For ten years Penelope weaves her tapestry daily, unpicking it nightly, while Odysseus, tossed by tide and fortune, struggles to reach home.
Landing, he slaughters her besieging suitors.
She’s furious. “Where have you been?”
Bristling, he retorts, “Haven’t you finished that darned tapestry yet?”
It’s like he’s never been away.
Viv Burgess is finding the brain cell is flagging a bit these days. She obviously needs more tea and cake.
After her diagnosis, Grandma would wake at six and scuttle to the newsagents. She’d struggle back up the hill, spread the local Guardian across the table, and scour the obituaries before breakfast.
“That’s why I get the paper,” she’d explain with a wink. “To make sure I’m not in it.”
Guy has not been in the paper yet. This is his fourteenth 50-word story.
For full access to its content and special features, a website required Roy to key in a specific alphanumeric sequence to prove he was not a robot. After several failed attempts to decipher the blurry, unintelligible squiggles, he gave up.
Roy’s android assistant got it right on the first try.
John H. Dromey has had short fiction published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Crimson Streets, Stupefying Stories Showcase, and elsewhere.
My girlfriend’s face is frozen. She’s squeezing my hand like a vise grip. The screeching gets worse. Passengers press call buttons, while flight attendants buzz around like bees willy-nilly, hovering over them. I look out the window. White. Everywhere.
The screeching is deafening, and now blue smoke fills the cabin.
Debbie L. Miller writes from Brooklyn, New York, where she writes short stories, plays, monologues, personal essays, memoir, flash fiction, feature articles, and humor pieces.
The story of the week for September 26 to 30 is…
Wounded by Matthew Eichenlaub
There is so much story told around the edges here, great work using the margins to imply deeper character and meaning.
Tarzan sat and gulped his coffee. He could hear Jane calling. If she was cornered by the lion again, it was her own ridiculous fault. He agreed with himself that she was beginning to be high maintenance.
Tarzan finished his coffee, rubbed his face and thought about what he’d do.
Mark Konik is a writer from Canberra, Australia. He mostly writes short plays and short stories.
As a child, he knew this part of the house, accessed only through a cave-like closet, was special.
Now, newly discharged, he lives here.
Sometimes his mother pushes through the musty coats and newly hung uniforms: “Coming through!” But feigning sleep, turned away, it’s only his rhythmic breathing she finds.
Matthew lives in Hope, Maine.
A hundred years on, tumble-weeds race along deserted interstate highways and a gigantic crater tells of unimaginable destruction. As we land and take readings of the surroundings, we discover our home is barely habitable.
“At least it’s recovered more than the red planet.”
“We’ll start terraforming this one first, Adam.”
Connell wrote this late at night.
Melancholy clung to him like skin. An abusive father, a difficult childhood.
Into his cloud of sadness, she walked in. His silver lining.
The sun was just melting the cloud when death snatched her away.
A new cloud of sorrow. The tiny baby in his arms, his new silver lining.
Tejaswinee Barua is an Engineer by profession and a writer by choice. Visit Tejaswinee’s blog.
Wearing freshly laundered gloves and coat, none of his body was exposed. He strode to the teller, slid a note across the counter, and unveiled his polished weapon.
“Use this attached hand sanitizer first, then hand over only clean, new bills.”
It was dirty work, but he made it hygienic.
Jason wonders what would be more difficult for him to become: a “germophobe” or a vegan.