The story of the week for February 22 to 26 is…
Salt by Lee DeAmali
This story may have sucker-punched my parenting emotions, but I think it says a lot more than the words themselves convey. Life is short!
All posts by Tim
BARRIE BISHOP: Who?
I awoke with a start. Did I hear someone downstairs?
My husband was beside me in the bed, but I couldn’t wake him.
So I went downstairs very quietly,
and I found my husband making a drink in the kitchen
Then who was in my bed that I couldn’t wake?
Barrie Bishop is an accountant and business adviser. He has spent over 50 years as a musician (Drummer). In his latter years he has taken to writing for his enjoyment.
MARY STEER: Pillow Talk
Did we do January?
Let me think… Gosh, I don’t remember.
Me neither. We’d better make sure of February, yes?
No. I’m too tired tonight.
Always seems one of us is too tired. And February is a short month.
Yes, but at least this is a leap year. Goodnight, dear.
Mary Steer is a word nerd living west of Toronto, where she works and reworks stories from life and imagination. When she’s not writing, editing, or reading, she likes to dabble in physics (knitting) and chemistry (baking).
JOHN FOWLER: Dinner For Two
Bill and Martha: more than friends, less than lovers.
Born to different parents, he was a him, and she wasn’t. For now, just dinner companions.
When a hunter appeared, lost, alone, and out of ammunition, they looked at each other, two hungry lions with the same thought:
Dinner for two!
John Fowler served twenty years in the US Air Force before retiring and starting a second career in the IT field. He is also a Lay Pastor serving a small church near his home in Texas. His hobbies include reading, golfing, and writing.
JOHN M BELLINGER: Raiding the Crypt
It had been preserved for ages, licked and leathered into the sediment. They flexed their nimble digits and unscrewed the module, marveled at its state of preservation, and they hinged their necks for a closer look.
It had actual skin. They felt dirty, ashamed.
They dimmed the lights, and processed.
John M. Bellinger is the former Managing Editor (2006-2009) and a current staff editor of The Comstock Review. He has been published in The Comstock Review, Blue Unicorn, and Ekphrasis. He also has upcoming work in Cottonwood, America Magazine, and One-Sentence Poems.
FALCON: Asylum
As the eradication patrol passed, creatures emerged from the shadows, balancing on spindly limbs as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
They approached the embassy timidly, tiny eyes peering up into the perimeter viewer.
The ambassador was nearby.
“Let the humans in. It was their planet.”
Hatched in the spire of Saint Eugene’s cathedral in Derry, or close enough for reality not to be offended, he swoops down with the odd Science Fiction manuscript which is duly transcribed from bird-scratching by his alter ego under threat of a severe head-clawing. Refusing to be identified, his partner in crime will only admit that Falcon, a Peregrine, can be seen vole-hunting in the local cemetery to feed his family. This is presumed to be a source of inspiration, but who can tell with raptors.
DANIEL SLATEN: A Long Walk
His disguise, no longer necessary, is a foreign newspaper cradled under his arm. No sunglasses or fake mustaches for him; he hides in plain sight.
Once he was somebody, a shooting star on a cloudless night. Now he’s just an old man who looks like someone people used to know.
Daniel Slaten writes short stories and poetry in small notebooks and on sticky notes.
FEE JOHNSTONE: October 31, 2096
Ingesting an alcohol pill containing enough units to ensure a buoyant mood at the party, I marvelled at my Halloween costume. Adorned with an inordinately bushy beard, thick-rimmed spectacles, breath-constricting jeans and tweed brogues, my vision of someone dubbed a ‘hipster’ from the olden days was my scariest effort yet.
Fee Johnstone is a managing editor of a medical journal who favours cats, craft beer, and cheese over most other things.
LIANA VASILACHE: The Falling Curtain
Her house was her world. Its walls and windows, standing like shields, kept the intruders away.
She was spending days in solitude, traveling beyond horizons on flying leaves.
At night, heavy curtains would close to separate her from the outside, ending the performance of a life that could have been.
Liana is Romanian, but lives in Belgium. She is currently studying art.
LEIGH SMITH: Love Offerings
Not to be outdone by Grandma’s cat, who slathered a gob of squirrel viscera upon the sidewalk, Boon whined at the screen door. Usually it was dross—holey sock, long-gone bones—but something’s different today: a tobacco tin with old coins, curled Greybacks.
Good dog, I say, over and over.
Leigh Ward-Smith is a writer, editor, and amateur duck-wrangler with a passion for literature in its many forms. Her work has been published in or is forthcoming for The Ghouls’ Review, 52nd City literary magazine, and the Bikes in Space fiction anthology. When not reading, parenting, or being outdoors, she can most likely be found blogging at Leigh’s Wordsmithery.