On sultry afternoons I raced to meet him, and there he’d be with bells on. Sweet music serenaded our brief visits as he indulged my heart’s desire.
His name and face have been lost to time, but the memories linger as sweetly as the fudge pops and creamsicles he sold.
Lisa Chambers is a Texas writer thankful for wonderful childhood memories.
One shirt of his remains in my closetÂ, the exposed sleeve faded from years of light penetrating it, my clothing occupying the rest of the space that was once his. I don’t know why I’ve hung on to it, just that I’ve learned to fill the voids he left behind.
Melissa Williams was featured in March’s Emerging Writer Reading Series in Toronto. While working on her memoir, she takes breaks to write micro-fiction and recaffeinate.
A footstep in the hallway. My husband stirred.
“One of the cats?” I asked.
“No, it sounded human…”
He got out of bed. The door opened around his silhouette and closed.
A while later I heard dragging steps. Something undressed, slowly, as if it needed to remove an extra layer.
Christina Nordlander was born in 1982. Most of her creations belong in the dark or the dusk. Support her Patreon.
The story of the week for April 4 to 8 is…
Scattered by Jennifer L. Freed
Selling the old apartment where everything reminded him of the happier times, he moved to the sad outskirts of the town where he stood now in the ailing flower shop, unable to decide between the pink hyacinth and a lilac hydrangea, both in dire need of some tender loving care.
Nelly Shulman is a writer currently based in Berlin. Her work has appeared on JewishFiction.net, in the Vine Leaves Press Anthology of the Best 2021 Flash Fiction and in Sky Island Journal.
A pair of eyeballs discovered in the Florida Everglades were returned to a Suffolk County man who’d lost them some five months prior in a near-fatal robbery. The stolen eyeballs contained images of his attacker’s subsequent whereabouts: riverboat casinos, high-end hotels, daredevil pursuits…
…the snapping jaws of a fourteen-foot alligator.
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.
The sun slides into the horizon
Waves crash the shore
I slip down
Through grainy sand
Let me drown in the sand
It is here that I feel nothingness
Do not throw me a rope or even a prayer
I want to fall into this abyss:
The silence is peace.
Katherine Darlington has articles in many publications including poetry anthologies, and literary journals. She also has several published novels. See more of her work at katherinedarlington.com.
The couple sat on the bench, one at either end but tethered to each other. Sudden sleet feathered their coats, turning them ghostly. Snow-blinded, I blinked. Now, the bench was bereft, except for a spray of primroses.
“Bye, Mum and Dad,” I whispered.
The wind grabbed my words, taunting me.
Alyson lives in the UK with her family including her rescue animals. She works as a tutor/editor. Her dark stories have appeared often on the Horror Tree, and varied anthologies, most recently ‘Night Frights’, ‘Were Tales’ and ‘Don’t Break the Oath’. She’s often roaming the moors with her Labrador, Roxy.
Dad throws in the family photo album. He pretends he doesn’t know and walks feigning a drunken stupor, but we can all see the sadness in his eyes as the photo of him and my mom turns red to ash and takes flight under the light autumn breeze, lost forever.
Jack Galati is a writer living in Arizona. He holds a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University where his work was selected for the Undergraduate Writers Showcase. His fiction and poetry has been published in a number of magazines and journals.
The sound of heavy plastic, a zipper, and sobbing.
I lay on cold metal, grieving the sun on the rock and my first free climb. My fingers still dusted with chalk; the skin sandpapered by the rough edges of granite.
“Yes. That is my daughter.”
Mom will wash my hands.
Jody padumachitta Goch is a Canadian living in the German Black Forest. They write poetry and short fiction, chop wood, and train horses. Jody’s jeans and shirt pockets are full of stories. It’s hell on the wash machine. They enjoy lighting the wood stove and rescuing words from the lint catcher.