There is no wind, yet the curtains move by the window.
Shadows shift languidly on the moonlit wall.
The night is warm, yet I am suddenly chilled.
I am alone, my first night in my new home, yet there are footsteps on the stair.
The bedroom door is creaking open.
John Young is an old chap, grappling with themes of limits, longings, and finitude. He likes spooky stuff.
The story of the week for July 27 to 31 is…
Kneel by Eric Persaud
Her look was summery; the weather was not. She stood shivering in her flower-speckled sundress, staring upward as the heavens opened, and torrents descended. Colourful ribbons in her hair were soon plastered against her scalp.
The forecast promised hot and sunny, but during the pandemic, nothing unfolded as it should.
Alan Kemister is the pen name of a retired scientist experimenting with more fictitious writing. He’s currently working on a climate change novel. Get the gory details at alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com
Towering above
stands a man
clad in iron skin,
sheets of copper
draped over shoulders,
taint of green eyes
barren of thought
Below
I am
told to kneel
before the man
who once
would have had me in shackles
and as empty in thought
as the monument
standing before me
Eric Persaud fights for public health.
Faded envelopes.
Paper-thin parchment.
Grandfather’s messages from long ago, when words meant more.
When thoughts were embellished by dips of pen into ink and the slow, methodical placement of ornate loops and swirls onto paper.
I wonder, as I trace the lines with trembling fingers, if Grandmother did the same.
Susan Gale Wickes is from Indiana. She enjoys writing and reading 50-word stories.
He left on a fine spring morning. Then, she was still young and fair. When he returned, he found that she had aged; she was paler and her skin was wrinkled. It had only been a year, but to a person in love, a year is an eternity too long.
Vivian Leung lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, and has always held a love for music and writing. One of her goals in life is to land a career in healthcare. There are few things that are more rewarding to her than helping others.
Mowing the lawn is refreshingly mindless. Must look ahead to keep my rows straight and my cutting thorough. But I can also look back. And remember those who worked for me. One stepped in front of a train. But only one. Must keep my rows straight and my cutting thorough.
Robert Markovich spent a lifetime in what is charitably referred to as service journalism, writing and editing stories about everything from cars to toilets, most recently at Consumer Reports. He is happily and gratefully retired.
They scheduled routine check-ups, but the doctors were gone. They were tended by interns.
They sent children back to school. Half the teachers were gone.
So it went: at police stations, town halls, colleges, labs—everywhere, those with the most experience to pass on were either sick, or already gone.
Jennifer L. Freed mostly writes poems, which have appeared in various journals and anthologies. Her website is jfreed.weebly.com
It’s not your fault, Son. After all you went through, they still didn’t follow instructions.
“It didn’t work. There’s too much suffering. What can we do?”
Shut it down. Just like I started it 6024 years ago.
And God said, “Let there be no light.”
And there was no light.
Harry Demarest wrote this story.
My son has a plot—his own little piece of real estate. The grass is sparse, so I tend it: raking topsoil, spreading seed, pouring water. New sprouts emerge, filling the aching gaps.
I remove the weeds, pretending he’s on vacation.
But my heart screams his name and I cry.
Tawnia is an elementary teacher in Ontario who recently started writing. She is revising her first novel, a YA sci-fi, and hopes to start querying agents soon. She recently told a Red Chair story via Zoom for the Graham Norton Show. You can find her on Twitter @TawniaCourage.