RAN WALKER: The Ghost

Adventure, Submissions, , ,

Only Arthur could see the outline of the girl standing by the window. He wanted to tell his parents, but he knew they wouldn’t believe him.

Nancy saw the outline of the boy standing by the door. She wanted to tell her parents, but she knew they wouldn’t believe her.

Ran Walker is the author of 28 books, the most recent of which is GLOKAT AND THE ART OF TIMING: A NOVEL IN 100-WORD STORIES (Worldspark Studios). He teaches creative writing at Hampton University and lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter.

PATRICK YU: Us and Them

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , , , , ,

Five die on each side
Ten replace them
History repeated
My hat off
Held to my chest
Gusts of wind
Amber and Crimson leaves
The season is changing
Winter around the corner
My grandson is warm
Under the Christmas tree
I feel it’s
The last chance
At what was normal

One of Patrick Yu’s favourite memories was paging through the Sears Christmas wish book.

ONDREJ MIXL: Nothing Special

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

I woke up, had breakfast, went to school, came home from school, did homework, went to bed. Nothing special happened. But it was a special day. I was one day older, wiser and maybe I was more mature. It was one more day that nobody would ever give me back.

Ondrej Mixl wrote this story.

PAUL LEVINE: As If We Are Gone

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

“I get frightened when you go to work,” Coe tells Larry. “I stand at the front door holding the baby, and when you walk across the yard and reach for the truck door, I don’t feel you see us anymore. It’s almost as if we are gone.”

Paul Levine lives in Venice, Florida where the cleanup still goes on from hurricane ian. The Venice Literary Review, his book of about getting older and moving to Florida, is found on Amazon.

CASEY LAINE: November 1st

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

My neighborhood is littered with the silken corpses of deflated Halloween decorations and giant cotton spiderwebs.

The dead have come and gone. One night of merriment and then, shedding last year’s skins across the lawn, they slithered back beyond the Veil.

I wonder: on whose life blood have they fed?

Casey Laine comes from a long line of talkative women. She parlays this abundance of words into many writings: journals, poetry, and of course several novels in progress. In her spare time, she chases butterflies with her camera, or – short of butterflies – creates vignettes out of odds and ends.

TITUS GRIMM: My Ghost

Adventure, Poetry, Submissions, , ,

Ever since I’ve passed
My ghost has been quite busy
He travels up and down the world
He haunts this very city

I know not his intentions
He has no care for mine
We couldn’t be more different
He’s taken all my time

Occasionally, I’ll wake and take my turn

Titus Grimm lives and works and Dallas, Tx and is continuing to seek ways to express himself and love others.

KIT IRWIN: Delayed Justice

Adventure, Amusing, Submissions, , , , ,

The haunted pencil wrote in elegant Victorian script the true identity of Jack the Ripper, the details of his crimes, and how he escaped justice.

A teenager found the pages, couldn’t bother deciphering them, and threw them out.

Ignorance triumphs once again.

Kit Irwin lives on Cape Cod. Her work has appeared in places such as The Kenyon Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Flash Fiction Forward.

FIONA H EVANS: A Halloween Tale

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , , ,

You shouldn’t be here. Your desire for sweetness drew you to my unlit porch. You—the bullied, the outsider—avoid the other children who visit houses adorned with welcome balloons. You’ll find no candy here, but I have what you need. Come and choose one of my black cat’s kittens.

Fiona lives in Western Australia on Noongar Boodja. She is revising her first novel and is too easily distracted by flash and micro.

JACEK WILKOS: Fear of the Dark

Adventure, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , ,

Every night she pulled the curtains, covering the windows tightly. She put a blanket under the door so not even the dimmest light could get in. She slept in complete blackness.

She wasn’t afraid of the dark, but of the thin line between light and shadow, which spawned eerie shapes.

Jacek Wilkos is an engineer from Poland. He lives with his wife and two daughters in a beautiful city of Cracow. He is addicted to buying books, he loves black coffee, dark ambient music and anything spooky. His fiction in Polish was published in Szortal, Drabble na niedzielę, Niedobre literki, Horror Online. In 2019 he started to translate his writing to English, and so far it was published in Drablr, Rune Bear, Sirens Call eZine, Trembling With Fear, and in numerous anthologies by Black Hare Press, Black Ink Fiction, Alien Buddha Press, Eerie River Publishing, Insignia Stories, Fantasia Divinity, Reanimated Writers Press, Iron Faerie Publishing, KJK publishing. You can find more about his writing at https://www.facebook.com/Jacek.W.Wilkos/.