Weapon loaded, I exit the elevator, striding past the reception.
Weeks of building trust, flirting, stalking. The habits of my prey learned. A lioness with her rhinoceros in sight. Armoured in innocence and Gucci, I hand it over.
“Brought you lunch, babe.”
Peanuts in a sandwich; who could have guessed?
L. S. Muller is a Swiss Swedish tea drinker, who reads too many books, loves canines and writes fantasy and horror.
She grappled with the creature – bulky, clawed – for only a matter of minutes before its eyes lit up with recognition. It turned and softly padded away. She watched it recede as the sun crept through the blind then got up to check it had gone. She spoke the mantra victoriously.
Veronica Barnsley’s writing has been published in Brittle Star and Like the Wind. She’s enjoying having a go at microfiction.
The suit was too tight.
There was no air, his mouth dry like sandpaper.
The press looked at him like he had done something wrong, taking pictures and writing notes for headlines he could not respond to.
But he knew that when he got there, he wouldn’t have to care.
Dominic Bond has tried to write poetry among other things and have been published online on and in print in Driftwood Press, Poetry Birmingham and Kallisto Gaia magazines.
The first blossom
On my winter squash
Is female.
Lacking a male,
She will fade,
Unfertilized,
By evening,
And her fruit will fail.
Still, she opens in beauty
Under the sun
And offers her grace
And optimism
To the day.
So too may we all;
And that is quite enough.
Casey Laine comes from a long line of talkative women. She works as Fantasy Editor at Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, and publishes an annual anthology of fiction and poetry for her writing group, Writers Assembled. In her spare time, she chases butterflies with her camera. Find her at Facebook, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, and Amazon.
The story of the week for May 18 to 22 is…
Start Over by Daniel Clark
Three years had passed since the virus lockdown, and she ached to go outside.
Every morning she put on her shoes, only to turn back at the doorstep.
Still not safe, she thought, though the media said otherwise. What if she walked into a deep cough or an explosive sneeze?
Debbi Antebi (@debbisland) lives in London, UK, with her husband and books.
Sometimes I get an idea at 2:00 in the morning, and I have to write it down or else I’ll forget it.
That happens to other people, too.
When it happens to me, I have to sleep late on the weekends.
And that is the real reason I don’t exercise.
Michael practices law in the Bronx, writes short stories on the side, and has been published in Fiction On The Web.
She finished the jigsaw. Broke it up. Knitted a scarf. Unpicked it.
Life goes on and on and on, whether she wants it to or not. She doesn’t. She wants to jump into infinity, close her eyes, close her mind, close the box.
She opens it. Fits two pieces together.
Daniel Clark is a writer who dabbles in many forms and styles. His micro fiction has been published on 101words.org and is forthcoming in Dreams Walking.
Hillock – Lingering glances at waitress. Your phone number secretly scrawled on the bill.
Bridge – Flowers, expensive dinners. Breathless streams of fragile promises.
Church With Spire – Expected. Drunken proposals, forgotten by morning.
Mountain – Personal trainer, more than once, while I was pregnant.
Quarry – Pit. The deep, dark realisation you’d never cared.
Jo Withers writes short fiction from her home in South Australia. Recent work appears in Reflex Fiction, NFFD Anthology and Best Microfictions 2020.
A victorious army marched upon the capital.
As crowds came out to exalt the old general, the green-eyed and white-knuckled king clutched his crown. In the general’s honor, he arranged for a feast spiked with aconite.
However, the general had already made his escape, and elsewhere, a farmer came home.
Michael De la Peña’s parents blame his near-sightedness on the fact that he has always had his nose buried in a book since the age of nine. However, he still has a clear view of all the myriad of designs that bounce around inside his head, and his daydreams, permutations of each mental blueprint. He is often elbow-deep in his latest project with his brow furrowed.