What a girl! Chuckling, he picked up another shoe thrown impressively far. Everyone thinks their child’s special, but how could you not marvel at Hannah’s strength and speed, her spirit? It was practically superhuman.
Straightening up, his eye was caught by an ethereal glow. And inside it, his daughter, levitating.
Jennifer Busch ain’t afraid of no ghost.
The wolves crept toward the old man’s fire, for the forest was frozen, and they would not survive the night.
Curious, he greeted them as new friends. Old hostilities forgotten, they shared the warmth.
Sunrise saw his bones picked clean. When night next fell, they died with their bellies full.
William Mitchell lives in East Sussex in the South of England. He is an award-winning author, having had early success with various Horror and Science Fiction publications before winning the Writers of the Future contest in 2012. His first novel, CREATIONS, came out in 2014 with John Hunt Publishing.
The river flowed.
Tiny fingers prised giant rocks.
Muscles piled the fort higher.
The river flowed.
Snow came.
The sun melted it.
The river broke its banks.
The fort was overrun.
Smaller pebbles shifted.
The fort was submerged.
The river flowed.
It subsided.
The fort reappeared, triumphant.
The river flowed.
Francesca Morrison is a born and bred Londoner now living in Vancouver. She walks the river trails every day with her dog and sometimes kids in tow. That’s where she got inspiration for this piece. Francesca recently came runner up in a Flash Fiction contest and was longlisted for the CANSCAIP 2022 Writing for Children Competition. She meets regularly with two critique groups and is a member of the 12×12 Challenge.
She steadied herself against the console as she chose the coordinates to her destination. The tired metal warped and shuddered around her. Centuries of dust and debris fell away as the spaceship broke free from the ground. Soon, she would be on her way to a home barely remembered. Earth.
Simon Kaeppeli is a scientist and writer. He currently lives in Scotland with his senior cat.
Two teenagers in a cemetery. They prop their laptop against a tombstone. A faint name scrawled there—Alastair or Archibald, died age 15. Wispy fingers pat the girl’s hair, shake the boy’s hand, offer them a spray of white meadowsweet. No one screams. The three new friends share ghost stories.
Beth Sherman’s writing has appeared in over 100 literary journals and will be in The Best Microfictions 2024. She’s a Pushcart, BSF, and BOTN nominee.
Everything fit together like clockwork until one piece went missing. The remaining pieces are holding together but things don’t feel quite as tight. Life ticks along until suddenly that sprocket doesn’t show up. My gear expectantly reaches out and, with nothing there to mesh with, spins out into free fall.
In his retirement, Stephen Tilden has become wary of clocks.
As the hospital’s automatic doors closed behind him, he dared a glance down. He smiled at the perfectly swaddled newborn asleep in his arms. An impossible protectiveness bloomed in his heart. He was a father, finally.
Thirty minutes later an alarm sounded from the maternity ward. A baby was missing.
When J. N. Johnson isn’t writing, she works as a Lookout Observer, watching for forest fires in Alberta, Canada. She published her debut novel, PIG, which was short-listed for the 2022 Cygnus Book Awards, and she is currently working on book two in that series. You can find her on Instagram @kocojopublishing.
Excitedly, young Aisha skipped from the packed boat to the beach. Her parents’ faces lifted slightly upon seeing her joy. The sun painted the summer holiday she’d always dreamed of right onto the sand. Her parents exchanged a look laden with relief at seeing the beach empty of border police.
Tom lives with his young family in New Zealand and works as a primary school teacher. He has had a passion for stories ever since learning to walk and is currently working on a series of fantasy novels.
My youngest brother, who was there at the time, said it went like this:
On his 90th birthday, Pop said with a lilt in his voice, “Always hoped I’d make it to 90.”
[deep, throaty sigh]
[loooooong pause]
Then he very softly continued, “Hope I don’t make it to 91.”
Trevor’s fiction and non-fiction have appeared in print and digital publications since the 1970s. He’s a mononymous, multiple award-winning, full-time entertainer who likes hyphens. See more at trevorthegamesman.com.
The story of the week for July 8 to 12 is…
Sporting a New Baseball Cap by Lynn Kozlowski