerala, India. After being a student her entire life, she is currently on a break. She holds a master’s degree in English from the University of Hyderabad.
She had attempted to ignore him, hoping he wouldn’t approach her as she stood alone in the aisle of the bookstore. He was the persistent kind, though.
After approaching her, he mustered a polite smile and blinked twice.
“Excuse me,” she said by way of introduction, gently fanning behind herself.
Ran Walker is the author of seventeen books, the most recent of which is PORTABLE BLACK MAGIC: TALES OF THE AFRO STRANGE. He teaches creative writing at Hampton University.
As we went to the restaurant to eat in the evening sun, the beach was emptying of towels and people. Amid the smell of sun cream and ozone, you said it had been a fun day. I knew otherwise, because on your phone you watched pictures of other people’s lives.
Henry writes short fiction and poetry. He lives in Somerset in the UK.
The sky was full of white jellyfish. They were drifting down over everything. Parks, neighborhoods, baseball fields, the oil refinery. Thousands of them. Tiny stickmen with backpacks clung to them.
Papa was crying beside the window. “You must always share with your brother.”
Papa was a negotiator.
I didn’t understand.
Thomas Fitzgerald McCarthy is a licensed English teacher, poker player, and short story writer from New Jersey.
The metal frame lay across the pasture, its ironwork rusty red. Edward mused that it had once stood erect, envisioning a tower that would have pierced the very sky.
“To have seen such a thing!” he marvelled.
The wind howled its agreement, as it roared through the ruins of Paris.
Bill lives in Aberdeen, Scotland. He doubts his sanity all the time, and sometimes it doubts him right back.
The story of the week for October 7 to 11 is…
No Returns, Exchanges, or Refunds by Maria Cargille
My paper doll of a mother likes to put on different cutout kits and try to convince people of things. She’s not very good at it, though, because she’s a paper doll and so when she stands in the light to make her speeches we can see right through her.
Robert Hoekman Jr. thinks you die when you stop wanting. He writes and writes and writes. He lives on a farm in Virginia and refuses to be put into a box.