The story of the week for December 12 to 16 is…
Urban Legend by Michelle Wilson
K ROBERTS: Shivaree for the Bridegroom
After steeple bells chime wedding blessings, the ritual jesters descend, tying tin cans to your honeymoon car, clanging pots with spoons raucously under your bedroom window. Lords of misrule, anti-serenaders, we’re the jokers from Poker Night – zealously single but secretly jealous of your harmony, your full house, your winning hand.
K. Roberts is a professional non-fiction writer, a published artist, and a first reader for the Canadian magazine Nunum.
KEVIN OWEN: Fear of Flying
We’re flying back to England. It’s the first time we’ve ever flown together. I’ve bagged the window seat. He travels by train usually. He has this terrible fear you see, of speeding through the air. He’s flying flat out now, though, hidden somewhere in the hold, ticketless.
In a coffin.
Kev lives near an airport in Norfolk, UK, but closer to a railway station.
BILL DIAMOND: Holiday Rituals
Time changes what’s paramount.
As a child, Christmas meant Santa, excruciating anticipation and new toys.
Later, the right clothes, holiday parties and mistletoe.
With maturity, the wonder in children’s eyes, gathering around the table with family, appreciation for blessings.
Now, solitude at her grave and pleasant memories of special moments.
Bill Diamond enjoys both the perspiration and inspiration of creating stories from random thoughts and words.
DEBORAH TAPPER: His Daughter’s Gift
She wrapped it herself, neat edges defeating tiny fingers. Scolded when she thought he’d peeked. And it was still under the tree weeks later, waiting forlorn among fallen needles. His hand hovers, tracing yellowed tape, forever wondering. Then he kisses the fading paper. Puts it safely away for another year.
Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.
GARY THOMSON: Sleigh Ride
On Christmas day, O’Dowd’s sleigh bells jingle along the farm laneway toward a hushed Emma Rawlins. Clydesdale Dan snorts a frosty greeting. Emma shuffles forward, grateful to escape her cloistered loneliness. Her arcing club foot brushes angel wings in the snow. Snugged and blanketed, she follows the bells into wonderland.
Gary Thomson still remembers sleigh rides of his youth: a hay wagon pulled by Smoky and Thunder along snowy rural roads.
BOB THURBER: Another Man Down
When O’Malley died nobody said bad things, nobody said good things, nobody spoke his name at his funeral. There was no eulogy, no sermon, no prayer. Just a box with O’Malley in it. Nobody uttered a sound outside of breathing, which is all any of us had come to prove.
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.
MICHELLE WILSON: Urban Legend
Say his name three times (they said forbiddingly) and the boogeyman appears, manifesting your worst nightmares: snakes, spiders, failing French class, forgetting to clean your room, the blur of your father’s bony knuckles.
We tiptoed, mute, terrified of our own voices,
unaware that it was our silence that fed him.
Michelle Wilson’s words have appeared in Potato Soup Journal’s Best of 2021 Anthology, Rejection Letters, Maudlin House, Litro Magazine, The Drabble, 50-Word Stories, Literally Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, among others. Her story ‘Fish Brain’ has been nominated for a Best of the Net 2022 Award. She lives with her partner in Miami Beach, Florida.
CATHERINE MACKIE: Legacy
Twinkling tree lights reflect from a sleeping child’s curls.
I think of family trees
My father hurt my mother.
His father hurt me.
He hurt her mother.
Is it time to prune the tree?
Pain will flow like sap and stick to fingers.
My only role is to protect her.
Catherine Mackie is an emerging writer based in Alberta and lets her thoughts dance free with the prairie winds.
RON. LAVALETTE: Recessional
“No, no, no,” he said, his voice fading. “I see what you mean. I get it. I get it,” but his delivery had become a mere mumble as he entered the unlit room at the far end of the hall, softly closing the door behind him, making everything even darker.
Ron. Lavalette lives on Vermont’s Canadian border. His poetry, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction has been very widely published in both print and pixel forms. His first chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press), is now available at all standard outlets. A reasonable sample of his published works can be found at EGGS OVER TOKYO.