A final luxury granted to the condemned: “How would you like to go?”
He contemplated deeply, finally requesting the warm numbness of hypothermia.
In this land of sun and sand, his choice spoke to a greatness of spirit that moved the tribunal’s hearts.
But it didn’t move them that far.
Today’s story is based on a title suggested by @stealingzen.
There were no keys to the city, boisterous parades, Nobel prizes, or television interviews for the man who conquered friction. (His call-in to local radio was unrelated.)
Hal Miller’s millstones, which once kept the whole neighbourhood awake, were now silent, and also completely ineffectual.
Too bad NASA never followed up.
This story was based on a title suggested by @ecocd.
She knocked on the door, then nocked an arrow.
“Greetings, homeowner,” she said. “Would you like to sign our anti-longbow petition?”
“Uh, sure,” said the citizen. He signed. Then she shot him in the leg.
“Thanks,” she said. “Register your assault charge with the police to help advance our cause!”
Life on the river held steamboats, catfish, bluegrass, and plenty of other Tom Sawyerisms, too. But flash floods, sunburns, and Aunt May’s colon-clogging cornbread made life difficult for Franklin Waters.
He solved the third problem by tossing her into the first, but never got a handle on the second one.
He just can’t leave, thank God. He loves me too much, knows how much I need him. The vet said he’d be long gone by now. Months ago, in fact. There was no hope. What better way to prove them wrong than to simply thrive, living on love and devotion?
M. Elaine Moore is a North Carolina-based fiction writer and poet. Her work can be found in print in The Island Breeze, and Outer Banks publication, and online at Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Four and Twenty, and The Camel Saloon.
Two rectangular prongs and one round prong. Perfection.
Joe had worked at Hob’s Hardware long enough to know that, at least. These three prongs were the holy triumvirate, the electron bearers, the voltage senders, the ohm inducers.
In these troubled days, that was all he was truly certain of anymore.
Shouts were heard. There were tears streaming left and right.
Her eyes held a look of exasperation and urgency. She sprinted for her life. Time was running out. Was she going to make it?
Three, two, one…
Ding!
She grabbed the hot dish and handed it to her hungry daughter.
Connor Wright is a seventh grade student who passionately loves to write and is intrigued by 50-word stories.
The mobster had many fancy rings. His fingers were all the same size, due to a meat-packing factory accident, so he frequently rearranged his rings in patterns.
Sometimes he sent messages to his CIA handler using ring-based codes, but mostly he tried to distract people from his freaky-weird breakfast-sausage-shaped digits.
He dreamed of flying.
Every day he stayed home, sequestered himself in his workshop, and pursued his dream.
He considered himself the Noah of the twenty-first century. The global flood was coming, and he would live in the sky.
But he was not this era’s Noah: he was its Daedalus.
As if he were sleeping, wrapped in swaddling clothes, she held him in her arms. He was warm against her chest, like an angel that had fallen from Heaven above and then returned home, leaving his tiny body behind.
Joshua left behind his footprints on her heart.
Shelia Burket is a wife and mother and the author of the upcoming “Sissy Stringbean” children’s stories. She has published one romance, titled “Longing For December,” which is available on Lulu.com and through the Kindle store. Read more of her writing at wvcoffeechick.blogspot.com.