My daughter loves swinging. She can ride it for hours. I wondered what she found so captivating about it. One night, after putting her to bed, I sat on the swing behind our house. Nothing happened. The difference, I realized, is she has a pair of hands behind her, pushing.
Si Chen is an oceanographer by training and a fiction writer by instinct. He is working on a collection of short stories.
Sarah G. follows her lover’s funeral procession at a respectful distance, toward the waiting grave. Snugs her frayed coat collar along her throat.
His fancy woman, they called her. His bit on the side.
She studies his wife’s impassive face, dry empty eyes.
Her grieving heart throbs against her ribs.
Gary Thomson prefers celebration of life gatherings, their conviviality, storytelling, bonhomie, over formalized funeral ceremonies.
During his breezy walk to school this morning, the professor passed a pond full of bullfrogs bellowing on lily pads.
By the marsh at dusk on his way home, an orchestra of tree creaks, sedge, and cattails kept time with the wind, the day’s tireless maestro.
He, the audience, applauded.
A professor of social work at the University of Texas at Tyler, Rich H. Kenney, Jr. is season ticket holder for nature’s orchestral works.
Her hair rose like a careful helmet, brown waves shellacked into prayerful stillness. She rode the bus smiling politely, beady eyes skimming passengers while pretending to gaze out the windows. At my stop, a gust blew through the door. Her hair did not move. Instead, somewhere inside it, something whistled.
Maria Tass has a degree in Psychology and her work has appeared in Gray & Granite Magazine. Based in Toronto, she revels in the city’s secondhand shops and hidden laneways where the strange and beautiful converge.
As a child Ryan dreamed of slaying dragons, none too formidable for his steadfast sword.
He is still in that business. At the Veterans crisis center, armed with assuring compassion, he confronts head-on the despair that haunts some of our heroes.
Even the smallest breakthrough is worth the battle waged.
Lisa Chambers is a Texas girl, writer and daughter of a Veteran, grateful for heroes helping heroes.
The story of the week for March 23 to 27 is…
Where I Would’ve Held Her by Tad K.
There used to be a place you could go, a place with infinite possibilities. I think you got there underwater; might’ve been just under that riverbank. Someone I used to know has been there. He was younger then. Doesn’t remember much.
Can’t go there anymore, of course. River’s too low.
Tim Sevenhuysen is the creator of FiftyWordStories.com.
I was bitten by a feral dad. Now once a month a daughter appears, shimmering in the full moon. Each time she’s older, less pleased to see me. Excuses turn to howls in my throat. By sunrise she fades, and I’m left alone shivering, feeling like I’m missing a limb.
Joe Pearson is a British fiction writer living in Paris. (Except for one night a month, when he hunts childless men.) You can find more of his writing at joepearsonwriter.com.
Every time Paul thought about asking Annie to marry him, he remembered the time when he was seventeen and that blonde girl on the beach had offered him a lick of her ice cream cone.
Annie had never once offered him as much as a peek at her checkbook balance.
Chelan Kingfisher lives on beautiful Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest. She both fuels and exhausts her days navigating the uncertainties of seeking happiness in the tiny things of life.
The charmer plays his melody, rolling and reedy. The crowd sways along, seduced by the man’s earnestness and the golden warmth of sunset. Their heads bob in time with his, their eyes fixed on the carpet and the basket. They all see what they came for. There is no snake.
Dave Bradley’s words have appeared in publications such as Best Of British Science Fiction and Dorling Kindersley’s The Screen Traveller’s Guide, as well as various pop culture magazines and websites.