Category Archives: Top Stories

SETH PILEVSKY: Immortal Moments

Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , , ,

“Daddy loves you,” I say, placing my daughter in her crib with a fresh diaper.

I notice the crease in each elbow as she shakes her toy at me and laughs.

I linger.

If I don’t survive the surgery tomorrow, I pray that I can take this memory with me.

Seth Pilevsky lives in New York with his wife and five kids, trying to tuck away those precious moments for a rainy day. His work has been published in the Long Island Literary Journal, Literally Stories, Memoir Magazine, Stinkwave’s Magazine and in the YA anthology What Doesn’t Kill You. Sign up for blog updates at spilevsky.com.

LISA ALLETSON: Decay

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , ,

The house began to eat itself. It had no other choice, having grown sluggish and depressed from the family secrets rotting inside its crevices.

Help would’ve come if anyone asked, but no one recognized its deep decay. It had been staged for sale, appearing in peak condition from the outside.

Lisa Alletson is an emerging writer whose work has been published in The Globe and Mail, Ginosko Literary Journal, and The Write Launch. She was born in South Africa and lives in Toronto, Canada. Follow her on Twitter at @LisaAlletson.

MAURA YZMORE: Roman Holiday

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , ,

On what I didn’t know would be our last vacation, I wanted drinking and dancing; you, museums and cathedrals.

I craved fun and abandon, a pretense there was still joy between us.

But you embraced the passage of time, beheld the mold and the rot, unflinching, preparing to let go.

Maura Yzmore is a writer and science professor based in the American Midwest. See more on her website and follow her on Twitter at @MauraYzmore

HADLEY LEGGETT: Upside Down

Amusing, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,

At the park, my daughter whines. Too hot, icky sunscreen, more juice. “Four-year-olds,” I say.

“Not mine,” another mom says, her face smug. “We parent like gravity.”

“Gravity?”

Her daughter screams, dangling by one foot off the monkey bars. “You’re fine!” the mom yells.

Never-whining girl faceplants into the woodchips.

Hadley Leggett is a writer and stay-at-home mom in Seattle, WA. When she’s not chasing after children, she’s working on the second draft of her first novel.

LISA ALLETSON: Discordant

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

A man wrote a song and died.

Trembling, the song tried to sing herself. Each day she practised, flexing melodic limbs, strengthening pale notes, until she came to understand discordant beauty.

That day, her song spilled into rivers and comet trails, spread throughout galaxies.

The universe leaned in to listen.

Lisa Alletson is an emerging writer whose work has been published in The Globe and Mail, Ginosko Literary Journal, and The Write Launch. She was born in South Africa and lives in Toronto, Canada. Follow her on Twitter at @LisaAlletson.

DINI ARMSTRONG: Breathing Space

Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , , , ,

My greasy hair is flowing upwards, blonde flames licking the stale air of the ISS. Exercise twice a day, followed by sponge baths only.

“I know, sweet pea, I know,” I whisper into the microphone. Her newborn cries inconsolably.

Twice a day I am only 220 miles away from her.

Dini Armstrong, now Scottish, has worked in journalism and psychology. She is currently completing an MA in Creative Writing. Her controversial style got her into trouble from age six, when, after writing a particularly enraging piece about a cat blowing up three boys, she had to promise to her stepdad never to write again. She lied.

JOHN B. SINCLAIR: The Lucky One

Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , ,

“I’m sorry. Your tests with the latest medication proved unsuccessful. The prognosis is six months.”

John grasped his wife’s hand and squeezed it gently.

They travelled to the airport in silence, but desperate to talk.

Understanding airline staff upgraded them.

“Your lucky day!” cracked a joker as they left Economy.

John B. Sinclair is a much-travelled Scot who has now returned to Scotland, where he enjoys freelance writing on a variety of subjects.

GB BURGESS: The Mark

Adventure, Amusing, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,

Mark had waited sixty years for revenge.

Searching the retirement home, he found Ben snoozing, feeble. But Mark felt no sympathy for his old enemy.

“For what you did to me at that party,” Mark sneered.

He raised a magic marker, and marred Ben’s face with a moustache and glasses.

G.B. Burgess is a graphic designer. She is occasionally commissioned at parties to create moustaches and glasses.

MICHAEL H BROWNSTEIN: When the Dark Rain Blew Away our Home

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

—tornado, Jefferson City, MO, May 22, 2019

Trails of debris, rooftops blown into sand, a photograph of a two-week-old baby.

She said, I just wanted someone from my family to call, to see if we’re OK—

and the tornado’s breath came from her, stuttering sobs as loud as the storm.

Michael H. Brownstein wrote this story.

LAURA BESLEY: Today is Like Every Day

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

Wake, feed, burp, change.

She sleeps again, small breaths warming my neck.

Wake, feed, burp, change.

She cries; loud and angry wails.

Wake, feed, burp, change.

We go out, finally, and I’m always surprised that the world carries on, as if to mock the broken record of our banal existence.

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.