That afternoon we’d been rowing around the pond, tuna sandwiches packed in the red cooler. Mostly love keeping us afloat. Later, I spotted a small green frog parked on the lip, looking up at me like I was some kind of princess.
Now, long after the divorce, I sometimes wonder…
Mary Moreno lives in New York City and writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. She also composes and produces music.
The author made up a word for something, say a six-legged spider with two arms, or whatever. Just gibberish. Eventually the story was translated into Italian, and thanks to a typo, it only needed to be pronounced in the European style aloud to unbind the universe. The universe is waiting.
After decades of nattering on about moving abroad, Ed Walker finally retired and is currently living in Catalunya, Spain. His work can be found in fiftywordstories, The Arcanist, Blink-Ink and elsewhere.
The Story of the Month is chosen from the Story of the Week winners announced from the past month.
The finalists for July were:
Aspera Ad Astra by Marc Simon
Inheritance by L.F. Khouri
The Silent Companion by Estelle Bardot
Paithani Shadows by Shivan Pailwan
Twin Brother by Jeff Harvey
The winner of the July 2025 Story of the Month is…
Paithani Shadows
We sit across the table making a grocery list.
I add oranges, even though you hate them. You fake frown at me and add tuna in response.
We glare at each other until we burst out laughing.
I love you. And I know you love me too.
All is well.
Karalyn Wayne enjoys long games of chess and playing villains on stage. When she isn’t procrastinating, she writes. This is her third 50-word story.
goth is an artist, writer, and all around sleepy guy. goth works full time as a public defender, hence the pen name. this isn’t legal advice. See more at @g0thlawyer on bluesky and instagram and at g0thlawyer.com.
Editor: This format and method of presentation (as an image) is a first, and I love it! It required some new methods of word-counting to verify that it met the 50-word requirement, which is fun. :) We are counting each emoji as one word, as well as counting the standalone punctuation as words (the @ and the ??).
The story of the week for July 28 to August 1 is…
The Offering by Nina Basu
and
Omiage by Meredith McLean
Light bends in the road-hot summer air.
The highway shimmers like a liquid dream.
East winds toss and roll spiny tumbleweeds
while shadows cast by coral-nippled peaks
stretch violet shapes across the desert.
The young husband’s wedding ring
reflects the golden setting sun
as he gingerly unfolds the brittle map.
Ellen calls the PNW home, where she loves camping, kayaking, her garden and hanging out with Maisy the cat, as well as David the husband. Her writing is informed mostly by her experiences from childhood to adultness in San Francisco and the Peninsula.
At dusk, villagers watched the crimson sun bleed into the mountains, where smoke curled from hidden caves. “They’ll wake soon,” whispered the elder. No one moved. One child left a carved offering at the cliff’s edge. Moments later, clouds churned. Wings split the sky. The dragons had remembered her name.
Nina is 11 years old, and lives in England, United Kingdom. She is an avid reader. Nina loves both the classics (Tom Sawyer, Pride and Prejudice, A Christmas Carol) and contemporary literature. She particularly loves fantasy and stories of dragons. She placed third in the W.J. Kite writing tournament in 2022, and was published in the W.J. Kite anthology.
That woman’s strangely dressed for 1889, the time traveller thinks.
She pulls out a glass rectangle and wordlessly hands it over. He stares, horrified, at an unfamiliar future.
Once he’s returned to whenever he came from, she sits and waits for the next assassin.
Somewhere nearby, a baby boy wails.
Phil W. Bayles has lived in Paris and London, where he’s written everything from movie reviews to mattress adverts. These days he lives in Derbyshire with his wife, his daughter and his cat. He writes very silly stories about very serious ideas, with the occasional poem to mix things up.
We usually meet at dusk waiting for the moonlight to illuminate the Chattahoochee River. We don’t always speak; heavy thoughts transcend as the earth spins-spins-spins. Still, we drift inside a magical realm, until the cemetery groundskeeper looks up to hear the swift stirring in the tall-tall pines, our souls whispering.
Angela Carlton’s fiction has been published in Every Writer, Everyday Fiction, 6S, 50 Word Stories, Spillwords Press, The Dribble Drabble Review, and Friday Flash Fiction. In 2022, “A Jigsaw Life,” a collection of stories was released. In 2023, her story “Swallowed,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. See more on Facebook.