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.
The daisies died
But she saved the
Rose petals and
Gently placed them
In a small, glass bowl
Later, the market was quiet:
No one
Noticed when she placed
A small bouquet of flowers
In her basket
The roses wore colors
Of late November sunsets…
Then her heart’s
Eyes
Closed.
Katherine Darlington has articles in many publications including poetry anthologies, along with several published novels. When she isn’t riding horses or hiking on some mountain trail, she’s working on a story. See more of her work at katherinedarlington.com.
Before B.C., beyond A.D.,
the only being would be me.
Above the best, below the least,
I make the famine and the feast.
Seek everywhere and round about
in every place, without a doubt,
there is no space where I am not.
That is my fate, such is my lot.
Don Nigroni is a retired labor economist and volunteer Weed Warrior at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge.
After hours of rummaging, he found the key taped to the back of his mother’s favourite watercolour. He rushed to the safe – no cash, no jewellery, just a handwritten note: “Disorderly postmen I’d paint, or something you learn to live with (14).” He’d always enjoyed anagrams, but this produced disappointment.
Andy Hedgecock’s disappointing inheritance is a name that doesn’t lend itself to the creation of anagrams. He is a freelance writer and obsessive cruciverbalist from Nottinghamshire, UK.