It wasn’t my fault. The kid went over the side all by himself. Being an idiot, I went in after him. Hit the water like a sledgehammer; seemed more fun when I tried it as a boy.
Anyway, he didn’t say much while we waited. Just as well. Some cruise.
David is 67 years old and lives in Victoria, B.C. He started writing a year ago and enjoys posting poetry and vss on Twitter as @DavisLunnThe3rd.
I smoke cigarettes with my mother as she tells me she is going to leave my father.
The smoke filters through the window and fades away between constellations.
The only way we know how to feel good is through destruction.
So I light another replacement for my father and inhale.
Katherine DeGilio is a part-time writer and full-time redhead from Virginia. When she was a child, her goal in life was to be Kissing Kate Barlow from Holes. Since the wild west has diminished, she has decided instead to be an author. She assumes those professions share equal kill counts. You can find her latest work in Soliloquies Anthology, Litro Literary Magazine, and November Falls by Zimbell House Publishing. She loves connecting with her readers and encourages them to reach out to her on Twitter at @katiedegilio.
Pop always let me help lay out the sod. Mom would sit on the porch, sipping a lemonade and heckling him for letting the lawn die again.
It wasn’t until I saw you, tiny hands gently patting down the green corners, that I realized the lawn hadn’t mattered a bit.
Hunter is a rising junior at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, majoring in Math and Comparative Literature.
Virginia Woolf heard voices. They told her ruthless things.
I wake from a dream where I was drowning, my clothes bright flames, billowing around me. I wake and I walk to the stream where the water over the stones sounds, for all the current world, like the wings of angels.
COrey Mesler has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and New Stories from the South. He has published over 20 books of fiction and poetry. With his wife he runs Burke’s Book Store (1875) in Memphis.
The students had dug a grave.
The children had sharpened their knives.
The cult had sacrificed a deer.
“Do you think bad luck will chase us?” someone asked Yanni, the leader.
“This isn’t Ancient Greek class.”
Something watched from the thicket, something of the woods, dark and ancient.
It smiled.
Avra Margariti is a Social Work undergrad from Greece. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Daily Science Fiction, The Forge Literary, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and other venues. You can find her on Twitter at @avramargariti.
She loves me… She loves me not.
I visited her at the cemetery, laid daisies at the base of her headstone. Last time I saw her she was across a meadow wearing a sundress. She was within range.
No need to mind the restraining order now.
She loved me not.
Karin Aurino is currently working on poetry, short fiction, and a first novel, which draws on an early career as a fashion model. She got her start in the talent department at ICM and enjoyed a career as a Longform and Series Television Producer. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Literary Orphans, r.kv.r.y. quarterly, Agnes and True, and Bacopa Literary Review, and has received recognition from Glimmer Train. Aurino lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two children, and their dog, George. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Every morning, on the 8:04, I look for her face. Sometimes I see individual stars, but never the entire constellation.
This is her train.
The train that took her face and scattered her stars into the darkness around it.
All I want is to see her face one more time.
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.
Death comes creeping slowly, quietly, closer and closer.
My Priest says not to worry about it, that the pain will only be momentary. But what does he know? He’ll still be alive.
Ever closer the fatal date creeps, until at last it is here.
Time to take my math final.
Daniel Quillen is a retired HR director and a writer (19+ books). He lives in Centennial, Colorado with his wife. They are the parents of six children, grandparents of fifteen. They are currently living in China, teaching English at a Chinese University.
The story of the week for June 17 to 21 is…
The View After the Climb by Bob Thurber
“Harry the Magnificent” the sign read.
“You’ll be amazed by his magic fingers” it added.
“Oh, please,” I thought. “I’ve never been amazed by any carnival magician.”
The act was boring, bland. Harry’s claims, however, were spot on.
I was amazed to discover my wallet and watch were both missing.
Susan Gale Wickes lives in Indiana. You can find her on Twitter at @SusanGaleWickes.