The story of the week for August 16 to 20 is…
Gloom by Kati Bumbera
NICK YOUNG: Contentment
The katydids’ droning chorus; the song of the summer’s nights.
Julia let it wash over her, soothe her, standing at the water’s edge. The full moon’s reflection shimmered and danced across the hidden pond. She watched as bubbles broke the surface, drifting. Soon, his body would settle on the bottom.
Nick Young is an award-winning retired journalist whose career included twenty years as a CBS News correspondent. His short stories have appeared in the San Antonio Review, CafeLit Magazine, Fiery Scribe Review and Vols. I and II of the Writer Shed Stories anthologies.
ANDREA DAMIC: Soulmates
She runs… every day, of every minute, and every hour… from the present, from the past.
He tries to catch her… every day, of every minute, and every hour.
They’re Soulmates. Only when they’re hand in hand does time stop, for a split second, until it moves again.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Andrea Damic lives in Sydney, Australia with her husband and a seven-year-old daughter. She is an accountant by profession but writing was always her first love. The only time she can actually write is at night, when everyone is asleep. She had a couple of short stories previously published by 50-word stories. She has written two children’s picture books (no publications yet) and is working on a novel as well.
TORCHÉ JOHNSON: Palate
I can taste them. Words, I mean.
Sweet ones don’t always imply sweet things.
“Mrs. Anderson, did you shoot Mr. Anderson?”
I return a slow answer.
The aftertaste of my words crumbles to a grainy melt on my tongue — sugar cube sweet. I savor the taste and await my judgment.
Torché is passionate about God, anime, and writing. She combines these three elements in her manga (which she co-writes with her sister), TheRemnant: This Is Not Flesh & Blood.
MILTON SWAMI PARRAGA: Distance
It’s easier to love from afar… he types.
Two thousand one hundred and ninety days ahead. Fingers strike dirt covered keys. X’s marked across calendar squares. He sits facing the wall. A photograph of a woman hangs loose. A guard rattles a baton across steel bars.
…when all is lost.
Milton Swami Parraga is a writer and a visual artist from Mexico City. His work has been featured in Microfiction Monday Magazine and Defunkt Magazine. He currently resides in Houston, Texas.
IVY GEREN: The Mermaids
Adeline leaned into the door frame as the ship swung starboard. The trip was supposed to be painless, the air deemed clear by the navigator. But the deck was slick with rainwater, and Adeline could see pale faces rising from the sea.
She ran belowdecks, fingers crossed and feet sliding.
Ivy Geren is a flaming salamander living somewhere off the coast of Miami. She has faith in two things: SPF and the healing powers of spinach.
JIM LATHAM: Broken-Heart-Shaped Box
On the couch, Max noodles his guitar slowly, in a minor key.
I sit next to him. “What’s goin’ on?”
He says, “Pandora kept hope in the box, right?”
“Far as I know, yeah. Why?”
“Was that kindness or a cruel joke?”
I spot a crumpled sonogram. Realization hits hard.
If you like, keep in touch with Jim at his Substack.
KATI BUMBERA: Gloom
Gloom is a thing with feathers, too: it’s perched over my childhood like a pigeon, flapping its dirty wings and doing that dull Sunday coo that means my friends are out of town, the library is closed, and it will be a decade before I’m old enough to move away.
Kati lives in France, writes short fiction and often thinks about cheesecake. Some of her stories are at vocal.media/authors/kati-bumbera.
ANDY HEDGECOCK: Unseen Sunrise
At daybreak, skyscrapers are silhouetted against the horizon’s halo of orange and paradise pink. Light pierces shreds of grey stratus cloud, falling on shattered glass, twisted steel and pavements perforated by roots. Shadows retreat, exposing crumbling brickwork and cars colonized by rust, lichen and moss. Yet another dawn goes unwitnessed.
Andy Hedgecock is a freelance writer, researcher and editor from Nottinghamshire, UK. In 2014, after 30 years of writing nonfiction, he was enticed into storytelling by inspirational publisher Ra Page (Comma Press). When not being lured into unsettling new activities, Andy wanders post-industrial landscapes with Drake, his Staffordshire Bull Terrier.
RANI JAYAKUMAR: Spreading Dosas
She poured dosa batter, spreading it with decades of muscle memory, her hand steady.
“One more?” I nodded silently, helping myself to more coriander chutney over the sound of sizzling oil.
This was our shared solace after his memories were spread dosa-thin by the days, until he forgot us altogether.
Rani Jayakumar lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. She has contributed to Honeyguide Magazine, Ab Terra Flash Fiction, and 100 word stories, among others.