like strawberries and champagne
one seed toward ripeness,
bubble bursts into sparkling
like strawberries and champagne
the scent of you, sweetness
your touch, effervescence
for me, love at first fondness
for you, growing into it –
a pairing by chance
the birthing crystallizes
a mother and child
like strawberries and champagne.
Judith wrote this. She was overjoyed to celebrate Mother’s Day together with her daughter after two years of pandemic limitations.
Eliza met Matthew in a bookshop.
Can I help? he asked.
I’m looking for a play by Shakespeare.
Which one?
William.
He told the story at their wedding, anniversaries, and parties. Again and again until each word ate into her brain like a worm, like a scalpel, like hemlock.
Stephen is an Irish author living in Ireland. I enjoy reading everything from crime fiction to 19th century gothic short stories, novels and novellas.
Applause, only slightly forced, thunders up to the balcony. El Caudillo waves at beaming faces, tropical-coloured flags raised high. Aside, he quips, “A good leader is bullet-proof; a great leader is ballot-proof.” Snorts and smirks from his junta.
Then: a crack from the tree-line.
…He was but a great leader.
Nikita Linivenko hopes this story didn’t come out too badly.
“Solitary” is an obnoxious euphemism.
Left adrift for far too long; you rush to reel me in only after loneliness manifests as a cry for help. Rejecting an uncertain hand half-extended, my head swirls, stranded in a sea of dissonance. To then soften your sin with semantics? I’d rather drown.
橘ケン (Tachibana Ken) is an aspiring MMA fighter.
Mum was a kite, always flying high on some substance or another.
Dad tried to control the kite, regardless of how strong the storm was blowing, always unsuccessfully trying to reel her in.
And I was the string. Always tense and frequently tangled. Trapped between the kite and its maker.
Sally Sadasivam is a doctor by day and amateur flash fiction writer by night.
We met upon a bridge that stretched between two competing infinities and, before passing one another by, fell in love. Although our meeting place was near collapse and spanned a deep ravine we built a house for ourselves at its centre using struts prized from the bridge, weakening it further.
Sam Hall is a young writer from England.
With marriage she slipped into a second skin, a dual persona for her, a new name for children to come. The marriage ended, but the skin had fused; shedding it was impossible. She clung tenaciously to her daughter-in-law status, happy for cards in the mailbox and life advice – from Mom.
In retirement, Eileen thinks that “writer” is a good answer to “What do I want to do be I grow up?”.
She gets into his taxi, heavily pregnant.
“Hospital, please. My waters have just broken.”
He drives.
“You look familiar,” he says, “Have we met?”
She takes a moment to really look at him.
“Yes, we went out on a date once.”
“When was that?”
She grimaces. “About nine months ago…”
Bill lives in Aberdeen, Scotland. He hopes to be upgraded to a better life in a superior Matrix someday.
The story of the week for May 9 to 13 is…
The Guest by Jenny Logan
Power off the TV; put away the phone; close the laptop. Forgo mind-altering substances of any kind.
Sit, lie down, curl into stillness. Allow the fatigue to lash through the battened hatches. Resist sleep (this can prove challenging).
Watch your darkest fears circle you.
Make them a cup of tea.
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. She lives in Miami Beach, Florida.