The story of the week for February 20 to 24 is…
A double!
Welcome by Angela Brett
I’m always a fan of unique characters and using a moment to imply backstory and future events. This story is so much bigger than its single character interaction!
All posts by Tim
PATRICK YU: An Old Man’s Dream
Crisp
My pillow greets me
My soft slumber
Recalls romantic memories
My soul whispers…
She finds my pillow
Entangles my dreams
Capture…
We land eyes
walk within a summer’s breeze
Our hearts embrace
A moment held
Till sunbeams
Melt our reality
Tomorrow
Fresh flowers
Will grace the earth
Above you
Fifty words is such a challenge. Patrick hopes to improve.
APRIL SCIACCHITANO: Time
There are moments where every second counts and then some where we count every second.
Something can change forever in a minute.
Another one passes and everything remains the same.
We never know what a minute will bring,
but we can decide what to bring to a minute.
Tick. Tock.
April is a stay at home Mom who uses writing as a tool to escape the madness in her brain.
DENNY E MARSHALL: Trigger
Cherry’s father is in the garage by the workbench when she gets home. She’s made it a habit of at least saying hello to him after school.
Cherry’s dad suffers from depression. A cockroach infestation makes it worse. He can’t take it anymore.
Her father pulls the trigger, sprays insecticide.
Denny E. Marshall had had art, poetry, and fiction published, including a recent publication at Postcard Shorts. See more at dennymarshall.com.
BOB THURBER: Milk Carton Kids
At each corner, she read the street sign. She studied the shops and houses, examined the faces of passersby, searching for someone or something that looked familiar. She squeezed her brother’s hand. He was too young to remember anything except their mother. Maybe the next one, she said each time.
Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and prizes. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled “Nothing But Trouble.” His first novel, “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel,” was recently rereleased. Visit BobThurber.net.
DIANE de ANDA: Pete and Vera
Seventy-five-year-old Pete waved his gun, shouting, “He stole my shoes!”
Vera told the police he was wearing the “stolen” shoes. They talked Pete into turning over the gun and leaving with them.
Vera twisted the engagement ring she’d worn for 20 years as she waited for his wife to die.
Diane de Anda, a retired UCLA professor and third-generation Latina, has edited four books and published numerous articles in scholarly journals, short stories, poetry, and essays in Rosebud, Straylight, Storyteller, Pacific Review, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Bottle Rockets, Presence, and others, eight children’s books, satires in Humor Times, and a collection of 40 flash fiction stories.
ANGELA BRETT: Welcome
The train station convenience store cashier in the Austrian podunk where I’m homeless spices things up with foreign phrases. He might greet a customer with “Bonjour” or “Master Commander.”
As he hands me my change, I whisper, “Danke.”
He replies, “You are welcome,” and I fantasise that I finally am.
Angela Brett is a mathematician and linguist by training, programmer by trade, and writer by neglecting everything else. She is a New Zealander living in Austria and writing at angelastic.com.
FEE JOHNSTONE: The Melody of Monotony
Crosswords, cappuccinos, and Classic FM: I basked in the gentle cadence of Sundays until I was caught depositing company profits into my account. Now, Sundays are indistinguishable from every other day: anaemic coffee, bartering jam for marmalade, and the sonorous symphony of my cellmate making a different kind of deposit.
Fee Johnstone is a managing editor of a medical journal who lives in Scotland and favours cats, craft beer, and cheese over most other things.
NORMAN GIN: That Look
It was one of our last meals together. She’d fixed pork chops the way I liked: plain, fried, with onions, in an old iron skillet.
How could I tell her I’d miss her? “Whenever I see a pork chop, I’ll think of you.”
Once again, she gave me that look.
Norman Gin is a novice at writing and this is his very first attempt at a 50-word story.
MICHELLE DINNICK: A Day in My Life
I wake to familiar tapping on my fingers.
I live with my family of five and seven others. Among the seven are a young girl and a grumpy old man. He says he belongs. She looks for her mum.
No cupboards flapping; it’s not your cliché haunting. This isn’t Hollywood.
Michelle is a freelance writer who writes both fiction and non-fiction. She is a regular contributor to the Briar Crier Magazine and has had her work featured recently in the Voice of the Farmer newspaper and the Focus 50+ newspaper. In April 2016 she was shortlisted as a finalist at the Ontario Writers Conference Story Starters Contest.