The story of the week for February 10 to 14 is…
Shelf-mates by Amanda Quinn
and
Palindrome II by Pontius Paiva
RICHARD NEVILLE: Compassion for the fox
We brought a dead fox into our house.
My sad mother said, “We can’t leave it there, not like that.” She tidied it up, sweetened its death mask.
I felt sick but sad too, just like mother said.
The fleas thought, “This is the best thing that’s happened to us.”
Richard lives in England and enjoys wondering where his readers are.
AMANDA QUINN: Shelf-mates
You liked that shelf too. The one at the back by the window that looked onto Olan Mills, Family Photographer. Graphic Fiction. The place where our ten-year-old selves swapped plastic-sheathed tales of Gaul and boy detectives between each other. If only we’d met. Maybe we’d have realised we weren’t alone.
Amanda Quinn lives in the northeast of England where she works as a freelance writer and tutor. Her writing has been published by Shooter Literary Magazine, Open Pen, Ellipsis Zine, Butcher’s Dog, and Spelk Fiction among others. She can be found online at amandaquinn.co.uk and on Twitter at @amandaqwriter.
RJ GORDON: Tell Apathy
I can’t believe I’m in the hospital from an asthma attack. I’ve never had one this bad before.
Before I can call Mom, she calls me.
She says, “Your twin sister is in the hospital. She’s okay, but she almost drowned.”
Ugh. I should have known this was her fault.
RJ Gordon is a wildlife biologist and environmental educator located in Upstate New York.
FIONA M JONES: End of the World
After I died I watched my invention rolling on through generations and centuries—ever larger, ever faster, more numerous, powered at last by the burning of Earth’s darkest fuels until the air itself changed and the suffocating world headed towards another night.
I would uninvent the wheel, if I could.
Fiona M Jones wrote this story.
HAYDEN KAMIDE: How Barry Got Stuck in a Fence & Other Injuries
It’s actually a story of convergence Shirley shared—of ideas, opportunities, will. A tale where hope is unravelled by hope. It involved:
- Her 150 pound husband.
- A water ski rope.
- Two 60 pound huskies.
- A new pair of rollerblades.
- A freshly paved road.
- Gravel.
- A fence.
- And a wandering cat.
Hayden Kamide is an unpublished fictional writer from Central New York. He is trying to keep his byline to twenty (shoot!)
RAN WALKER: Infinity
Attempting to be funny, Sherman asked our eccentric math professor what “infinity” was.
The professor smiled and took a piece of chalk and drew a line around the room fifty times, before dragging it past the classroom door, down the long corridor, to his car.
We never saw him again.
Ran Walker is the author of the forthcoming 50-word story collection THE STRANGE MUSEUM. He credits this site with inspiring him to write so many stories.
JOHN YOUNG: Gregor
Faded yellow letters on a flaking blue sign beside the door of a long-abandoned building read: Mrs M. Martindale, music lessons, top floor.
Gregor, a beggar, frail, toothless, and alone, spends his nights huddled by the front step. Sometimes he plays his tin whistle. Sometimes a distant piano accompanies him.
John Young is an old chap living in St. Andrews, Scotland, a ancient town with an ancient university, home of golf and, allegedly, many ghosts.
PONTIUS PAIVA: Palindrome II
End the pain and heartache. Bring others pleasure. Give people some happiness. Unrealistic chasing of desires create hate and rejection. Unbearable living makes love impossible.
Impossible love makes living unbearable. Rejection and hate create desires of chasing unrealistic happiness. Some people give pleasure, others bring heartache and pain. The end.
Pontius Paiva is a kook of an elihphile who can’t do a single pullup. His stories fly under the radar at pontiuspaiva.com.
Editor: Read Pontius’s previous palindrome story here.
JO WITHERS: February 9th
February 9th, her birthday: deep in Winter’s bitter swell. Sledging with friends, then home to Mum’s hot chocolate and hugs.
Now grandchildren tiptoe to her door with homemade cake, footsteps wary over unforgiving frost. She pulls them indoors, warms small hands in hers.
Over seventy birthdays, she’s never felt cold.
Jo Withers writes short fiction from her home in South Australia where February is anything but cold.