Worn eyes reach daylight
Slowly count to ten
Stay still. No movement
Listen for the men
A moment of fragility
Tears down one cheek
But soft cries of “daddy”
Banish feelings so weak
Emerge from the rubble
Of a life we once knew
Together we’ll succeed
And start life anew
Richard has followed 50-Word Stories for a number of years, though generally only writes for himself.
He had no choice.
His debts were piling up. His landlord had increased rent; grocery prices were astronomical.
He stepped outside, albeit reluctantly, summoned his rainbow, and dug where it ended. He removed five pieces of gold from the pot, noting sadly that there were fewer each time.
Darn inflation.
AJ Joseph tweets very short stories as @sonobeus.
A small house.
One closet.
Slowly, my half began infringing on his.
One inch turned into two, then two into five.
He never mentioned it.
Just double-hung his shirts.
Squeezed more things into allotted dresser drawers.
Packed up rarely-worn items for Goodwill.
He called it down-sizing.
I called it love.
Susan Gale Wickes lives in Indiana. In addition to writing and reading short stories, she enjoys cartoon captioning and has won the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.
It wasn’t until the final, near-miss horseshoe toss was disputed that things escalated into open warfare. Heavy metal shrapnel flew in almost every direction, none of it intended for its usual targets, all of it meant to send an unmistakably on-target message of protest. Neither team took home the gold.
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.
His eyes devoured the exquisite king suite of their romantic manor house getaway.
A four-poster bed, Victorian ornaments, a grand window framing acres of secluded woodland. Perfection.
Everything, except that old doll.
He threw his jacket over its face. “Sorry doll, but you’re creeping me out.”
“How rude,” it replied.
Amy is a creative writing student from Wales.
I visit and find
the sweetness of honey still in the jar
under a lid too tight to open.
I can’t predict what will fail her next,
much as I try.
To prevent it.
Lace-up shoes are cast aside for Crocs.
Hand in hand we shuffle
together
toward shrinking tomorrows.
Jennifer M. Smith is the author of the award-winning book Green Ghost, Blue Ocean. She is a geologist, a chartered accountant, an offshore sailor and a triathlete. Obviously, she can’t sit still. More information and links to other published work can be found on her website at www.jennifermsmith.com.
The story of the week for March 14 to 18 is…
Inventory by Leo Vanderpot
In the second month, a yellow tent appears outside the ER, billowing in and out like a breath. A man steps forward and is swallowed up. People wait their turn silently, cradling their phones like newborns. NOT AN ENTRANCE, two ER doors blare. A third’s blank. I walk toward it.
Laurie Doyle is the author of World Gone Missing, a book bestselling author Edan Lepucki praised as “a gorgeous debut.” Winner of the Alligator Juniper National Fiction Award and a Pushcart Prize nomination, Laurie’s work has appeared in McSweeny’s, Alta Journal, The Rumpus, Under the Sun, Dogwood Journal, The Los Angeles Review, and many other publications. Laurie teaches writing at The Writers Grotto in San Francisco and UC Berkeley.
See him then leaving work in Manhattan, 7:15, a summer night, stepping away from Must, feeling Maybe. Disappointing, these years later: he never met someone on the sidewalk open to change. Say a toast to those missed chances on the way to the train—safely carouseled from opportunity, chrysalis denied.
Leo Vanderpot lives in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. His memory piece about donating letters by Dwight Macdonald to the Yale Library appeared in Hinterland, a journal associated with the University of East Anglia.
The snip of rusty scissors as they go about their business. A mix of pictures, past and present; snapshots cut up, faces placed upon the floor.
Creating a mosaic. Father, mother, son, daughter. Eyes, smiles, unrecognisable.
As his collage takes shape, he patiently waits for the family to return home.
Steven Holding lives in the United Kingdom. Most recently, his work has appeared in the collections ONCE UPON A DRABBLE and PESTILENCE from Black Ink Fiction and DARK MOMENTS YEAR THREE from Black Hare Press. You can follow his work at stevenholding.co.uk.