It’s hard
to close the distance
and reach out
with compassion
and empathy,
denying myself
and accepting you,
just as you are.
And say,
without pride,
without reservations,
without inhibitions,
without fear,
that I
Forgive You.
Instead,
I hold on
to anger
and tell you
to leave without me,
again.
Munira Sayyid recently realized her passion for writing. She urges you to try as well.
It was her first blind date.
“Sit at the table near the window,” he’d said. “Wear yellow.”
Now, at the table near the window, she waited. Their eyes met briefly as he passed. She anticipated the cold rush of air, but the door never opened. She still felt the chill.
Susan Gale Wickes wrote this story. She rarely window shops and never wears yellow.
An uncle told me TV laughter was dead people—It’s canned, he said. For years I couldn’t eat tuna, soup, or beans.
Until the bombs.
Now, canned food is all that’s left—hoarded in caves and holes. And let me tell you, no one’s laughing anymore. Not even the dead.
Naturally, he insisted on digging his own grave. He barely had the strength. I brought wine. We ended up drinking it out of the bottle after he pushed the cork through with his thumb. Each time I chugged I watched that cork drifting around like a boat in a storm.
Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and prizes. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled “Nothing But Trouble.” His first novel, “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel,” was recently rereleased. Visit BobThurber.net.
“With one formula, we’ve reached singularity. Those black skies will be mapped; endless mysteries will become facts.”
That was the pitch, anyway. Now, standing on this… living satellite, I shiver despite the heat.
Overcome by hostile hosts, it dawns. Now that we live faster than light,
so too we die.
James P. Spitznogle is an aspiring writer from the star-scraping hills of West Virginia.
It was Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve (December 17th). Emily crossed the softball diamond in the snow, to where Sister Amy had had a tooth loosened by somebody’s loose ball in autumn.
“I’m fine!” she’d told them, face in hand.
Secretly Emily practiced alone until spring.
John Gabriel Adkins is a Pushcart-nominated writer of microfiction, anti-stories and other oddities, and is a member of the Still Eating Oranges arts collective. This year his work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Literary Orphans, SPANK the CARP, Five 2 One, Sick Lit Magazine, The Sleep Aquarium, and more.
“Choklat,” he demanded, his eyes glistening.
She was buying him ice cream. Again. Because she adored the way his little tongue twisted into the cone, chasing down the last oozing dregs.
And because, when he gleefully wiped his sticky fingers across his cardigan, she knew her suppressed resentment was justified.
Tamsin can currently be found poking writing with a stick, and then running away scared.
I spin with my daughter in the front yard. Stars cut the night. Together we get dizzy. She sinks to her knees and giggles. She orders me: “Faster! Faster!” I turn round and round. Arms out. Head back.
Selling the car gives us another month in the house. Spinning. Spinning.
Jonathan Kosik takes photos of fast cars and lives with his wife and daughter just outside Nashville, Tennessee. See more at jonathankosik.com.
The train station convenience store cashier in the Austrian podunk where I’m homeless spices things up with foreign phrases. He might greet a customer with “Bonjour” or “Master Commander.”
As he hands me my change, I whisper, “Danke.”
He replies, “You are welcome,” and I fantasise that I finally am.
Angela Brett is a mathematician and linguist by training, programmer by trade, and writer by neglecting everything else. She is a New Zealander living in Austria and writing at angelastic.com.
“Oranges and lemons,” say the bells of St. Clement’s.
“Cheating and stealing,” sing church bells in Ealing.
“Didn’t she earn it?” ask three bells at Barnet.
“One fatal blow,” says the bell of Harrow.
Big Ben deafens London. “We. Know. You. Killed. Her. Jack.”
Hands over my ears, I run.
Hannah is a technical author from London. She won the Junior Author International Short Story Award in 2015 and has published work in Myths of the Near Future and Writer’s Forum.