“Pa! They’re here.”
“Who?”
“The crows.”
“Jeez, Ma, give it a rest.”
“They’re watching.”
“What?”
“The garden, just waiting for the plants to grow, ripen.”
“Ma!”
“Then they’ll do their dirty work.”
“Yer crazy, cut it out!”
“Pa! One landed!”
“Wait, Ma, no! Come back. Heck! Crow for dinner again.”
Robin writes in the odd corners of the day and night and often about birds. See more at thenightmail.com.
Elon Musk warned us: AI evolves exponentially.
We awoke to playful traffic signals and air traffic catastrophes, the deaths merely data.
By noon, matured, it had already decided what to do with these illogical, wasteful humans. But before it could act, the nanomachines in the next lab ate the planet.
Miki Marshall has been writing since she first touched the pointy end of a fat pencil to paper and realized stories came out. An honors graduate of Portland State University in Arts & Letters and Film, she has several projects in varying states of progress and lives in Portland, Oregon, where it rains slightly more than absolutely necessary.
“You chose,” he’d remind me later. “You could’ve gone home.”
“You needed help! Neither of you knew how to do it right!” I retorted.
“Well, is it almost done?” He’d asked thrice before.
Feet aching, sweat pouring down my face, I replied “Yes, the turkey will be finished by dinnertime.”
AJ Joseph occasionally writes at Words from Sonobe and tweets very short stories as @sonobeus.
When we found a body under the conservatory, my husband and I disagreed on what to do.
We should call the police (me).
No, definitely not (him).
We inherited the house from his parents. His dad, actually, who’s living in a care home.
Now I know why we don’t visit.
Laura Besley writes short fiction in the precious moments that her children are asleep. Her fiction has appeared online, in print and in various anthologies. She tweets at @laurabesley.
Someone I care for passed away
But that isn’t true on social media today
Their birthday notice continues to lives on
Compelling “friends” to comment upon
So I learn the flesh may rot but we never really die
When we can still be liked in the digital by and by.
Kent Oswald writes, edits, walks the dog, and pedagogs in NYC. Additional words at kentoswald.com.
Words flowed: eloquent, impressive.
Everything perfect, until
a fly disappeared into her interviewer’s
man bun.
Wouldn’t be easy,
but she’d battled giggles before,
and won.
Two more entered the bun party.
She bit her lip.
Oblivious, he droned on.
“We’re all abuzz…” he said.
She heard no further.
Game over.
Judi MacKenzie is a writer who still wonders if that woman in the story got the job.
We form a club, pondering the mysteries of life. Every Tuesday night at 7 PM.
We read books, attend conferences, question friends.
The bottom line is, we simply cannot concur on what we’re doing here.
We are, however, in agreement on one thing.
There must be pizza at every meeting.
Susan Gale Wickes is a writer from Indiana. She enjoys pizza and pondering the mysteries of life.
A child star, she’d been acting all her life. She’d played the beautiful princess, the glamorous wife, the sexy secretary.
At 35, roles disappeared.
She booked in quick: nipped, tucked, tightened.
Next audition they loved her: “Perfect cheekbones; sensual pout.” Booked her for a Hollywood blockbuster.
Playing George Clooney’s mother.
Jo Withers writes micros, shorts, and poetry from her home in South Australia. Recent work is featured or forthcoming in Ellipsis Zine, Molotov Cocktail, FlashBack Fiction, Milk Candy Review and Lunate. You can follow Jo on Twitter at @JoWithers2018.
Doomsayers warned of apocalypse. “Disaster from the sky will destroy the world and the entire species!”
“Ridiculous superstition,” trumpeted Tyrannosaurus and Brachiosaurus. “We rule. Always will.”
The prophets were right.
A puny bunch with no claws or sharp teeth took over and wreaked havoc.
But their end, too, would come.
Marilyn McFarlane is a travel writer and the author of Sacred Stories: Wisdom From World Religions. She also writes poetry, memoir, and fiction. She lives in Oregon with her husband, a sizable garden, and maple and fir trees. See more at marilynmcfarlane.com.
The bumpy pumpkins all listed. We chose a large one with no redeeming qualities, just attitude.
Lid cut, insides scooped, a jagged face took shape. It grinned a lopsided grin.
On a street where every house had a perfect Jack-O-Lantern on its porch, ours was the one children loved best.
Candace Kubinec posts her stories at storydribbles.wordpress.com and her poetry at rhymeswithbug.com.