PATRICK MC LOUGHLIN: The Art of Disappearing

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,

Rose sat in the part of the park that light didn’t reach. Around the edges, people moved like ghosts. The odd sound of laughter crossed the air, where she received it like a lost language.

Beyond purgatory, buses went to places that didn’t exist anymore; cafes, bars, cinemas, and home.

Patrick Mc Loughlin is an English Language Teacher in Ireland and dabbles in writing. He also dabbles in painting and music and someday hopes to do more than dabble. He lives in the west of Ireland where it’s hard to concentrate.

ROBERTA BEACH JACOBSON: Body Image

Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

Molly set the deadline to shed her excess weight – the county picnic.

Dieting was slow, so she ditched a few body parts. Success! Check that scale.

Her pound-shedding continued. At the picnic, Molly was nothing but a pair of sparkly pumps.

The mayor declared, “Best darn shoes in the county!”

Roberta Beach Jacobson is a humorist from Iowa. See more at RobertaJacobson.com.

CONNELL WAYNE REGNER: The Ambush

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

The dead got up from the battlefield. Some played with their wounds. Others witnessed the horror of what they had become. As they walked away a young private looked back and saw their bodies where they’d fallen and sighed, “If all this is for that, why did we bother coming?”

Connell writes a bit and no more.

JIM DOSS: Depressionism

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

The painter painted the world black. Black trees, black grass, black clouds, black tomatoes. Van Gogh-like brush-strokes, thick with sorrow, melted around us. Even little girls smiled with teeth black as watermelon seeds. Everything so biblical we ran to the river to wash away our sins in dark, inviting waters.

Jim Doss lives with his wife and three children in Sykesville, Maryland, and earns his living as a software engineer. He has previously published two books of poems: Learning to Talk Again, and What Remains. In partnership with Werner Schmitt, he also published a book of German translations entitled The Last Gold of Expired Stars: The Complete Poems of Georg Trakl 1908 – 1914. In his spare time, he is an editor for the Loch Raven Review.

JOEY TO: She’s Back

Submissions, Touching, , ,

She’s usually back by sunset. Then I nuzzle her hair and she sighs.

She fills my bowl. As I eat, I contemplate the smells of people and things she encountered during the day. Sometimes she talks about them.

Tonight she’s late, sobbing, smells different too… She’s left her heart behind.

Joey currently does not have a dog or a cat. See more at joeytoey.com.

LEE DeAMALI: Oh, mom

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

The tide of approaching adulthood pulled them from my shore. Strolling slowly where I once set a brisk pace, picking up random shells, desperate for some word, all I get is static. Then a familiar voice, almost forgotten, asks why I expect they’ll return when I never did.

Oh, mom.

Lee DeAmali keeps the porch light on.

NT FRANKLIN: The Knock

Adventure, Submissions, , , , ,

The knock at the door came sooner than she expected. Two police officers looking concerned. Seems her boyfriend Tommy was found dead in a ditch. With damage to her car and blood on the hood, they wanted to know her whereabouts last night.

“I wasn’t cheating” was all she said.

NT Franklin writes after his real job hoping one day to have it be his real job. He writes cozy mystery short stories, nostalgia short stories, and Flash Fiction. When not reading or writing short stories, you might find him fishing or solving crossword puzzles. His work has been published in Fiction on the Web, Madswirl, Postcard Shorts404 Words, Scarlet Leaf Review, Freedom Fiction, Burrst, Entropy, Alsina Publishing, Fifty-word stories, among others.

EILEEN BRENNAN McINTYRE: Missing River

Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , , ,

The moment River’s life ended, brick by brick I built the wall. Covered the searing pain with concrete so no one could see. People passed and acknowledged the smile. The nod. The pleasantries.

Till you saw and lay down beside me, held me, and whispered. Whispered like River used to.

Eileen Brennan McIntyre is a writer from Northern California who loves writing stories that touch the heart.

DANIEL THOMAS: Aficionado

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

A stem. A swirl, a sniff, a sip, and a sigh. The luxurious liquid flooded down his throat. This was what he lived for, what he worked for. To travel and taste the things he’d enjoyed for decades in their place of origin.

It wasn’t new, but it was novel.

Daniel Thomas is a creative freelancer in the NYC ad industry. Beyond working and writing, he can be found reading, cooking, playing hockey, and wishing he had an apartment big enough for a dog. A big dog.