The story of the week for June 3 to 7 is…
Midnight Rendezvous by Bob Thurber
and
Imagination by Carol Reeves
HEATHER HAIGH: Settling Down
Hitched tight, we moved to a red-brick bungalow bounded by a red-brick walled garden—neat as a pin, pinned in a red-brick estate, where floral-aproned matrons cooled bread by gosssiping windows and exchanged pie recipes; but because, after thrashing rain, I could sycamore-seed spin, inhaling petrichor—sometimes I could breathe.
Heather’s body is knackered and her brain runs intermittently on adrenaline, somewhere in Yorkshire, usually around three a.m.—when she does the only thing she can and spews words at the page in the hope of redemption.
SANDRA JAMES: Serenade
The old wooden treehouse Dad built still rests on the eucalypt branch; paint faded but still strong. The curious magpie on the roof looks the same… Surely not, after all these years.
And yet… he tilts his head, peers at me with knowing eyes, then warbles a serenade to you.
Sandra James thinks up story ideas while walking her rescue Mini-Dachshund. Her first collection of flash fiction, My Muse Wears a Purple Collar, is available on Amazon.
YASH SEYEDBAGHERI: New Me
I stare at the glass of wine on the table.
It shimmers with the possibility of euphoria after credit card bills, editing clients’ invectives, more bills, angry drivers.
I pick up the glass.
I think of memories forgotten. Never found. Late-night belligerence.
I turn the glass over. Let it seep.
Mir-Yashar 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 Pushcart Prizes. Mir-Yashar’s work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Ariel Chart, among others. He has been working on a short story collection centered around two siblings and their quest for the American Dream. Mir-Yashar lives in Garden Valley, Idaho.
LISA CHAMBERS: Tightrope
Don’t look back, focus on what’s ahead, they say. But the past is where I find us, in all our adolescent glory, believing we’d share infinite tomorrows.
Our memories are a safety net waiting to catch me as I walk that fine line between reality and what could have been.
Lisa Chambers is a Texas girl who is grateful for cherished memories.
CHERYL SNELL: On a Fifty Year Old Recording, I Hear My Brother Sing
It was a pure voice, sweet and musical. I heard the choirboy in it, the sound a flock of birds shimmering along the length of his throat. He was always singing about love. Would he have done that if he’d known how soon it fades, or how quietly it dies?
Cheryl Snell writes stories with at least a grain of truth in them.
BOB THURBER: Midnight Rendezvous
Meet me in the marsh, beside the pond near the windmill.
There are willows there, Cattails, distant hills, tree frogs and katydids.
No sign of anyone.
I’ll bring a boat made of folded newspaper.
We’ll watch the moon climb through the branches.
You can never see it all at once.
Bob Thurber is the author of six books. Regarded as a master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been anthologized 60 times, received a long list of awards, and been utilized in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.
ROBERT CARLBERG: The Time-Traveling Fortune Teller
Even from a distance Herbert could tell the accident hadn’t happened yet. Slipping into the crowd, he quickly scanned their faces, looking for the one. When it came, the noise still startled him, and it wasn’t who he was expecting. He came dangerously close to being involved, as per usual.
This story was written by Brown Sugar Bourbon. It was transcribed and tightened up by Robert Carlberg.
JOHANNES SPRINGENSEISS: The Door
I warned him not to go through the door; it was mayhem outside. He said he must because he had to live his life.
We met again, in Bogota, twenty years later. He was awfully skinny but seemed content. Looking back, he only said no door could ever stop him.
Johannes Springenseiss is a world citizen and raconteur. He mostly writes speculative fiction and creative essays, which he has published in various literary magazines.
CHAD SULLIVAN: (Poor) Host
A tapeworm’s mouth is like an exploding aril; its head, a hydrant. I washed my hands so often that they chapped and bled. I was eleven, terrified I’d be a host.
I’m forty-three now. I keep a quiet home. I invite no one over and my hands are soft.
Chad Sullivan is a father, husband, and heavy equipment operator who lives and writes in Elburn, Illinois. His work will appear in upcoming Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y, and Maudlin House issues. He exists quietly, running in the woods and roughhousing with his two children.