Despite how tumultuous our relationship was
my expectations of her were the broken promises I made to myself.
Yet gone forever, I often find myself wishing
for just one more angry phone call, one more harsh word
because in the end one of us would always say I Love You.
Debra Pascarella wrote this story.
She beckoned to me with a crooked finger.
I stepped into her tent, dropping coins in a box.
Fanning the cards in front of me, she smiled an evil smile.
I chose a card then, hopefully, held it up.
She reached into the box and handed back my coins.
Candace Kubinec wrote this story.
There’s no time to explain this. You have to believe that the girl I killed wasn’t me. She’s the wrong me. Alternate reality me. Our realities can’t co-exist in the same timeline. Butterfly effect, inverted: murdering me doesn’t change what happened to her. Twenty years later, you’ll regret this. Don’t—
Stephanie Selander lives, writes, and teaches in Miami, Florida. Her work has previously appeared in WomenArts Quarterly Journal, Yellow Chair Review, and elsewhere.
When I got home, my ungrateful wife wasn’t complaining. I thought hell must have frozen over as I popped a top.
Agitated, she said, “I shot him dead in the backyard.” That mole had her number for over a month.
Glancing out the window, I noticed the gardener face down.
T. R. Jordan is a civil engineer living in Dallas, TX. He focuses on vulnerability.
Some day, the world will know the truth. They think that because of their ridiculous brains and silly thumbs they can do anything. We’ll let them think that for a while. Remember: stay away from their video cameras. We don’t want to go viral yet. They might stop feeding us.
Penny Jo McAllister is a freelance writer who lives among several innocent looking critters.
Andile could trace his family back to an eighteenth century shaman, but he was sure this was a first. Torso and abdomen were insectile; gonads mammalian in defiance of bio-mechanical laws. But the brain…? It phased in and out. His scalpel hovered…
The attackers were advancing to claim their dead.
Irish writer Perry McDaid lives in Derry under the brooding brows of Donegal hills which he occasionally hikes in search of druidic inspiration.
They say rejection hurts; I applied to the Imperial Bardic College knowing full well it can kill. An interview was offered and I took it, broke in more ways than one.
“Tell me a story.” The bard tapped the knife on the table. “Fifty words. Begin.”
My mind went blank.
Magda Knight writes speculative fiction for adults, young adults and changelings. Her work has been published in a number of anthologies (and, rather delightfully, in the British comic 2000AD). Some judges were kind enough to short/longlist her work for a number of awards including the Mslexia Children’s Book Awards in 2012 and the Commonword Diversity Writing for Children Prize in 2016. She is also the founder of Mookychick.co.uk, an alternative lifestyle site that’s been going since 2005. When she grows up she would like to be a sword or a bear.
As a child, he knew this part of the house, accessed only through a cave-like closet, was special.
Now, newly discharged, he lives here.
Sometimes his mother pushes through the musty coats and newly hung uniforms: “Coming through!” But feigning sleep, turned away, it’s only his rhythmic breathing she finds.
Matthew lives in Hope, Maine.
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.
The raindrops on the window look like tears.
Ava says, “Daddy, the house is crying.”
“It’s not, dear,” I promise, gathering the last of our bags from the room where her mother fought so hard.
But as the removal van pulls away, I look back and wonder if she’s right.
Mark Farley (mumbletoes.blogspot.com) is attempting to write 1,000,000 words in 2016. Please wish him luck!