Is that my hand? Lightly spotted, thin?
Yes.
Not the hand of my youth, no, but a learned hand.
It knows much; it is very wise.
It knows where to go—and not.
It serves, it loves, it works, it plays.
It leads, it trails, it grasps… it lets go.
Le Anne, a recent transplant to small town North Carolina, enjoys book clubs, writing short and flash fiction, and time spent Zooming with her creative writing group.
Through sliding glass doors, we marvel at the magnificent, royal-blue sky. The wind-rippled ocean beckons, inspiring dreams of lounge chairs and exotic cocktails beside the water’s edge.
One almost forgets the cities drowned beneath it, and that if we stepped outside, the sun would cook us in under a minute.
Michelle Wilson graduated from Bennington College with a degree in literature and creative writing. Her words have appeared in Friday Flash Fiction, Entropy Squared, 50-Word Stories, 101 Words, Literally Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, Healthcare in America, The Miami Herald, and elsewhere. She lives in Miami Beach, Florida.
The day I retired my doctor broke the news. I bolted from his office, drove to my wife’s grave.
“Nearly there, sweetheart,” I sobbed.
Six months later, breathless, braced for the inevitable, I pleaded with my workaholic son, urging him to take the same advice my father once gave me.
Raymond Sloan lives and writes in County Down, Ireland.
We’ll call our guy “B.” to protect his identity.
B.’s manager can’t make heads or tails of his convoluted delivery route. Not one straight line between stops. He doesn’t confess to dusting his ankles at Daisy’s and Violet’s, at Dahlia’s. Gathering pollen.
B. loves his job, every meander, each back-track.
Todd Mercer was nominated for Fiction and Poetry Pushcarts last year. His collection Ingenue was published Autumn of 2020 by Celery City Press.
We count pennies, dollar bills gone.
With each clink of pennies, we imagine the weight of wealth.
But after rent, utilities, closed credit cards, and expensive Merlots we needed but didn’t, we have five dollars.
That’ll buy a McChicken. A Coke. Bags of chips.
At least it’s not two dollars.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. A native of Idaho, Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.
When he spotted his ex-girlfriend on the subway with another man, he turned and faced the window. Their goofy grins shone in the reflection. Next stop, he bustled hastily through the doors and found himself miles away from home, far away from anything he knew, and yet, not far enough.
Lisa Marie Lopez has had stories recently published in Blink-Ink and The Ocotillo Review. She loves baseball, turtles, and writing in cozy little cafes. Visit her on Facebook at Author Lisa Marie Lopez.
The story of the week for November 2 to 6 is…
The Vagrant by Travis D. Roberson
I was asleep, darkly dreaming. There was suddenly a scream from my little sister, whom I could hear tearing down the hallway, and next thing I knew, I was scurrying on all fours into the nearest corner, bristling with fear.
“Mom,” she sobbed, “there’s a huge rat in his room!”
Michael B. Keane is a London-based writer of dark fiction.
Doubt pulls me into a chasm of dread. Spiraling in darkness. Out of control.
Stop!
Hope glimmers briefly—but the bonds of anxiety choke it.
No!
Let go. Breathe deep.
Resilience sparks… grows. I grasp a flicker, encourage and feed it.
The glow swells… black shadows recede.
I’ve got this.
Tawnia is an elementary teacher in Ontario who started writing a few years ago. You can find her on Twitter @TawniaCourage.
The vagrant discovered the lake house at the end of a gravel road. A fridge inside a shed gifted him a single beer, and an untethered canoe took him into the lake, where he opened the beer and drank—living the life of another and waiting for something to end.
Travis D. Roberson grew up in Central Florida, where he spent most of his youth throwing rocks at snakes and reading comic books. He spent his late teens entrenched in Orlando’s local punk scene before leaving the sunshine state and bouncing around the world as a flight attendant at a major airline. Now settled in Queens, NY, he lives with his wife and his dog, who wakes him up far too early every morning. He spends most of his time yammering about the genius of Jim Jarmusch and The Clash to anyone that will pretend to listen. His work has appeared in a number of places, including Hypnos, The Arcanist, and Coffin Bell.