It did not dissolve nor fade to black. Instead: cut to a new wife. She harvests from the orchard I tended. Enjoys the eggs from the chicks I nurtured. And sleeps in the bed where we conceived our children. She lives the life we built from scratch. Run the titles.
Cath Swanston lives in Kelowna BC. She is mother to five humans, countless chickens, ducks, turkeys, dogs, and cats. What does a retired ranch manager with degrees in law and film do? Write, write, write.
Caroline moved into a cul-de-sac where every house was identical. No one answered the door. Her questions about the missing mail, the humming fences, the child waving from the attic were all met with silence.
One morning, beneath her doormat, she found a note in her own handwriting: Don’t ask.
AJ writes microfiction. She’s been published in VSS365 Anthology (Vol. 1), 50-Word Stories, Paragraph Planet, and 101 Words. She also loves cats, which is legally required for writers of her genre.
The story of the week for November 10 to 14 is…
The Flowers by Sarah Rudston
You are born with a second shadow. It lags behind, darker than yours. Your mother says it might be your grandfather’s ghost. Some friends suggest light therapy; others, exorcism. More you try outrunning it, longer it grows. By thirteen, it starts to whisper your name. By eighteen, it borrows it.
Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Masters Review, Pithead Chapel, and 100 Word Story, among other journals. His stories have been selected or nominated for such anthologies as the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Wigleaf Top 50. See more at sarpsozdinler.com.
Spaced regularly along the stream bank, the writers hope to snag a character who will tell an unforgettable story. A captivating, enigmatic tale that would make the writer famous. Somebody shouts above a bending pole, but it is only a sodden branch with ‘Lester Gatsby’ upon its side. Ah, well.
After decades of nattering on about moving abroad, Ed Walker finally retired and is currently living in Catalunya, Spain. His work can be found in 50-Word Stories, The Arcanist, Blink-Ink and elsewhere.
She set up the pet cam for fun, to see what moved at night. The footage showed a dog by her bed, staring at something behind her. It was odd, since she didn’t own one. The next morning, her phone tagged the video: “Shared with the household.” She lived alone.
Keerthana Nalamothula writes psychological and literary fiction that explores the subtle tensions of human experience. Her stories have been published in Flywords Publications, Querencia Press and Little Fruits Magazine.
Raffaello Romanelli’s statuary on Belle Isle connects the Old World to today, bridging Dante Alighieri to Detroit city.
For nearly a century the monument of the great poet has gazed stonily at beach‐goers as Motown mixed with techno and summer sunshine turned to winter snows, between occasional community restoration.
James Schwartz is a Detroit based poet and author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America and most recently Big Island Beatnik. See more at literaryparty.blogspot.com.
A salmon run, they call it.
Fish don’t have legs, do they?
If they did, where would they go?
Would they pedal the Tour de France, run the Boston Marathon, climb Everest, ultimately shattering their femur riding the escalator at LAX?
No. They are far more sensible.
They are fish.
Parker Davis is a sapien, of the genus homo. He speaks in pictographs, often jabbing his keyboard as a primitive form of communication.
I won her heart with love letters generated by a bot and a prompt, delivered in my own handwriting. Cyrano de Bergerac for a modern world.
We were so happy, an endless spew of auto-responses — until I found the folder of prompts she’d used to reply.
How dare she?
Michael McKinnon is a writer, poet and musician in Toronto who strongly objects to AI’s use in creativity and love. His latest project is Martin Lunich: Timeless.
Natural calamities, mass shootings, shelling, blackouts, forced relocation, alien invasion, and Mars colonization are easier to bear if they meet a predetermined schedule. With all your devices fully charged, alarms on, bug-out bag packed, cats fed, and all-inclusive timelines printed, there is plenty of time to enjoy yourself. As scheduled.
Olena Zheldak was born on November 13, 1981, in Ukraine. After February 24, 2022, having personally survived Russia’s full-scale invasion, she wrote and self-published an autobiographical wartime narrative, “From Irpin with L̶o̶v̶e̶ Pain,” and collaborated with the British author Paul White by writing a lead story for his new edition of “Life in the War Zone.” In 2025, her essay, “Life Interrupted. Resumed. Ended.” was published in the 195 Essays Project by 2084.