I sit on the curb, shaken to the core. Its 2 AM.
I hear sirens from the police cars in the distance.
My mother cries inside the house. I look down at my hands to see the blood still wet, dripping onto my jeans. He is gone now, mother.
Gone.
Paige McDonald wrote this story.
A blizzard of term papers settles onto the oak floor around Professor Taylor’s shattered skull.
He’d always known a student would kill him.
By gun? Knife?
Certainly not by writing a thesis so absorbing that he’d forget about the stairs.
Shame; Randy Barton wouldn’t know he’d earned his first A.
After chasing his muse from Virginia to Manhattan, Richard Day Gore settled in Southern California, where he spends his time pushing around words, paint brushes, and guitar strings. See more at richarddaygore.com.
The sunrise woke me without a sound.
I rolled off of the stiff hotel mattress and tried to get ready for the meeting, but the silence was too loud.
My son called. “Dad?”
“Is everything okay?”
“I just wanted to say good morning.”
“Oh, good morning.”
And then it was.
Seth Pilevsky lives in New York with his wife and five kids. He loves to wake up to a noisy house. His work has been published in the Long Island Literary Journal, Literally Stories, Memoir Magazine, Stinkwave’s Magazine and in the YA Anthology entitled, What Doesn’t Kill You. Sign up for updates at his website, spilevsky.com.
Several people saw her running toward the orphanage, her hair a witch’s broom in the night. Later, they told her husband’s family. They didn’t mention, for they hadn’t seen, the tarnished jewellery in her arms. Nor could they feel the memory of an infant’s breath still warm against her chest.
Monica Wang has fiction in GHLL, Electric Literature, The Temz Review, Midway Journal, and Gaze Journal, among other publications. She spent childhood in Taichung, Taiwan, and Vancouver, Canada, and now writes in Germany.
Exposed to light, the misunderstood memories skitter away like startled insects. Slowly, I clear more rocks from the landscape of my childhood.
When I find the courage to pull weeds, I might replace them with roses: Their beauty comes with thorns. Or perhaps cacti, which can survive neglect, even abuse.
Kim Favors worked as a newspaper journalist. She grows her literary garden on California’s Central Coast.
The story of the week for May 13 to 17 is…
Close by Lex T. Lindsay
I was six when I saw a leopard for the first time at the local zoo. Its presence had an enigmatic effect on me; inspiring.
I turned, posing for a photo, upright and brave, armed with a newfound sense of courage. The leopard stood confidently behind: shoulders propped, eagerly anticipating.
Jonah Ardiel lives and writes short fiction in Calgary, AB, Canada. To read some of his work, visit jonahardiel.neocities.org.
Michael really likes you,
Her parents insisted
When she was 20
I find him dull, she countered
You can’t be too particular, her father said
You have to think about what you have to offer.
Was it her extra pounds he meant?
Or her personality?
She wished she had asked
Miriam Stein is a social worker, writer, and the author of Make Your Voice Matter With Lawmakers: No Experience Necessary. See more at makeyourvoicematter.com. She lives in Massachusetts.
The smoke pushed towards our home. When orange glow appeared behind the hills, we filled the car with our favourite things.
I packed the photo albums, hesitated, then added the camera. We’d need it, I vowed. The fire could have the house, not our joy.
The happy snaps would continue.
G.B. Burgess wrote this while watching a bush fire inch ever closer to her home.
The honeymoon patch of sunlight grew darker, obscured by the thick tangle of unknowing surrounding us.
I looked up. She hummed silently. The song resonated in her eyes, as if seeing the work already done.
I followed her, also humming, and we worked together, feeling ourselves victors through the pain.
Every day Sasha tries to give his heart to his writing, and every day his cat, Sebald, snatches it up for himself. Find his words and cat pics on Instagram and Facebook at @sashaandsebald.