The story of the week for May 4 to 8 is…
Lessons on Electricity, or: When in Quarantine with a Husband by Laurie Kuntz
VERNAE COFFEE: Comfort in the Familiar
Sunlight creeps through my bedroom window on the morning’s shoulders. Roosters crow and crickets chirp against the cargo train’s fading whistle. Cardinals dash from nandina berry bushes to plush dogwood blooms. Squirrels pose like monuments within towering blades of grass.
Our world has changed, but morning’s familiarity brings great comfort.
Vernae is new to the world of publishing, but is enjoying every moment of it. She began submitting her work for publication in 2018 and has been published several times. Her unpublished Children’s Book “Teddy Wet My Bed” was recently selected as one of five Finalists by Eyelands 2019 Book Awards in the Unpublished Books Category. Vernae prays for the health and safety of our families, nation, and world.
CONNOR WILLIAMS: Life Lesson
An important question was answered on one cool, mid-autumn morning.
A young boy, face full of pimples, asked a girl, mouth full of braces: “Who do you think is more ugly? Me or you?”
To which the girl replied, “You, for even thinking that this makes me ugly at all.”
Connor Williams has no idea what to write for a bio, but hopes you all have a wonderful May.
BOB THURBER: Camping At Horse Neck Beach Beneath A Horseshoe Moon
That night, while our spouses slept, we bet double-or-nothing on which clouds would hit the crescent moon and which would slide beneath.
I picked right eight times in a row, transforming ten bucks into $1280.
Go again, she said.
I said, I think I need to see some collateral first.
Bob Thurber is the author of six books. Regarded as a master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been anthologized 60 times, received a long list of awards, and been utilized in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.
PITAMBER KAUSHIK: The Narrative Sandwich
Plain bread is bland. So is salad and meat. Condiments alone are dramatically flavoursome, but beyond a couple spoons, even a craving heart finds them unpalatable.
A good story is a sandwich: it takes the tart, intense, and climactic, then stuffs it into the ordinary, bringing out something tantalisingly delicious.
Pitamber Kaushik wrote this story.
MELANIE MAGGARD: The Summer Before
Two sisters, best friends, ran to the pool’s edge.
Nostrils filled with chlorine, sunscreen, peanut butter. Mother called, but twenty minutes was forever when shimmery waves signaled.
Everything—the cherry Koolaid mustaches, the sticky fingers—would be wiped clean.
They bent knees, inhaled sharply, pinched noses, then jumped, holding hands.
Melanie Maggard is a flash fiction and short story writer living in Seattle. She works as a psychology professor for an online university but hopes to grow up to be an author some day.
TOM O’BRIEN: Lunch With the Boss
He’s not as smart as his haircut, nor sharp as his suit, and nowhere near as polished as his shoes. “Bright” would have to be on a triple word score before someone used it about him, but times are tough so you smile and say, “Very droll, sir, very droll.”
Tom O’Brien is an Irishman living in London. He has words on many websites and in several print anthologies. His novella Straw Gods will be published by Reflex Press this year.
JON FAIN: I See You
The eyes have it, above the masks, in a store less crowded, a town away. No one I know here, but recognizable–the eyes wide and searching and sometimes scared–because I see those same eyes in the mirror when I try on the mask, to see how I look.
Jon Fain wrote this story.
LAURIE KUNTZ: Lessons on Electricity, or: When in Quarantine with a Husband
Lights left burning.
No cat or dog to blame,
the son has long gone
to his own lighted place.
No lecture necessary on waste of power.
Just three words,
Lights off, please,
or maybe those other three words
we should be saying more often
in our lighted and darkened places.
Laurie Kuntz is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught creative writing and poetry in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Many of her poetic themes are a result of her working with Southeast Asian refugees for over a decade after the Vietnam War years. She has published one poetry collection (Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press) and two chapbooks (Simple Gestures, Texas Review Press and Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press), as well as an ESL reader (The New Arrival, Books 1 & 2, Prentice Hall Publishers). Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her chapbook, Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest. She was editor in chief of Blue Muse Magazine and a guest editor of Hunger Mountain Magazine. She has produced documentaries on the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Law, and currently is producing a documentary on the peace process and reintegration of guerrilla soldiers in Colombia. She is the executive producer of an Emmy winning short narrative film, Posthumous. Recently retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind. See more at lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com
YASH SEYEDBAGHERI: I Am
I am clipped diagnoses.
Dead wife? What good is lamenting?
Runaway parent? Think of the hurt you were spared.
But at night, I cry for patients. For a boy who once wore a broad smile, now a fool in an office searching for lost mothers and wives.
I am questions.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, CaféLit, (mac)ro (mic), and Ariel Chart.