The story of the week for October 23 to 27 is…
Childhood Bravery by Chelsea Utecht
JENNIFER SMITH: Her Last Bouquet
She didn’t hug, but her life embraced me in richness, like fertile soil nurturing zinnias. Like Earth’s dense nutrients nourishing blooms that flourish in early autumn fields.
Flowers pose grandly under a canopy sky of her favorite blue. Basket in hand, I stoop and pick her a medley of colors.
Jennifer Smith is a retired elementary school speech-language pathologist. She writes stories inspired by her small town southern life. Residing in Rock Spring, Georgia, Jennifer enjoys walking in beautiful places and listening to audiobooks.
JAMISON BROWN: Remnants of Regret
Sarah’s quivering hand turned the old, rusty key in the lock. The hidden door creaked open, revealing a room filled with memories of her late father.
She traced her fingers over the exit wounds in the wall where his old dartboard once hung, reminders of unfulfilled dreams and missed opportunities.
Jamison Brown has had a rewarding career in technology, a journey that has allowed him to travel extensively. Jamison now takes pleasure in the simple joys of being a homebody. This transition is, in no small part, thanks to his three delightful grandchildren, who keep him constantly on his toes. An avid lover of writing and music, Jamison maintains a passionate connection to his tech roots, ensuring that the digital realm continues to hold a special place on his priority list.
ANANIAH J: Pink Plastic Dinos
You brought me pink plastic dinos when I was six
I’d hide them between your couch
And we’d laugh when you found them
A decade later,
I still buy myself pink plastic dinos
That I hide when I’m home,
Waiting for you to find them
So we can laugh again.
Ananiah is an artist, writer, and bibliophile who draws inspiration from the raw fragments of existence. With her cat as her companion and the aroma of coffee filling the air, she believes that life itself is art and each day is an opportunity to create and acknowledge the unfiltered authenticity around us.
CHELSEA UTECHT: Childhood Bravery
If you don’t look, don’t allow a toe to pass the mattress’s precipice, then it can’t get you. This intuition lives in my bones.
But she dared me.
“Baby,” she sneered.
What to do?
I extend my leg.
Laugh triumphantly.
But whatever is under the bed laughs along with me.
Chelsea Utecht is an American abroad in Tbilisi, Georgia where she teaches literature and writing. A recent participant in the renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop, her work is forthcoming in Shooter Literary Magazine.
FAUNE ALBERT: Vicarious
Before my nephew was born, as we waited for him to arrive in the Arizona heat, my left breast swelled to painful proportions.
Later, I crept outside of the hospital and phoned the doctor in Massachusetts. The sun was high in the sky, the parking lot bright like blanched bones.
Faune Albert is a writer and artist from the Ozark Mountains who teaches writing at Hampshire College.
EILEEN MARDRES: A Walk on an Autumn Day
A single breath of crisp fall air. A single golden leaf, fluttering, beckoning. A single magpie stoically ignoring. A single squirrel chattering, proclaiming from its favorite branch. A still brown hare peering from its borough. A single step, and then another, away from summer, stepping into the earth’s annual glory.
Eileen finds autumn days uplifting, comforting, and full of joy and hope.
HEATHER HAIGH: Together
Come the witching hour, the nightmare is upon us. Alone, we cower. But in the darkness, we sense others screaming, others quivering, others ready to join the fray. We gather in shadows, exchanging whispers, honing secret blades. Tomorrow we fight together, upright beneath the sun. Together we become the nightmare.
Heather is a sight-impaired spoonie and emerging working-class writer from Yorkshire. Her work has been published by: Reflex Press, Pure Slush, Mono, A Coup of Owls, Free Flash Fiction and others. She has been nominated for Best of the Net.
LARISSA MARTINS COSTA: Of Light and Air
The cracked window casts a rainbow on the wall, beautiful like the fairy-queen in the discarded picture-book by the bed. The little girl watches it through the numbness of fever.
“Have you fled the sky?” she smiles. “Are you sick, too?”
But neither fairy nor mortal last through that night.
Larissa Martins Costa writes short stories to escape from her hopelessly long novels-in-progress. She may be reached on instagram at @mcostalarissa
ERIK CEDERBLOM: Burden
My best friend and next-door neighbor
—thirteen, happy, taller, stronger—
challenged me for the right to carry
my knapsack
on a summer hike across the Delaware and back.
So why, two lifetimes later,
do I still feel guilt and anger?
How was I to know
I was the better swimmer?
Erik Cederblom, a San Francisco Bay Area Writer, prefers the short form: 6-word wonders, dribbles, drabbles, flash, and short stories. (Who coins these terms?) His stories have been shared in The Iowa Review, The Military Experience and the Arts, inScribe, Typishly, and others.