I cut an apple in two and found a pair of sleeping twins, a beautiful girl and boy, curled up where the pips had ought to be. Surely I can not eat an apple with two sleeping children inside? But the apple looks so delicious and, besides, nobody would know.
Sam Hall is a young writer from England.
“You should be proud,” he said. “Few can take such a decision.”
His superior held an antique folder. She replied, “Pride is a canceled word.”
He hung his head.
She ordered, “Destroy this.”
Accepting the manuscript, he whispered, “Pride, which not a world could bow.”
He went to the incinerator.
Nelly Shulman lives and writes in Saint Petersburg and Berlin. See more at nellyshulman.com.
A lot of things can sound like footsteps. A wind causing the wood to lightly creak. A rat scrambling up the drainpipe in darkness. I close my eyes again and wrap my arm around the empty pillow beside me. A lot of things can sounds like footsteps.
Just wishful thinking.
Constantine is a magician, comedian, and busboy from Boston, Massachusetts.
In the abandoned field, we find broken shutters, matches, a baseball.
“Anything worth keeping?” Tom asks.
I rummage through endless piles. Nestled inside a tire, mice dream. I remember how Tom collects them for the laboratory. I shake my head and hurry him to the other end of the field.
Lisa Marie Lopez wrote this story.
Where I’m seated finishing breakfast it looks like it’s going to be a gorgeous late-summer Saturday. That is until I turn to face the platinum mass in the sky over the river. It stops at the property line — reluctant, it seems, to come any closer.
Escape just might be futile.
Ted Millar’s work has appeared in two dozen publications, including Warp 10, Fictional Cafe, Little Somethings Press, Grand Little Things,, Reflecting Pool: Poets and the Creative Process (Codhill Press, 2018), Circle Show, The Broke Bohemian, The Voices Project, Third Wednesday, The Grief Diaries, Aji, and Chronogram. He was among many poets featured in the 2018 Arts Mid-Hudson exhibit Artists Respond to Poetry.
The neglected jack-o-lantern’s toothy grin sags. Its mouth is full of mould, eyes dim. Its Halloween magic was stolen by the cold November wind. Now it sits. Limp. Forgotten.
A squirrel chatters, “I remember you.” His mouth clicks in time with his tail. He drags the pumpkin to its afterlife.
Laura Loney is a Canadian mom and aspiring author who loves to laugh, learn and create. Her greatest creations will always be her two kids.
It felt like love, honest love, for a good long while. Then one morning in a bedroom without curtains I woke exactly as her eyes blinked open, our faces aligned in sunlight. I saw in her eyes what she saw in mine. And we both understood we’d only been dreaming.
Bob Thurber is the author of six books. Regarded as a master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been anthologized 60 times, received a long list of awards, and been utilized in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.
The story of the week for November 1 to 5 is…
Haiku by Nick Young
One autumn evening, I went on a walk with my nephew through the woods in search of small gods. The boy, slipping along the multi-colored ground, found truth in the way the leaves broke from the branch and floated to the path. He said they are losing, but not lost.
Jack Galati is a writer living in Arizona. He has fiction and poetry published across a number of magazines and journals.
A child’s view of war: the puckered hole in father’s back with its story of bridges defended, people protected, snipers’ bullets, and survival.
Today a different view: a son building bridges, clearing landmines, educating children, joining other Peacekeepers to maintain the legacy of the fathers with puckered holes.
We remember.
Retired from other professions, Eileen writes poetry and micro fiction hopes also to one day complete a book of mini-memoirs.