AMY MARQUES: The Garage Was His Art Gallery, Or Maybe His Church

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

She didn’t believe in fossil fuel. Yet here she was: stuck with an old truck that never failed and a convertible nobody drove.

She had found him behind a wheel, music blaring, surrounded by unticking clocks and shoeboxes with photos of people dead longer than she’d been alive.

Smiling.

Gone.

Amy Marques grew up between languages and cultures and learned, from an early age, the multiplicity of narratives. She penned three children’s books, barely read medical papers, and numerous letters before turning to short fiction. Her writing has been published internationally in numerous journals including 50-Word Stories, Star82 Review, Flying South, and Across the Margin. Her work has also been anthologized in Branching Out: Brilliant Flash Fiction Anthology, and she was shortlisted for the Fractured Lit micro competition. You can read more of her words at amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.

BILL DIAMOND: Ruined

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

My favorite spot was ideal. On a hill overlooking our town. An uplifting vista of mountains and green forests.

Perfect for a picnic in the meadow in the shade of a tree. Next to the stream, birds serenaded from the sky.

Now every visit depresses. It’s where she said “No”.

Bill Diamond is a writer living in Colorado where the Rocky Mountains are an inspiration and distraction.

MICHELLE WILSON: Algorithm

Amusing, Submissions, , , , , ,

Lately, the internet’s always ten steps ahead, knowing before I do what I need to see: today’s impossibly high cost of living, eight easy side hustles, renting your spare bedroom, difficult housemates, conflict resolution, signs of mental collapse, the ten best meditation apps.

How to properly dispose of a body.

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.

SAM HALL: The Man They Call Earthquake

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Buried in the dark beneath a mountain lies an ancient man. He is a colossus yet cannot shift the weight of stone that bears down on every piece of him. Sometimes he calls for help, but the little people in that land hear only a rumbling mountain and grow fearful.

Sam Hall is a young writer from England.

N WEST MOSS: Blue Bottles

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , , , ,

At eighty-eight, my mother says, “It’s time to stop driving.” She watches the birds from her window, hasn’t stepped outside all winter, says she’s happy. Me? The sun pours through the blue bottles on my windowsill, and I feel the wind stirring through the family grave in New Orleans, preparing.

N. West Moss’s memoir, Flesh and Blood: Reflections on Infertility, Family, and Creating a Bountiful Life (published by Algonquin 2021), can be found at workman.com/products/flesh-blood/hardback. Her middle grade novel is forthcoming from Little, Brown, and Company.

JENNIFER LAI: Pest Control

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

The sign on my door says No Soliciting but they knock anyway, two collared-shirt gentlemen advertising pest control. Thirty percent off if I sign up now. I interrupt with a definitive “no.” When they ask why, I explain I’ll always have pest problems. Because the annoying little things can’t read.

Jennifer Lai lives in Washington state where she enjoys eating ice cream on cold days and writing micro fiction. She has an upcoming drabble in Five Minute Lit.

MUSKAAN MALIK: Flying

Adventure, Amusing, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

It felt so good, gliding as if on the open air, not a single obstacle in sight, as if the worries of life were forgotten for those few moments, and she could fly.

She didn’t see what caused it. All she saw was the ground rushing up to meet her.

Muskaan Malik is ten years old and lives in Leicester. She enjoys making Lego (despite having hardly any time to play with it) and reading for pleasure. Her favourite flower is a crocus.

ARLENE CHAPLIN: Under the Radar

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , ,

She was a timid child, quieted amid the storm of her parents’ discord, hiding her talents so that she could stay under the radar.

Reading was her escape. She latched onto the fairy tales instead of the biographies and spent a lonely life waiting to be rescued.

No one came.

Arlene Chaplin is an artist and writer who is braving yet another New England winter.

YASH SEYEDBAGHERI: Scents

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,

I find excuses to hit the store daily. Draw constant lists.

Michelina’s TV dinners. Lays chips. Lots of six-packs.

I meander from aisle to aisle, relishing the movement of bodies around me. Absorbing scents of cigarettes, fleeting perfume. Smiles.

It beats bare walls and boxes stacked like a cold fortress.

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.