I watch you climb the steps gingerly holding the handrail. The lines on your forehead map worry. How are the kids? I ask. Has your granddaughter checked in to see how you’re doing? You take the groceries, grateful for yogurt and honey, whisper: No, the granddaughter just asks for money.
Sue Ann Gleason is a writer, educator, and nourishment guide who loves freshly sharpened pencils and pages that turn. See more at wellnourishedwoman.com and sueanngleason.substack.com.
Our first night in our first home, too hyped to sleep. We roam the halls marveling, planning. In our bright new kitchen, there gleams a behemoth of a fridge bequeathed from generous sellers.
What to do first—stock it with staples or inform police what we found in the freezer?
Carol Tymann is writing, reading, and playing through a typically long New York winter season.
Growing up, we didn’t have much, but we had Mum. Sometimes at night, I would drift into her room, drawn by her CD, ‘Ocean Sounds,’ filling the darkness.
Mum whined, turned, and tugged. Her pillow sopping. It was too late when we finally realised that, all along, she’d been drowning.
Raymond Sloan lives and writes in County Down, Ireland. He has previously been published in Blink-Ink, The Dribble Drabble Review, 101 Words, Every Day Fiction, among others.
The flickering glow of a candle illuminated their faces across the restaurant table. Hearts blazed with passion and desire. Sparks sizzled, unbound. Breathless.
As he ate, she reached out her hand. He gently held her palm.
She gazed, yearning. Both leaned in, trembling.
He said: “Get your own french fries.”
Wendy resides in Vancouver, BC. Wendy placed third in the Women on Writing Spring 2023 Flash Fiction competition. Her work has also appeared in A Story in 100 Words and Macabre Minima, an anthology.
We’d dated for a year before I reported him for the serial murder of his exes.
“H-how… did you know?” he rasped, limp in the cuffs.
I leaned forward, whispering against his ear: “Like recognizes like.”
His eyes widened as flashing blue and red lights came to drag him away.
Celine Grace is a young writer obsessed with the mystery of ideas and is learning how to use marks on a page to tell them.
It’s always 6:00, according to my sister’s watch, hands frozen, crystal shattered from the accident. It holds the scent of that last cigarette she smoked. Some days, I think about trying to get it fixed, to let time move forward. But when time moves on, you leave so much behind.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.
We grab clean socks and shirts, hiding them in secret locations. If one of my eight siblings finds mine, I’m doomed to ragged remains.
The clothesline holds the treasures. Late from school leaves only fuzzy scraps. Here’s where the artful layering of old over faded becomes stylish. I am well-dressed.
DML Meyer is a former mechanical engineering professor who loves the idea of turning the alphabet into stories.
She is seven years old: half the life expectancy of her kind. She’s become depressed and lonely.
Her mistress has arthritis in her throwing arm but wisdom in her old soul—it’s time to call for reinforcement!
Now she has renewed vigor; the light’s returned to her eyes.
Hello, puppy.
Cate Covert hails from sunny Idaho, U.S.A. She has been telling stories since she could talk. She is a gardener and amateur herbalist, plays guitar and piano, and loves baking bread and making beaded jewelry. Most of all, Cate Covert loves to engage her reading and listening audiences. You can read her frequent inspirational writings, poetry, flash fiction, and humorous stories at Cate Covert on Chadashah.org or her Inspirational essays and bible studies at Pastora Cate’s Corner on Substack.
Work in the time of Covid
Renting in the time of inflation
Parenting in the time of bullying
Dating in the time of social media
Dieting in the time of food delivery
Journalism in the time of artificial intelligence
As time goes on, don’t be surprised if clocks melt
Roberta Beach Jacobson is an American poet and author who is drawn to the magic of words – poetry, song lyrics, flash fiction, puzzles, stand-up comedy. Her latest book is Demitasse Fiction: One-Minute Reads for Busy People (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). After spending 38 years in Europe, she relocated to Indianola, Iowa with her husband and three cats.
The story of the week for February 5 to 9 is…
A Puddle on the Bathroom Floor by Nico Calvanico