We laughed, surprised, when he clicked his camera, shouted our slogans, walked backward in the front. He gestured to the back of the crowd, shot another photo and hurriedly jumped onto the sidewalk, distancing himself. Later, upon looking closer, I saw boot-wearing uniforms standing clandestinely among the blurry trees.
Sima is Canadian, lives in Vancouver, BC, has a PhD in Literary Translation Studies, and is working on her first novel.
The princess sat in the tower’s window, guarded closely by the dragon below. She waited every day for a rescuer, hoping none would come.
“How fare you today?” she called to the dragon, and it wagged its tail in reply. The princess smiled, content to have a friend at last.
Charis Negley is a Delawarean getting her BS in professional writing at Taylor University. She is currently working on her novel and evaluating manuscripts for IlluminateYA. See more on her blog.
Now he is transported into that everlasting night.
The lies and hurts still haunt me.
Connected by sons, I grieve what was, what almost was, what could have been. What never will be.
And yet…
There still resides in me that spark of joy and love that once was us.
Eileen finds truth sometimes gets in the way of imaginative fiction, but finds peace in putting feelings into words, words into stories, and stories into the hearts of others.
The story of the week for February 14 to 18 is…
A Child Overhears by Larina Warnock
We moved to the coast seeking calm. Emily lasted two months. She’s staying with family now in Ohio.
I stay awake nights, with no one to talk to about the fierce ocean and seagulls the size of cocker spaniels. Eating Cheetos, playing Tetris, synapses fire. Expectant neurons, ravenous, demand more.
Judith Shapiro is a writer who recently moved to the other coast, where she marvels at the sun that sets instead of rising. When the novel she’s writing looks the other way, she secretly writes flash fiction. See her newest stories in the March issue of Blink Ink.
“Kōri ga tokete iru.”
Rina, migrating Israeli magpie that she was, picked up something shiny from each landfall. A phrase from Japan, her favorite drink from California. But now this Reykjavik cafe in the midnight sun was home. Only this small land left above water.
“The ice cubes are melting.”
Tom Harris is an engineer and teacher inspired by daily life. When words fill up his head, he shakes them out on virtual paper.
Stars and music.
As a child, I secretly danced with the night.
Quick mind, innocence and passion, gone.
At the end, I have my grandmother’s hands,
and mother’s scowl.
The vortex opens to pull me from the world
where I lost my spirit. Disappointing many,
especially myself.
I remember now.
She needed a safe place, so she shapeshifted into a mouse. She crawled beneath the blankets, chewed through the mattress, found a hole under the bed and slipped beneath the floorboards. There she fell fast asleep in the space between reality and imagination, her parents’ fighting muted, distant, and small.
A one-time teen mother and high school dropout, Larina Warnock holds a doctorate from Creighton University and teaches high school in rural Oregon where she lives with her husband, foster children, and a small zoo.
After a typical week of lunches and conversation-fueled walks with friends (all initiated by her), the pleasant surprise of a restaurant candy in her coat pocket.
This was what she was to them. Never invited, but not unwelcome.
A familiar sweetness,
mild burst of energy,
then forgotten,
until next time.
Lisa Sutcliffe lives and writes in Oakville, Ontario.
Darla slams the front door. Home. Finally. She greets the cat and the plant, tickles them where she thinks they like it. Says: “How I’ve missed you two!”
Darla feeds herself and Ms. Boots, waters Mr. Fern, then settles between them on the sill. They stare out the big window.
Karen writes in a basement. Her work is in Bandit Fiction, Reflex Fiction, Sundial Magazine, The Disappointed Housewife, The Drabble, Potato Soup Journal, Unstamatic, Roi Fainéant Lit Press, Five Minute Lit, and others. She/her. Follow at @MeKawalker883.