Mom cuts a pepperoni pizza into eighths. “Your two slices together make a quarter,” she says, serving one slice to each of her young twins. “Still three quarters left. That’s almost a whole pie!”
The boys chew in silence. Three quarters of a family feel nothing like a whole one.
Maura Yzmore writes short-form literary and speculative fiction, as well as humor. Find out more at maurayzmore.com or @MauraYzmore on Twitter.
This table, the wine, bread and cheese—that’s nonfiction; calling it “dinner” is, perhaps, a fiction.
Your silence, my tears, these trembling hands: nonfiction. Our last meal together: fiction.
Your attraction to someone else—OK, we’ll call that nonfiction. But the idea you no longer love me… must be fiction.
Nathan Alling Long lives in Philadelphia and can be found at blogs.stockton.edu/longn. His collection of fifty flash fictions, The Origin of Doubt, was published by Press 53 in March 2018.
More than a tourist in the land of the Parkie where the governor
mumbles and shakes. I’m like a warrior trying to escape; PD has
a grip on my soul. A voting citizen, I fell off the floor and opened
the door to a new life that yells: watch out!
Michael Mogel is an out of work Fire Alarm Inspector due to Parkinson’s and has been writing poetry since college where he founded a literary
magazine.
As a kid, I loved reading and books and decided to be a librarian when I grew up.
I memorized the Dewey Decimal System. I went to the college with the best Library Science reputation.
Alas, hopes for a career among the stacks were dashed when I failed shushing class.
Frank Kozusko is a retired US Navy submarine officer and nuclear engineer. After the Navy, he spent 20 years as a university math professor. A few years back, he started writing poetry and has self-published several collections. In full retirement now, he is writing short stories.
Dark matter, a mysterious shadow cosmos existing side by side with our own.
The portal was his life’s work. He stepped through, breaching the barrier between universes. He would be humanity’s greatest explorer.
He saw structure. People.
A voice behind him, malice oozing from every syllable.
“Explorer: welcome to Hell.”
Bill is from Aberdeen, Scotland. His therapist sees his writing as a pitiful cry for help. Probably best just to ignore it. See more at northeastnotesblog.wordpress.com.
A memory, as if only yesterday.
This young woman is a metaphor for freedom
her strong hands guide the yacht
she flies over the crests of the ocean
braces against fierce, frigid salt blasts
that strike her windburnt face
over and over
flicking her blond locks into a wild dance
Alice Lam moved to Australia from the UK with her partner and they share a house in Melbourne, along with a cheese-seeking, greying Boxer dog. See more at alicelambooks.com.
I open my eyes.
It’s still here. Thank you.
It was here yesterday, and the day before that. Uncertain how long it will be here for me, though. Nobody can tell me, because once I nearly saw the last of it. I nearly died.
I hope it’s here again tomorrow.
Michael has not been published by a major publishing house as yet, although he has written a handful of articles for local lifestyle magazines and one or two rural media reviews. He was a photographer (retired) by trade. Michael has been writing for many yearss. He is now living with hearing failure, but that doesn’t stop him from writing on a daily basis.
She pushed me to the door. I said, “Before you say your piece, heed this; hearken to the sages: words said are words written on the fabric of your soul. They cannot be unsaid. A soul cannot turn back.”
She said, “Get the hell out of my house.”
I left.
Why there’s the very fellow. See Peter: in Dublin does he lurk, all beard and books. Perhaps today he is an extra on a film set, perhaps tomorrow he plays freelance with a camera, the day after that a writer. Wherever he is, whatever he is, he is most likely having coffee or thinking of his next one.
The story of the week for August 6 to 10 is…
Utah by Peter Vickland
The Story of the Month is chosen from the Story of the Week winners announced from the past month.
The finalists for July were:
Side Effects of Radiation Therapy by Bob Thurber
Too Late by Kiran Kaur Saini
Pyrex-Worthy by Robin Lubatkin
Lepidop-Terror by Melanie Cranenburgh
Another Misadventure of the Broken Boys by Bob Thurber
The winner of the July 2018 Story of the Month, and the $10 prize, is…
Another Misadventure of the Broken Boys
The story achieves the perfect balance of unsettling beauty and haunting hope. Bob continues to prove why he deserves his Hall of Fame spot.