“Check under the bed.”
“Nope. Maybe it’s in the dryer.”
“I hope not.”
“It wasn’t there. Where else could it be?”
“I don’t even know. The yard?”
My wife was right. There, playing by our curbside mailbox, sat my toddler niece, proving how woefully unprepared we were to be parents.
Scott is an author and writer living in DFW, Texas, with his wife and their two boys. In his spare time he collects antique cameras. He has never intentionally misplaced a child, for the record.
It annoys me, a little, that my gripes are never quite as gripey as yours.
My woes aren’t as woeful. My worries can’t compare.
My annoyances not annoying enough.
You win. You are the Queen of Whining. You get to wear the crown.
About which you, no doubt, will complain.
Candace Kubinec posts her stories at storydribbles.wordpress.com and her poetry at rhymeswithbug.com.
Effie tells me she’s uploading herself to the cloud. “It’s for work.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’ll be like a bot.”
She tells me our minds are the future; our bodies are too slow.
I take her slow hand and say I love her.
She says she’ll send me a meme. :-\
Michael Mau wrote this story.
My neighbor Don moved up here from someplace warm, where there’s no snow. On the first snowfall of the season, he thought he was a real genius when he tried to hose the stuff off of his driveway.
I’m doing his shoveling until he gets the cast off his leg.
Sarah Krenicki is sick of Nor’easters.
The author bit her lip. “Well?”
“I’m pleasantly surprised,” replied the editor. “The world’s remarkably believable, although ludicrous! Creating these human characters with only two legs! It’s absurdly wonderful.”
The author beamed. “The characters took on a life of their own. It seemed as if they believed they were real.”
Melanie Rees is an Australian speculative fiction writer. She has published over 70 stories and poems in markets such as Apex, Daily Science Fiction, and Aurealis. More information can be found at flexirees.wordpress.com or on Twitter.
I’m sitting on the floor, looking up at a woman. She’s walking round the house picking things up then putting them back down somewhere else. She looks at me with a huge smile then goes all squeaky and high-pitched, starts telling me how cute I am.
This happens every day.
Zoe, age 16, wrote this story.
I stumble in, drunk, parking myself at a table in the corner. “Scotch,” I yell to the blonde. “Neat,” I add.
She refuses to take my order, insisting that I keep my voice down. I raise a stink, demanding service.
Long story short, I’m no longer welcome at the library.
Pontius Paiva pours himself into his craft, hoping to raise the bar with each piece. Visit pontiuspaiva.com to see the complete library of merry microfictions and sobering short stories.
My friends weren’t impressed when I told them I was a writer.
Now that I have written this story, I tell them that I am the author of The New York Times Best Seller, Death by Embarrassment, and over twenty short works of fiction and nonfiction.
Now they are impressed.
Harry Demarest is the author of The New York Times Best Seller, Death by Embarrassment, and over twenty short works of fiction and nonfiction. He has a couple of dozen unpublished short works which he plans to submit someday.
Picasso owned a cat who controlled the weather in Paris. When he painted the cat yellow, it was sunny. Purple, and lightning broke out.
People gathered outside Picasso’s door at sunrise and waited for him to put out the cat. “Darn, more rain,” they said during the cat’s blue period.
Jay Gershwin lives in New York. You can get a free copy of his novel, Poor Man’s Autumn, through Amazon.
The Mad Colorist turned the sun green.
Earth reeled.
Gently, God said, “Change it back.”
“Never. I’m talented, see?”
“Fine. Your choice. You need a bigger canvas. My choice.”
The Mad Colorist fled from an exploding nebula, while God changed the sun back Himself.
“Talented? Ha. Flash in the pan.”
Brenda Anderson wrote this story.