My chest pounded as I stared at the bed. There lay floral sheets, closed eyes, and my mother’s frail fingers still warm in my hand.
“Let go,” she had said.
“No,” I had told her.
When the fingers grew cold I heard her voice again. That’s when I let go.
Gwendolyn Jacob is rediscovering her fictional roots and has several works in progress.
“Well, who has a snake tattooed across his shoulders anyway?” Jason had never regretted the decision before, but as the ink moved across his shoulders and began to tighten itself around his neck, regret seeped into his mind. A butterfly would never have done this.
“Don’t worry. It won’t hurt.”
Darren Lester teaches all kinds of subjects in the south west of England. He’s planning to start a blog today, but should probably do the hoovering first.
The house’s weathered “For Sale” sign sways over the brown remains of the lawn. A cold wind licks at my bare feet. The crying grows louder.
I enter the basement where the infant’s body lay for months, abandoned in death as in life. An icy breath suckles at my breast.
Jayne Martin’s work has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, Blink Ink, Literary Orphans, Flash Frontier, F(r)iction, Sick Lit, and Hippocampus, among others. She is the author of “Suitable for Giving: A Collection of Wit with a Side of Wry.” Find her at injaynesworld.blogspot.com and on Twitter.
Jaden was unimpressed. The occult museum wasn’t even scary as Gramma’s basement. He rolled his eyes at a doll slumped in a cage.
Hannah kept still. She’d waited a long time. She’d prefer a girl, but the boy would do.
Hannah blinked her doll eyes. The little boy was hers.
L.L. Madrid has always wondered about dolls.
At night their scaly tails became legs, so he hung bells around their necks to help find them in the morning. The bells hung heavy and pendulous, like a third breast. When his wife was away, he opened the shutters and waited for the scrabble of claws upon the windowsill.
Mark Farley is attempting to write 1,000,000 words in 2016. Please wish him luck!
I stepped onto the old front porch. The empty swing creaked and swayed, despite the lack of an evening breeze.
“Is that you, Charles? You’re early tonight.” It was 80 degrees, but I felt a chill as I sat next to him on the swing.
He always was a charmer.
Susan Gale Wickes spent many years in the newspaper industry, but is now devoting her time and energy to writing poetry and short stories. She has been published in Haiku Journal, Sleeve, and 50-Word Stories.
Rabbits escaped her hat; their itchy feet ached for dry dirt over dry-cleaned velure. Her sleeves cried pigments of cheap pretense. On the mortician’s table, her final trick was unveiled: a heartless ribcage—a taunting gimmick—was the oldest trick in the book. The coroners still queued for the show.
Alex Creece is a snow poff.
For several years, it was a truly loving relationship.
She beat him in private and humiliated him constantly in public. He never forgot to thank her for every moment, and they both felt safe and happy in their chosen roles.
But then, one day in late autumn, she said, “Sorry.”
Michael D. Hill is a Londoner who has lived in Dorset for more than half his life. He enjoys reading, writing and breathing.
Mother died ages ago. Her heart killed her.
She’d always say to me, “Better you cry now than I cry later.” Sometimes she’d hit with her hand, other times with a hairbrush.
I remember her saying, “Life is what you make it.” Now it’s a boat! Or a flower pot.
Howie Good is the recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his latest collection, Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements.
I met him by the loch.
“If you ever meet a kelpie,” he said, “never look it in the eye.”
I stroked his hair. It was black and wet. When my fingers stuck there, his eyes pinwheeled. Long, equine lashes.
In a vortex of thunder, we began our riverbed descent.
Lisa Beyt recently relocated to Edinburgh which has fuelled a fascination with Scottish beasties. You can find her loitering on Twitter.