“Rugged male seeks companionship. Loves outdoors, sharing dinners, cuddling. Eager to please. Not afraid of commitment.”
Sam and Beth were a perfect match. Eight glorious years together.
At the pet cemetery, she clutched his leash, holding it close to her broken heart.
Some happily ever afters end much too soon.
Lisa Chambers is a Texas girl who believes in happily ever after.
Samuel’s holiday decorations had to be perfect.
They drove to multiple lots for the ideal tree. For that ‘special’ look, he insisted Tamra help place each ornament in exactly the right spot. The house was always a flawless display.
His perfectionist demands were why he was spending this Christmas alone.
Bill Diamond lives in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains and writes to try and figure it all out.
She walked the labyrinth slowly, absorbing the imagery of both the circle and the spiral. She was careful at the turns, at this turning point in her life.
Something loosened inside; then the tears came.
This meandering yet purposeful path spoke both of safety and the dawn of new openness.
Ellen Hansen is a writer and fiddle player living in Helvetia, Oregon. She recently retired from leading international tours.
The stockings were hung with melancholy.
There had been three stockings in the decorations box. Mr. and Mrs. Jones hung up two. They dropped the third into the trash, almost sickened.
Mrs. Jones turned on the radio. Elvis Presley was crooning, “I’ll have a blue, blue, blue Christmas… without you.”
Tylor James is a twenty-five year old writer living in New Richmond, WI. He writes dark fiction and has had stories, poems, and essays published in such anthology books as ACCURSED: A Horror Anthology, Emerging American Horror Writers: Midwest Region, Emerging Wisconsin Writers: An Anthology of Non-Fiction, and Willow River Writers Anthology. Tylor is prolific, having written forty-five short stories and one novel in the year 2019 alone.
The story of the week for December 16 to 20 is…
Holiday by Chad Bunch
It happened occasionally, stray balls, wayward kites, but today was relentless.
Baubles in her birdbath, puddings thrown into petunias, tinsel in her tulips.
Angrily, she marched next door, demanded an explanation.
Guiltily, her neighbour’s boy confessed to everyone: “I hoped she’d come. She’s alone on Christmas Day. Can she stay?”
Jo Withers writes short stories and poetry from her home in South Australia. She wishes everybody a safe and happy holiday season.
How I remember the day we met: my beagle strayed into his yard; Christmas lights; strains of music!
We became friends. Then lovers. He promised more.
Years later, his eyes welled as he took wedding vows. I stood behind his bride; relieved at not being deceived by promises twice over.
Mandira Pattnaik writes in India. Her work has appeared in Eclectica Magazine, Lunate, Runcible Spoon, FewerThan500, 50wordstories and elsewhere. She tweets at @MandiraPattnaik.
It’s all new, each day of your life. New mornings, new challenges.
New enemies, new regrets. New reasons to leave.
New people in town, and the journeys you’ve never made.
There’s only one thing that never changes: the desire to become someone else without the strength to make it happen.
Russell Hemmell is an alien from Mintaka snuggled into a (consenting) human host. Recent fiction on Aurealis, Flame Tree Press, The Grievous Angel, and elsewhere. See more at earthianhivemind.net.
Blue skies
Cloud reality
I dig up
A bone
All alone
In a cave
All I need
Is a lump of coal
A bed roll and a match
Summer fields
A strawberry patch
A cool breeze
Under a tree
A book in hand
I cast the spell
And flash back
We all, at one point, need a second chance.
Travel had been costly, the funeral a blur.
He couldn’t recall why they’d become estranged.
A tug on the lead prompted him to release the Yorkie to belt along the lane and off into the snow-trimmed shrubs.
Movement snatched his eyes to the starkly camouflaged magpie.
Its croak seemed commiserative.
Irish writer Perry McDaid lives in Derry under the brooding brows of Donegal hills which he occasionally hikes in search of druidic inspiration. He even finds it on occasion.