My sister is in pieces under a stone flower vase. She has missed three years and is no older than she was before. Three years of blinking wrists, numbers on radios and ovens, and she is still the thing that’s absent. How brazen time is, proceeding this blithely without her.
Cheryl Snell’s books include poetry and fiction.
She thought that love was hidden in a shot glass, the shattered squares of disco balls or 3am cab rides. Purple and explosive, always that belly-churning, gut-wrenching need.
Turns out love is stepping out of parties, into the November air that kisses your bare skin, reminding you how to breathe.
Rachel Canwell wrote this story.
“Would you like to make a colorful turkey for our Thanksgiving decoration?” the mom asks.
“Yes!” her young daughter responds. She rushes to fetch paper and crayons and gets busy.
“It’s done!” She proudly holds up her drawing of a beautiful golden-brown turkey—with a fork embedded in its drumstick.
Cindy Harum’s publications include winning six Hallmark greeting card competitions, in which her cards were sold in stores and online, an honorable mention in a Writer’s Digest magazine contest, and an appearance in 50-Word Stories.
For the third time that night, the girl’s mother made a show of checking the room: the cupboard, the corners, beneath the bed. The light flicked off, and the door closed.
Her fears assuaged, the girl drifted slowly into the dark, and all the things waiting in her dreams smiled.
Callachan McNulty is a student and writer from Ontario. He loves speculative fiction of all kinds, as well as tea and rainy days.
I no longer care that you forget to put your coffee cup in the dishwasher or squeegee the shower.
What truly matters is hearing your soft breathing beside me and your hand next to mine, warm and constant in the night, when I wake with fears of what lies ahead.
Margie Nairn is a writer in Corvallis OR, struggling with surrendering gracefully to the challenges of aging.
Everything around and about you is white: the light bulb hanging from the ceiling, your white hair, enveloped in the smoke from the cigarette in your white hand and the empty piece of paper on which you, for the last few hours, have been trying to write me a letter.
Khop wrote this story.
overpowering the ebony night sky
an enormous, auric full moon
showing a bear, rabbit, fox then human face
my childhood wonder spoke
flimsy with pearly tendrils, empty spaces
daytime’s white-lace moon appears
no shiny, vibrant light to ease
love’s lost spirit
only a pale reminder
maybe I can love again
Hazel Ann Lee is a Black American author of works on science fiction and fantasy, education and science. Her poetry has appeared in 50-Word Stories, Star*Line, Utopia and Frost Zone Zine. Her short story was also published in Frost Zone Zine. Her book of original science poems and science fiction short stories is titled The Astronaut’s Window: Collection of Poems and Short Stories Celebrating Nature.
Brown-eyed, pink snout, prominent white mark on forehead, frail-looking, peeping out of the cheap red pails and the rancid meat, whining and wailing like a toddler, before locking eyes that collect my sympathy. The tenth adoption. Homecoming. Rain pattering. Pleasant petrichor. Tippy taps, tails wagging, tongues licking and happy songs.
Soumya Doralli from India is the author of two books of fiction titled ‘I Seek You’ and ‘Hues of the Sky’. Her short stories have been published in a journal and a couple of anthologies.
Call me crazy for still rooting for my team. It’s an historic fifty-seven years without a Super Bowl win. Despite declining health, I wear my favorite player’s jersey, paint my face orange, and cheer louder so they’ll score, hoping it helps them get to the promised land before I do.
Charles lives in Texas with his wife. He enjoys playing chess and dabbling in dribbles and drabbles.
It started around midnight.
“You’re a martyr – just like your mother,” yelled my mother.
“You’re a dictator – just like your father,” yelled my father.
Eight years old and listening through plaster walls they’d built themselves, I wondered which parts of them had collided in me.
They thought I was asleep.
Jasmine Beth writes and performs songs, stories and poems. She lives in Sydney, but tours Australia and the UK regularly. Follow her at jasminebeth.com.