The World Hide-and-Seek Championships happened only once. The losers were soon found in garages, trees, outbuildings.
As the months passed, interest ebbed: nobody search for the last competitors. A starved body was occasionally discovered in loft or sewer, but it mattered increasingly less that a winner might never be discovered.
James Burt is based in Brighton, England. He runs the Not for the Faint-Hearted writing workshop and has a website at orbific.com.
Have you seen my left eye? I’ve misplaced it.
Again.
In 5th grade, my teacher told me to keep my eye on my paper.
So I plucked it out and kept it on my paper.
Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt. It’s more of an inconvenience.
Thanks anyway.
I found it.
LC Treeheart has survived two super typhoons and paddled outrigger canoes in the ocean. She lives with her wife, Lizzy, in Oregon. They share their home with two extraordinary dogs, Pakpak and Mozart, and their grand piano, Francesca.
I was born and went to school. Then I got a job and now I’m retired.
Writing a memoir isn’t that easy when you’ve nothing to say.
Here’s the plan: Do something memorable.
Top of the list: kidnap Donald Trump and cut off his hair.
That ought to do it.
Henry lives in Somerset in the UK, which is at the moment still part of the European Union. He eats a lot of toast.
The eyes stared upwards. The blonde hair was caked with blood. The nose was cute even in death. The mouth held what proved to be a golf ball in a sock. The hands had typed a social security benefit disallowance.
“So where’s the rest of the body?” the detective wondered.
Irish writer Perry McDaid lives in Derry under the brooding brows of Donegal hills which he occasionally hikes in search of druidic inspiration. He even finds it on occasion.
The press pool asks Senator Minotaur why he won’t campaign outside of Florida anymore.
His campaign manager remembers the reporter in Montana who wandered off of a cliff, the reporter in Iowa whose stolen car doubled as his coffin, the reporter in Texas with a smile no stomach should make.
Jesse Bradley wrote this story.
It started in my legs, then spread almost everywhere. My parents reported me, so I ran before I could be quarantined. My girlfriend, Wynona, joined me.
One night, in a cheap motel, it spread to my head. I was a robot.
Wynona smiled. Her legs had changed. She was next.
Seth Pilevsky lives in New York with his wife and five kids. His work has been published in the Long Island Literary Journal, Literally Stories, Memoir Magazine, Stinkwave’s Magazine and in the YA Anthology entitled, What Doesn’t Kill You. See more at spilevsky.com.
After the strange cow—on our land that night, yet unbranded—nipped Pete, we watched him close for a month, and, this proving wise, every full moon thereafter, until Ma, Mellie, and I returned from vacation to find Pa’s dementia had deepened, and over a mouthful of burger, Mellie asked, “Where’s Pete?”
Graham Robert Scott teaches writing at a university in north Texas. His stories have appeared in Barrelhouse Online, Nature, and Blink-Ink. See more at hemicyon.wordpress.com.
I didn’t know what it was at first, wings folded, very still. A bat expert told me I couldn’t get rid of it. “It’s a protected species.”
Veronica left after a week. She wasn’t prepared to share a house with a creature like that.
It’s just me and Boris now.
David Mark Williams lives in Scotland and writes poetry and short fiction. He has completed two poetry collections to date: The Odd Sock Exchange and Papaya Fantasia. See more at davidmarkwilliams.co.uk.
“They grew a new veggie,” Jane announced excitedly. “It’s supposed to taste like fried chicken. Wanna go and try some?”
“And if it’s no good, we’ll get diarrhea again,” Clara replied dryly.
“Come on, that hasn’t happened since the eggplant incident. And they just didn’t boil the eggs long enough.”
Johanna B. Stumpf is a German millennial, living and working in Norway. She is fairly new to fiction writing, but she did enough academic writing to earn a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Oslo.
The perfect opportunity plucked from the universe as his car scraped against mine.
He flashed a toothy smile, jotting down his information. Biting my lip, my heart pounding, his rough hand covering mine. A melody of words spilled from his lips. My taser jammed into his ribs. Our beautiful beginning.
Andrea Allison currently writes and resides in a small Oklahoman town. You can visit her website at andreallison.com.