On his deathbed, my father’s request that I wear my uniform to his funeral was as close as he’d ever come to saying he was proud of me. As the morphine drip increases and his lucidity fades, my last chance to hear him say he loves me also slips away.
Bud Pharo is a permanently disabled veteran who has recently taken up writing short stories and flash fiction to assist in his recovery. He lives in New Jersey.
Frigid November winds shrivel played-out community gardens. The 70-year-old poet sits alone in the 94-year old condo, grieves his father’s ninety-first birthday. Troupes of hybrid SUVs traverse invisible 12,000-year-old glacial moraines. Ripples of multi-colored leaves carpet 100 year-old bricked street intersections.
Frank C. Modica is a retired teacher who taught children with special needs for over 34 years. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Dust Poetry, New Square, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Lit Shark. Frank’s first chapbook, “What We Harvest,” nominated for an Eric Hoffer book award, was published in the fall of 2021 by Kelsay Books. His second chapbook, “Old Friends,” was published this past December by Cyberwit Press.
I fall through a hole in the page to a savannah where flea-sized giraffes roam. Adele announces, “Spaghetti’s ready.” Stomach rumbling, Adele grumbling, I return, giraffe in tow, sew the page closed. Table’s unstable. Nothing a matchbook can’t solve. I rise. Spaghetti steam drifts towards a hole in the ceiling.
Guy is the author of Translated From The Original, one-inch punch fiction (Nomadic Press), and five other collections. He’s hooked on cats, coffee, & Cocoa Krispies, but can quit anytime.
On moonless nights, when darkness unfolds, becoming every shadow’s blanket, the boys dream of shadows sleeping serenely, cuddled in night’s softness. Whenever a shadow snarls or snores, the night muffles the sound into something less disturbing. While the boys dream of shadows, the shadows dream of dancing beneath crisscrossing spotlights.
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.
First you see the cap of bright purple hair, then dark supporting tresses. Together they frame a beatific smile and lowered eyes. The very image of serenity and beauty, masking the horrendous, courageous journey through abuse and fear that birthed this strong young woman, this girl with the purple hair.
Eileen is writing her way through retirement and grandparenthood.
Grandpa was fit but he was convinced he was a wildebeest. Every day he galloped through the cobbled streets, imagining he was making his annual migration through East Africa. Today, Grandpa would have been diagnosed as zoanthropic and would receive psychiatric help. But back in the old days, who gnu?
David Silver was a reporter, sub-editor, and humour columnist on various newspapers in Greater Manchester, England. He retired in 2002 and from 2011-2016 wrote a light-hearted column for The Courier, a weekly newspaper for UK expatriates in Spain.
He adored “Peace Piece.” Each time he would coax me to take the left hand while he played the right. We were joined at the heart and in the beauty of the gentle melody. Now he’s gone, and I sit at the piano alone, one hand lost without the other.
Nick Young is a retired award-winning CBS News Correspondent. In addition to 50-Word Stories, his writing has appeared in more than two dozen publications including the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Garland Lake Review, Potato Soup Journal, The San Antonio Review, The Best of CaféLit 11 and Vols. I and II of the Writer Shed Stories anthologies. He lives outside Chicago.
veiled dawn
rose and gold
heel heel toe toe
rising wet steam
whiff of coffee
breakfast eats
the hour before
you take off
ready to exist and
feeling the sun’s rays
playing lightly
through time
its complicated systems
the driving beat inside
your own heart pleading
don’t stop keep going.
Cheryl Snell writes poetry and fiction of all sizes. She has recent work in Gone Lawn, Impspired, Pure Slush and elsewhere.
The story of the week for June 26 to 30 is…
The Buddy Bench by Miranda Keskes
We’ve got a pattern.
You break. I fix.
You plead innocence. I forgive.
But this time, you’ve crossed all limits. You broke your promise and my heart. Tell me how to fix them. I’m struggling.
Can’t you plead for your innocence from the other side?
I want to forgive you.
Chandra Sundeep is a BIPOC writer living in Kuwait. She is an avid reader and loves reviewing books. Follow her at @wordsopedia.