The story of the week for April 20 to 24 is…
Catching Angels by Alyson Floyd
and
Collect by Paul D’Arcy
JEREMY NATHAN MARKS: Hegel
G.W.F. Hegel was a breach birth. Because he entered the world upside down, Hegel could see the world’s drawers. The point is not to change anything, he said. Conform to what you wear! Along came Karl Marx who called him a fool. The point, Marx remarked, is to go commando.
Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in the Great Lakes Region of Canada. Recent poetry/prose appear/will appear in places like CommuterLit, Right Hand Pointing, The Medley, Studio One, Down in the Dirt, Amaranth, Dissident Voice, Red Fern Review, 365 Tomorrows, As It Ought To Be, and Eunoia Review.
CHRISTA LYON-MOON: City Life
They walked the same streets day after day. The city’s beat pulsed through their veins. They welcomed the same sun, were drenched by the same rain. The scent of takeout followed them home along the same familiar path. Sometimes, their eyes met. Other times, not. They were strangers, yet neighbors.
Christa Lyon-Moon spends her free time crafting flash fiction that finds meaning in small moments where imagination meets real life.
PAUL D’ARCY: Collect
He called. Nineteen years later.
She picked up on the second ring. Like she’d been waiting. Which maybe she had.
He recited what he’d practiced.
She was quiet.
“I know,” she said. “What else?”
He hadn’t expected that.
“Here’s what you’ll do,” she sighed. “Lose my number. Stay away. Goodbye.”
Paul D’Arcy tells stories. All real. Most brief. You can read more at pauldrc.com.
MINH-TAM LE: Hello Again
I close my eyes and listen for your voice over the rainfall.
Welcome to Artemesia Station. The next train at Platform 7A is the 4:23 PM service to Poseidon and Triton Riverside.
You are gone forever, but the tempo of your recorded words soothes the hurt for just a moment.
Minh-Tam Le is a physician assistant living in Winston-Salem, NC. Her work has most recently appeared in Snapdragon A Journal of Art and Healing, and she was a winner in the Writer’s Digest 20th Annual Poetry Awards, Chapbook category.
CLODAGH O CONNOR: Icarus Rises
He has flown too high, can feel the blaze of the sun melting the wax from his wings. As he tumbles downwards, feathers loose and swirl. He thinks of his father, straightens his arms, and stretches out his legs until he gannet-breaks the water and comes up, smiling his joy.
Clodagh O Connor lives in Dublin, Ireland and has always loved reading. She is working on becoming a writer, but constantly distracts herself with wet felting, origami, bird watching, cycling, haiku writing, baking, reading and internet rabbit holes.
RON FROMSTEIN: Adventures in Water Sliding
They said no one gets stuck anymore and then I got stuck.
So I wailed and hollered and banged with my palms flat on the slick white plastic.
No one.
Nothing.
And then came the sound.
That terrible, horrible cry.
Someone was coming behind me, fast.
And then a shadow.
Ron Fromstein is a largely self-taught writer from Toronto who has also lived in Chicago, New Orleans Vacouver and Iceland.
COLLETTE NIGHT: Daisy
Tears soak the freshly turned earth beneath her knees.
Her womb flutters gently, like the butterfly hovering over his flowers.
Fresh-cut daisies, white like surrender, mark his gravestone.
She wipes away her tears and steels her aching spine, leaving empty.
No.
She leaves, but she is not empty.
Daisy.
Theirs.
Collette Night is an Australian writer who crafts lyrical fiction with bite. Her work has been featured in various online and print publications. When not writing, she can be found juggling motherhood while drinking obscene amounts of caffeine.
ALYSON FLOYD: Catching Angels
I learned from you to lure them in by radiating loneliness. To cup them gently in my hands so I wouldn’t crush their small wings. To whisper my last goodbye and let them go. I still heed your words every time I catch one. After all, it might be you.
Alyson Floyd is a writer, poet, and amateur zine-maker drifting around the east coast.
MICHELLE WILSON: IRL, We’re Feral
We used to bike to the canal, improv outrageous cat symphonies. Wind rippling the water, we kept time with shadows creeping up walls.
Now we meet on screens the size of our hands. Exchange thumbs, hearts, yawns.
“Meet me at the canal?” I text.
Purring, you bat away my phone.
Michelle Wilson’s words have appeared in Wigleaf, Gooseberry Pie Lit, The Daily Drunk, Bending Genres, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Rejection Letters, Maudlin House, Litro Magazine, 50-Word Stories, and Flash Fiction Magazine, among others. Her story ‘Fish Brain’ was nominated for Best of the Net 2022. She lives with her partner in Washington, DC. Read more of her work at michellekwilson.wordpress.com.