We take a plane to Des Moines. My uncles and cousins and my aunt are there and everyone wears suits and black dresses in the town where Grandpa was born, where the sidewalks are gray and crumbling, where the names on the headstones sound like mine. Like his. Like ours.
Robert Hoekman Jr thinks you die when you stop wanting. He writes and writes and writes. He lives on a farm in Virginia and refuses to be put into a box. See more at rhjr.net.
In the Earth I traced your name,
silent as my prayer.
Afraid that noise would make me insane,
afraid of judgement from the air.
My fingers danced to trace the date,
strokes placed with utmost care,
thinking maybe crazy is a better fate
than drowning in despair.
“I miss you.”
Elaine Koh is an avid reader and writer with a passion for all things furry and entertainment media.
She stands, trackside, holding his lunchpail. Bright blue dress, matching shoes, red lips, yellow hair, a permanent wave. The diesel rounds the bend same time daily, right after school, halts with that same sudden jerk.
She has her man, a real engineer. He has his girl, waiting for him alone.
Bradley Harris has: one swell girl to come home to, two prize-winning novels, three imaginary dogs, a quadruple bypass, five books to write, six thousand books to read, seven decades of consciousness, eight or nine people who act as if they like him, and ten thousand reasons to be grateful.
Your grandpa died, says the note my dad left for me. It was yesterday, and tomorrow, we’ll go there, to Iowa. But when I see him after he comes from work, he is not worn and lost like a son. He is gray and cool and still. Like a couch.
Robert Hoekman Jr thinks you die when you stop wanting. He writes and writes and writes. He lives on a farm in Virginia and refuses to be put into a box. See more at rhjr.net.
Visions of this moment always included bereaved loved ones wringing hands and forcing fake smiles to accompany their glistening, sad eyes. Instead, encounters consist only of brief interactions with complete strangers, overly tired and often forgetting to smile as they robotically work to complete their third 12-hour shift this week.
.Randal A. Burd Jr. is a married father of two and an educator who works with the disadvantaged in rural Missouri. He holds a master’s degree in English Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Missouri. Randal is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Sparks of Calliope magazine. His latest collection of poems, Memoirs of a Witness Tree, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in Summer 2020.
The eyewitnesses were children. Two. An eight-year-old boy and his ten-year-old sister.
They heard and saw more than they could comprehend.
Why was daddy so angry? Why did they have to call this new woman “mommy?”
They missed their grandmother. Why did “mommy” get to decide who they could love?
Bob Thurber is the author of “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel” and two collections of stories. A celebrated master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in 60 anthologies, received dozens of awards, and been used in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts where, though legally blind, he continues to write every day. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.
The story of the week for November 11 to 15 is…
Surrender by Ellen Hansen
When we found a body under the conservatory, my husband and I disagreed on what to do.
We should call the police (me).
No, definitely not (him).
We inherited the house from his parents. His dad, actually, who’s living in a care home.
Now I know why we don’t visit.
Laura Besley writes short fiction in the precious moments that her children are asleep. Her fiction has appeared online, in print and in various anthologies. She tweets at @laurabesley.
The wasp finds itself trapped inside a water glass held up against a window. It repeatedly slams itself against the window, rebounding off the water glass. Spent, it finally surrenders.
I slide paper between window and water glass, and free the wasp outside.
Surrender is not always what it seems.
Ellen Hansen is a writer and fiddle player living in Helvetia, Oregon. She recently retired from leading international tours. Her story “Surrender” just received first place in the 2019 Oregon Writers Colony 50 word story contest.
Frank hated the idea, but a mother in his support group said it had been helpful.
So he set it up in Jessica’s old room and attempted to steel himself.
When they discovered Frank’s emaciated body, his frozen smile was still fixed on the flickering hologram of his daughter dancing.
Ran Walker is the award-winning author of seventeen books. He teaches at Hampton University in Virginia.