A river runs close by.
Sometimes, we go together. I paddle at the edges while you swim deftly forward. You covet its spiralling depths, embracing the undulating void as you leave the land behind.
You emerge dripping, almost drowned, but re-submerge before you’re dry.
My heart sinks as you plummet.
Jo Withers writes poetry and short stories from her home in South Australia. You can follow Jo on Twitter.
Too noisy, I say, but he cannot hear
Above the din of drill and saw
Again I try: Too noisy, neighbour,
as backhoe rips the ground to shreds
But he only stares, hands on hips
as his home reshapes before his eyes
I’m left to wonder: can he read lips?
Joan Skura writes from Toronto, Canada, where she lives with her husband, Ron, and their finicky feline, Lola.
I was paid in old change. Ancient change. Gold drachmas engraved with ancient marks, no two alike.
Rubbing the coins between my fingers, the flakes of red stained my soft flesh. The stink of copper held fast as I washed away what I hoped was paint.
I can’t quit anymore.
Isaiah grew up in California and has been looking for any reason to become anything but a writer for as long as he can remember. Writing won’t pay the bills, but it sure is fun. He wishes he could name this story “Blood Money,” but his love of horror and puns probably shouldn’t mix.
Covered in powdered sugar and melted chocolate, my beautiful blond roommate, who had never before set foot in our kitchen, looked up from her painstakingly crafted graham cracker crust in horror.
“Oh my God,” she said. “I just remembered. His mom’s a diabetic.”
I laughed. She managed not to cry.
Taylor Boucher is a writer of creative nonfiction and occasional fiction, when she realizes her exaggeration has gotten out of control. Her claims to fame are surviving being hit by a bus and meeting JoJo in a restaurant bathroom in 2007. In her spare time, she enjoys long conversations with her deaf dog.
The story of the week for September 24 to 28 is…
Conversation with an Artist by Alex Markovich
We held hands and kissed each other for far too long, until time was mostly gone. The room was bright despite night’s descent.
We laid face down on the wooden floor, reached under the bed, and rubbed their chins, cat by cat.
It was the very end. Their eyes glowed.
Tim Cox lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Karen, and their four cats. See more at instagram.com/timcox.
Dusty bounded into my life, like a golden bone lay hidden inside me. Our ritualistic greeting never failed to cheer my weary spirit.
Dusty is gone now but sometimes I picture God laughing, tossing that tennis ball over the Pearly Gates. Dusty pounces and returns with eyes full of adoration.
Eileen McIntyre is a writer from Northern California, who sometimes listens when voices speak.
It wasn’t love – she’d caught a glint of gold in a moment of poverty.
The polished Seducer had built a bridge to Paradise.
It was a temporary one.
In the end she realized her surroundings were quicksand.
The pyrite she clutched didn’t compare to the genuine counterpart she had forsaken.
Carrie enjoys writing in her spare time. Two of her children’s books, Wayne’s Trip to the Moon, and Mr. Jacobs and the Serving Spoon, are available at backerbooks.com. She has also written a few poems and short stories which have not yet been revealed to the public.
THUMP.
“It’s them again,” Luna hissed, grabbing Reznor’s upper arm.
He glared at the grotesque-styled ring-handle.
“It mightn’t–”
THUMP… THUMP-THUMP.
She scowled into his right ear.
He noticed because his peripheral vision was exceptional; the Sentry’s had to be.
“They’ll never get out!”
“Then why…?”
“Being damned breeds desperation.”
Irish writer Perry McDaid lives in Derry under the brooding brows of Donegal hills which he occasionally hikes in search of druidic inspiration. He even finds it on occasion.
I visit him in the nursing home every week. He’s in the lunchroom now, his food untouched, diligently filling in coloring book outlines with crayons. He no longer recognizes me.
“Are you here to eat or to color?” he asks.
“To color,” I say as I sit close beside him.
Alex thinks that most nursing homes are simply repositories for human flotsam.