ALMA ARIAZ: Let’s Live Parallel Lives and Vow to Never Speak a Word

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

I find more comfort in complete strangers,
Than in good friends.
I’ve always been enchanted by minding my own business.
Them, minding theirs.
I enjoy the concept of territory.
Of personal space, well-kept.
Let’s draw a red line in chalk, straight down the middle,
And vow to never cross it.

Alma Ariaz is a young writer from Ontario, Canada. She wrote her first novel at sixteen, and has since been published in various literary journals. Her work is mostly fiction based in reality, as she seeks to capture her thoughts in little glass jars and force them onto the page.

BOB THURBER: Lucky Keepsake

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

The pebble in his pocket had been given to him by a child who’d plucked it from a stream, formerly part of a fierce ancient river. Eons before the great flood, the pebble had been lodged in a hillside, and before that (the pebble still remembered) part of a mountain.

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 LUDEMANN: Theorem

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

I’m full of holes, absolutely riddled. I’m mostly not here. Caught between a particle and a wave. Not knowing how I’m held together, but there is something solid here. I’ve banged my head against the wall enough trying to prove it.

Then I hold your hand and understand the universe.

Robert Ludemann is happy retired and that is the long and short to it.

LESLEY BUNGAY: She sleeps lightly

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

For years she lay awake, listening for the return of fledglings burning the candle late. The turn of a key, the creak of the stair. Needing to know they were home safe before her own eyes could rest. Now flown, their phantom clicks and shadow steps still haunt her slumber.

Lesley also has short fiction published online at 101 Words, Paragraph Planet and Wensum Lit, as well as a number of competition anthologies. She grew up in the North East and now lives in Hampshire.

EMILY PATINO: Is This Your First?

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

“Is this your first?” rings endlessly in her ears, haunting her days as well-meaning people ask her about her future child. She rubs her growing stomach, the guilt of every “yes” said to avoid a harder conversation permeating her thoughts, and tries to convince herself that it wasn’t her fault.

Emily is a new mom, a wife, a cat mom, an editor, a writer, and a singer—words and labels that don’t matter much to anyone, but to her, they are the portrait of a full and growing life. She hopes to expand that life with more words each day.

CINDY HARUM: Regifting

Amusing, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

The granddaughter unwraps the gift on her 15th birthday. “Awesome!” she exclaims, holding up red pleather pants to show her mother.

The mother flashes back to 1997—when she was forbidden to wear them to school but slipped them into her backpack anyway. She side-eyes the gift-giver.

The grandmother smiles.

Cindy Harum’s publications include winning six Hallmark greeting card competitions, in which her cards were sold in stores and online, as well as an honorable mention in a Writer’s Digest magazine contest. This is her first published short story.

MEGAN BELTRAN: She does nothing

Adventure, Submissions, , ,

“She does nothing.”

According to him, she had done so for years. How easily he dismissed fifty-plus years of marriage, of service. University, children, tenure, moving, a roast chicken every Sunday.

She considered his crooked spine, heard his ragged breath begin to struggle. With an imperceptible smile, she did Nothing.

Megan Beltran is a musician and word-enthusiast living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She loves the redwoods, teaching, and language.

KEITH J POWELL: Blink

Adventure, Odd, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

At 40,000 feet, our now is ragged, rippling, unmoored. Somehow, somewhere, the past’s been changed. To keep our reality fixed, I must maintain perfect visual contact with the moon — a constant across timelines. Breaking it invites awful transformations. Dystopias. Erasure.

I wake my seatmate. Warn the crew, I plead. Hurry.

Keith J. Powell is co-founder of Your Impossible Voice and has recent or forthcoming work in SoFloPoJo, Heavy Feather Review, BULL, 100 Word Story, and Does it Have Pockets. Find more at www.keithjpowell.com.

VICTOR KREUITER: Halo

Artistic, Odd, Submissions, , ,

The halo arrived when she was twelve. The teasing was merciless. The nuns were furious. In confession, she wept.

She was force-marched through tabernacles and asylums and hospitals and prodded and examined and questioned. The cruelest question: “Why you?”

She disappeared. How does a young woman with a halo disappear?

Victor Kreuiter lives, reads, and writes in the Midwest.