I run so fast I might fall and ruin my dress. My heart is about to explode! You wait for me on the front porch. I scream your name. I hug you. I tell you we won 500 dollars at the lottery: we can pay rent, buy groceries this month.
Linda Moon really loves flash fiction! She writes every day and reads short stories collections while working in (mostly sustainable) fashion collections in Italy.
It’s late. (No, it’s early.)
Merwin jumps up, pads silently beside me, and collapses into cat loaf position.
(Is that a purr or a roar?)
The clock ticks, too loudly. (Why do I still have a clock?)
I twirl the sheet into roses under my fingers and dream of sleep.
Erin Gilmore is an artist and editor living in Los Angeles.
Pools of water glisten where tidy lawns once grew. Streams gurgle and rush along the roads. With the kids gathered close, we lean from windows and perch on roofs. The more fortunate propel themselves around town in dinghies. They hail us. “Neighbor,” they call to those they once ignored. “Friend!”
Katherine Gleason’s stories have appeared in journals such as Cheap Pop, Derelict Lit, Every Day Fiction, Gone Lawn, Hobart, Juked, Jellyfish Review, and Menacing Hedge. Her play “The Toe Incident” won the Christopher Hewitt Award for Drama in 2020.
They take so many photos. Hold it up, down, wave it about! Nancy! Over here! Smile! A purple balloon, shiny as a sixpence, more beautiful than she has ever seen. She holds tight onto its string and the decades float away. She is six. She is happy. There is cake.
Marie writes poetry and flash fiction and plays with writing prompts on Twitter at @jamsaucer.
My friend, in his early 70’s, was out and about doing errands during the most recent brutal heat wave. Dying from the heat, he stopped at Dunkin’ to get an iced tea. He said to the teenaged server, “It’s going to be 98 today.”
“Oh!” she said brightly. “Happy birthday!”
Edward Mcinnis wrote this story.
The story of the week for July 19 to 23 is…
Grocery Shopping by Cheryl Somers Aubin
Anon essayed a purely descriptive tale. The result? A formulaic editor’s dream, but a story enthusiast’s nightmare.
By telling perusers nothing—despite showing plenty—the disjointed narrative had a ho-hum beginning, a muddle, and an enigmatic ending.
With no explication whatsoever, readers could only wonder what it was all about.
John H. Dromey thinks this story is about someone’s pet peeve (inspired perhaps by comments from a particularly inflexible show-don’t-tell editor). As always, and as it should be, readers can decide for themselves.
Pulling my hair out, trying to get every sentence right. Hemingway says there’s nothing to it; that all you have to do is sit and bleed. I hemorrhage, knowing time can’t salvage a fluff-piece.
The Marquee de Sade wrote his magnum opus on toilet paper. Mine’s writing on the wall.
Nikita Linivenko failed English his junior year of High School (due to lack of trying).
Tomorrow will bring the unfortunate headline of a raging forest fire devouring settlements. Drought-hit, fire-prone. We, witnessing doom, end.
Today, you and I are having tea after a nice shower at the Himalayan resort, letting the tap flow unceasingly while I scrub your back, worries draining into someone else’s backyard.
Mandira Pattnaik lives in India where the climate crisis has reached alarming levels. Find more about her in mandirapattnaik.wordpress.com.
After anger, hurt got exposed
again. We sit quiet on a deck,
six feet above ground. A sprinkler
waves water east to west
across new grass, yellow straw,
but some drums hard, like soldiers’
cadence across the deck. Our cat
peeks from behind a post,
pads by, avoids our touch.
Matthew writes poems and short stories, and is worried how divided America is. Like Pink Floyd, he can no longer tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain, a green field from a cold steel rail or a smile from a veil. Wish you were here.