The story of the week for April 25 to 29 is…
A Distant Hope by Jose Joel Robles
and
Handful of Gravel by Judith Dzierba
GENE NEWMAN: Italian Sausage Recipes
FRYING PAN RECIPE
Preheat frying pan
Add 1 tbsp of olive oil
Add sausages
Brown 3 minutes on each side
Add half cup of water, cover
Cook 6 minutes
Check for correct internal temp. of 160F
BARBECUE RECIPE
Place sausages on hot grill
When sausages resemble charcoal
remove and serve.
Gene Newman is a retired old guy (90 yrs) and former New Jersey journalist and columnist. Read more at GeneNewmanImagineThat.com.
SETH PILEVSKY: Knots
The knots stop me as I run the bristles through her thick hair.
“Ouch, daddy.”
“Sorry, honey.”
I gently work through the knots with the brush while she hums.
We hear the bus coming. She stops humming and starts biting her nails.
I wish I could untangle all her knots.
Seth Pilevsky lives in New York and is happily married with five amazing kids. His work has appeared in What Doesn’t Kill You, a YA anthology published by Indomita Press, Maelstrom, The Inner Circle Writers’ Group Literary Anthology 2019, Long Island Literary Journal, Literally Stories, Memoir Magazine and Stinkwaves Magazine. Seth is currently working on his first YA novel. Sign up for updates at his website, spilevsky.com.
MARILYN McFARLANE: Dream Power
Uma dreams of freedom: flying, galloping on horseback, running on the beach. When she’s awake, wheelchair-bound, Uma can do none of these, and so she grasps the dreams gratefully. Even when they’re nightmares, like the one with the menacing stranger who snatches her child. She can attack, and win. Exhilarating.
Marilyn McFarlane is a travel writer and the author of Sacred Stories: Wisdom From World Religions. She writes poetry and fiction, enjoys the 50-word form, and occasionally explores memoir. She lives in Oregon, where there is a lot of scope for the imagination.
BRIAN MAYCOCK: A Walk in the Park
I was sure squirrels were scared of people. Until one Grey stood in front of me and put its paw on my shin. I had nothing to give it, not even a crumb. The squirrel stood its ground and in the end I turned back, grateful it was almost spring.
Brian Maycock’s short stories have been published recently by The Drabble and Paragraph Planet. He lives in Scotland.
AJ JOSEPH: Love Carvings
Like all lovers, they carefully carved their initials into the earth as a symbol of the permanence of their love. Their mission completed, they boarded their respective vessels and shot off into the sky.
Millenia later, archaeologists are still trying to solve the unearthly mystery of the geoglyphs in Peru.
AJ Joseph tweets very short stories as @sonobeus.
JUDITH DZIERBA: Handful of Gravel
The train moves. They wave to Tato on the platform.
“What’s there?” Mama asks.
Unfurling a fist of pebble, broken seashells, her daughter says, “Where we go, I’ll show the home I have left. Someday, I’ll return these to Odesa’s beach, or put them at Tato’s grave.”
Their seven-year-old knows.
Judith wrote this. Her heart breaks seeing Ukrainian refugees pick up their lives.
JOSE JOEL ROBLES: A Distant Hope
The fresh morning reminds me of the bright future I wish to see. Three days after the super typhoon hit our riverside abodes, I’m floating somewhere in the ocean. The nearest land’s shadow is still concealed from here. But I feel the waves are slowly pushing me towards the shore.
While teaching Religious studies to senior high school students in one of the universities in the Philippines, Jose Joel Robles loves to write stories. As a husband and father, Jose utilizes some of his spare time in writing. He’s a new writer.
FERN GOLDEN: Our Oldest Relative
The tide lapped over a dozen salmon, their chests heaving. Compassion bloomed in my chest. We untangled them carefully from our Tribe’s net. I whispered heartfelt prayers of gratitude. Remembering:
“Salmon come to us,” my elders taught us. “We must respect them, so they come back to us, every year.”
Fern Golden (they/them or she/hers) is a disabled Dena’ina Athabaskan artist from Alaska. Their writing navigates the confluences of culture and language, ecology and belonging, and chronic illness and healing.
MANDIRA PATTNAIK: Small Town Surmises
Nothing is certain: the woman feels hurried; the town, crowded.
I hear skinder, loosely narrated; newspaper prints anonymous obituary; neighbor discovers their spaniel dead; maid finds pillow in trash.
Only if the children are to be believed. They find the ghost of her husband on the outskirts, snoring too loudly.
Mandira Pattnaik’s work has appeared in print and online journals in fifteen countries. Find her at mandirapattnaik.com.