Alzh. I cannot yet write that awful word in its entirety. I do not yet want to come to terms with it. It’s too real. It’s headed my way. It’s mine to deal with in its inevitability, its finality.
It’s me. Alzheimer’s.
There, I’ve written it while I still can.
Anne Rokeach has always loved the magic of words. Thanks to the programs of Upstate New York library systems, she has started putting them together in story form.
The cardboard package arrives on the doorstep an hour or so before you. Inside, the first fenestrations are just beginning to unfurl.
I shall come to see that the severing of our relationship enabled unbridled growth.
First, I approach the accidental memento with contempt and a pair of glistening secateurs.
Laura lives in London with twenty-four houseplants. This is her fourth 50-word story and she has recent work with The Phare Literary Magazine and Retreat West. She tweets at @laurarose_13.
The girl would romp at the edge of the swamp,
for they were quite poor and lived near the moor.
Her beauty attracted a prince who enacted
the role of a frog to entice dialog.
They shared her first kiss—
that’s when his sweet miss
became his betrothed princess frog.
Ken Gosse prefers writing short, rhyming, humorous poetry. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, he is also in The Offbeat, Pure Slush, Parody, Home Planet News Online, and other publications. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived with their dogs and cats in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years.
My sax man blew cool notes — long, sonorous, penetrating, soul-awakening baritone notes. When sated, he smiled at the horn, no piece of molded metal, but a living, breathing partner.
When my sax man died, I sent the horn to someone I’ll never know. In Hong Kong, the bari breathes again.
Janet Feldman is a semi-retired psychotherapist with a journalism background. She currently focuses on short stories with an emphasis on human interaction.
Family sits quietly at Dad’s funeral service. Incense burns, calming the nerves. My brothers and sisters have their heads down, praying, I assume. The eulogy reflects on the acceptance of Dad into heaven and his resting in peace. But when family gathers and reads his will, all Hell breaks loose.
Charles is originally from New York and is now retired and residing in Texas with his wife. He likes playing chess and writing flash. Check out his other stories at 101 Words, Friday Flash Fiction, Microfiction Monday Magazine.
I have a notebook—leather-bound, the size of a palm—filled with my musings. It’d been packed away, lost with my marriage.
When discovered again, a mouse had chewed it for her nest. The poems are gone; I don’t remember what had been written.
I’m glad they found a purpose.
When not indulging himself by reading or writing poetry and prose, B.S. Roberts makes a living as a museum curator and an administrative assistant at the University of Maine at Augusta. He lives in Maine with his fiancée, daughter, silver pheasants, and four cats. bsroberts.com
I stand near the base of the waterfall waiting for my muddled mind to bring me the memory of us, holding hands and leaping off the rocks at the top, laughing as we surfaced in the icy water below. It won’t come. Perhaps I only read it in a book.
Sharon Gerger loves the challenge of creating a world in fifty words.
The story of the week for October 4 to 8 is…
Rain by Katherine Darlington
Single file the boys descend a slope packed with spruce and pines. There’s no path, no clear trail. Pushing through, the needles tickle more than scratch. Tonight, the boys will make camp in the valley — where no shadows live, other than night itself — beneath a widespread blue-grey wonderland of stars.
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.
How amazing to discover colors existing in the grey of end times. It’s been ages since I’ve seen a flower, let alone a garden. I pick one, then another, unwittingly collecting a bouquet.
I pause.
Lovely as they are, they mock me. I can’t smell them from behind a mask.
Pontius Paiva’s flash fiction doubles as complementary pieces to his post-apocalyptic visual novel, DoomsDaisy. More at pontiuspaiva.com.