I chat to callers about holiday homes, kitchen renovations, solar panels.
Later, I call twenty-four-hour hotlines, but can’t find options I need:
1 for housebound,
2 for lonely,
3 for desperate.
Tomorrow, I’ll break the fridge. Mechanic will be here in an hour, answer in grunts. Highlight of my week.
Jo Withers writes micros, shorts and poetry from her home in South Australia. Recent work can be found in Molotov Cocktail, Spelk and 24 Unread Messages.
It all started as a joke, but thousands of us did end up camping in the desert. We couldn’t get any closer than five miles from Area 51 because of the military roadblocks, but a large tent city quickly emerged. When the alien ships arrived, the joke was on us.
Eddie D. Moore travels extensively for work, and he spends much of that time listening to audiobooks. The rest of the time is spent dreaming of stories to write, and he spends the weekends writing them. His stories have been published by Jouth Webzine, Kzine, Alien Dimensions, Theme of Absence, Devolution Z, and Fantasia Divinity Magazine. Find more on his blog.
The baker cuts chunks from the amoeba dough. It’s sticky in his hands, protesting against separation onto the kneading board.
From the display of loaves, shiny like glazed pots, I choose the largest and the assistant swaddles it in tissue. I carry the loaf like a babe in my arms.
Gail Aldwin’s debut novel, The String Games, has been long-listed in The People’s Book Prize. If you’d like to support her to reach the next level, you can vote using this link. Voting is open until 15 October 2019.
Every night the master sleeps with his head resting in the groove of a guillotine,
the blade elevated, notched by a lever. Lanterns illuminate the narrow chamber.
All any disciple need do is enter and release the blade.
Each night the master dreams of the wisest, purest, most devoted assassin.
Bob Thurber is the author of “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel” and two collections of stories. A celebrated master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in 60 anthologies, received dozens of awards, and been used in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts where, though legally blind, he continues to write every day. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.
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.
As Granny evanesced,
she left a whisper,
words which echo
endlessly.
She said,
“From magic we come
and to magic we return.
Remember:
I am reeds bending in the wind,
the brush of soft willows,
birdsong before the dawn.
I am not gone from this world,
but with you
always.”
Matthew Coward is a habitual daydreamer, occasional writer and proud night-owl. He writes fantasy inspired flash fiction, short stories and poetry.
The zebra butterfly clung to the glass pane. His black and white wings drew the attentive fingers of the little boy on the window seat inside. Could he cradle this wonder in his hand?
The butterfly clapped his wings and lifted away. He carried with him all the toddler’s joy.
Gary Thomson lives in Ontario, where in his quiet moments he blows Beatles tunes on his Hohner harmonica.
Sixty seconds into her presentation, Becky became dismally aware that no one was listening.
Sixty seconds further, her anger boiled over.
“I hope you all die in a plane crash!”
Now she had them.
“But in the event that you don’t, please leave personal belongings behind when exiting this aircraft.”
Derick Lengwenus is a stand-up comedian, writer, and family man originally from Canada and now living in Chicago, Illinois. He has appeared in the Just For Laughs Festival numerous times and can be heard regularly on XM Radio’s “Canada Laughs”.
Books pile up around the bed like sandbags. He’d just finished another one about gulags. There were people who’d lost fingers and toes while digging for nothing, with nothing for miles in any direction.
Worse off? No doubt. Still, taking no chances, he pulled the sheets up and cocooned himself.
Patrick Mc Loughlin is an English Language Teacher in Ireland and Dabbles in writing. He also dabbles in painting and music and someday hopes to do more than dabble. He lives in the west of Ireland, where it’s hard to concentrate.
He says, tell me what you see.
What should I say? A handsome pig? A rabbit?
I see a mix of Miro and Dali, but I can’t say that. If he thinks I’m showing off, that defeats the object, because I came here to understand my fear of being judged.
Henry Bladon is a writer of short fiction and poetry based in Somerset in the UK. His work can be seen in Fewer than 500, Pure Slush, Truth Serum Press, and Flash Frontier, among other places.