In dream, images lure: my hands spanning his bony scapula, lips kissing his neck, leg snaking his muscles as I lean back, believing he won’t ever let me go.
Awake, I pray for strength I cannot muster, to rise, to walk, to forgive the texting teen for unraveling our tango.
Sudha Balagopal’s short fiction appears in Jellyfish Review, Drabble, New Flash Fiction Review, New World Writing, and other journals. She is the author of a novel, A New Dawn. See more at sudhabalagopal.com.
Frigid weather was not a factor when we were young. We welcomed the challenge. It was raw, but so were we. The jostle of crowded streets and hiss of the library’s radiators frustrated the arctic air during Christmas season in the big city.
The bundles of memory warm us now.
Eddie Roth writes from St. Louis.
He’d taken this route every year. Nothing like this ever happened before. Guy came out of nowhere.
The reindeer were fatter this year so they blocked his view.
Opening his hip flask, he studied the splatter on the road.
Nobody believed in him anyway. Better go before witnesses turn up.
Joey does not and never did believe in the existence of Santa.
She awakens. Leaves flutter into hair and twigs braid into fingers. She finds her sisters cut down and a red X sprayed across her own chest.
She weeps.
The tears bead, becoming sap frozen against ancient bark. She waits for the end, drinking the sun and whispering in the breeze.
Taryn is a writer and environmental scientist living in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. See more at tnkloeden.com.
Guiding the knife carefully, he cut through skin, exposing the flesh beneath. Carving a chunk off, he popped it into his mouth.
The sweet juice of the mango washed over his taste buds; a bit of heaven.
At his feet, the bloody puddle expanded inexorably outwards while distant sirens screamed.
Bill Lives in Aberdeen, Scotland. His genius is only surpassed by his modesty, humility and ability to eat extraordinarily unhealthy amounts of fried food.
He lunches, daily, on the same graveyard bench. Sees, daily, the same woman, with careful steps and reverent gestures, lay origami flowers before neighboring headstones. Wonders, today, what she’ll make of a laughing boy and girl, tossing Frisbees among angels and crosses. Warms when she smiles and sits to watch.
Graham Robert Scott teaches writing at a university in north Texas. His stories have appeared in Barrelhouse Online, Nature, and 50-Word Stories. See more at hemicyon.wordpress.com.
The story of the week for December 10 to 14 is…
The last time I saw my brother by Guy Preston
Nothing but trouble was open for business at that hour.
“Grabbing a tree,” Bruce said.
“Don’t,” said Allison. “I’ll pay the fifty bucks tomorrow.”
“Back soon.”
Dawn arrived without Bruce. Allison’s texts remained unread.
She assumed either Bruce was dead or they’d use his mug shot on their Christmas card.
Iain Young still can’t convince his family to get a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
I looked through the thick, slightly dirty glass. I could sense the large shadows of creatures passing around me. After a while, an alien-looking face moved up to the glass. Its heavily layered scales glistened momentarily in the light filtering down from above.
I guess I never really liked aquariums.
Susanna Cahn von Seelen wrote this story.
Across the moat, the tower door stood open. What carelessness!
Klaus crouched by the black water, trying to gauge its depth. Atop fifty feet of curving stone, a guard wandered the battlements, oblivious.
Easy swim. A nearby frog croaked its agreement. Klaus eased himself in.
Around the bend, something splashed.
Jim Anderson is a retired college teacher who lives in south-east Michigan. He reads a lot, and writes a little. More of his micro fiction can be found at jimthewriter.net.