We sit around the table grasping at the slippery eels of conversation. Better catch one soon, or it’ll be the weather next.
I imagine trickles of blood dripping from our ears the longer we talk, white collars stained red by desperation to belong, to impart some meaning to our lives.
Simone Schutte is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. She’s a wife and mom, aspiring author, Pictionary artist extraordinaire, bookworm, photography lover, and green-fingered elf.
“What are all those fires?” I asked.
“Oh, that? They’re burning books again,” said the ever-apathetic voice of my time-traveling guide. “Don’t worry, it’s just empty symbolism at this point. If they managed to get this far, you can bet they never would have read them in the first place.”
Thanos Filanis is a writer and IT student from Thessaloniki, Greece.
When you pick up a seashell from the beach, you are receiving an opportunity from the ancient pandemonium of the water.
The water doesn’t owe you anything. But it puts out anyway.
“Here is something; don’t waste it,” it murmurs. What you don’t take, it will recycle.
Don’t waste it.
Arcadia Conrad teaches and writes in the South Bay Area, California. She really dislikes playing Two Truths and a Lie.
While smoking my second-to-last cigarette under a street lamp in the desert, I decided that life operated on bad metaphors and absurdist poetry.
As I was crushing the last embers, two jack rabbits ran pitter patter away to have their children and die among the sand dunes and salt flats.
Peter Vickland is a college student living and working in Sacramento, California. His hobbies, aside from writing, include reading and collecting books and not cutting his hair as often as he needs to, as he is frequently reminded by his loving girlfriend. See more at petervicklandwriting.com.
Labradors are clever and mine is really, really smart. He watches Jeopardy with my wife and me. He can answer more than she can, but neither of us tells her.
Once my wife is asleep he creeps into our room and licks my nose. Then we go chasing cars together.
Stuart is a retired teacher from New Zealand. He likes writing short stories and flash fiction.
Seven gunmen carried their six-shooters into the cavern, emptied their rounds into the beast’s flesh, and killed it like they’d promised. This way they’d be safe when they went to collect the treasure, even though all of them were out of bullets.
All but one.
He still had all six.
Tony Blaine is a writer and English teacher in the Pacific Northwest. He started writing fiction in college and hopes to get pretty good at it someday. Follow him on Instagram for more of his flash fiction or visit wheneverihavetime.com to read his full-length short stories.
Despite being a communications major, I searched for a mime boyfriend because I figured he’d allow me sufficient space, some peace and quiet.
Well, I figured wrong.
Once the mime started talking, the guy never shut up. Yada, yada, yada. Politics, comics, movies, save the whales.
Save me. Zip it.
Roberta Beach Jacobson is a humorist from Iowa. See more at RobertaJacobson.com.
The story of the week for July 30 to August 3 is…
Downhill Bike Ride by Harry Demarest
She held out her arms, beseeching me to give her the baby who had miraculously triumphed over death. I helped her cradle the tiny form in her arms. She cooed the whole time, “Renato. Renato.”
This is how he came by his name: he came to life a second time.
Dr. Marlene Caroselli is an author, keynoter, and corporate trainer whose clients include Lockheed Martin, Allied Signal, Department of the Interior, and Navy SEALS. She writes extensively about education, business, self-improvement, and careers and has adjuncted at UCLA and National University. Her first book, The Language of Leadership, was named a main selection by the Executive Book Club. Principled Persuasion, a more recent title, was designated a Director’s Choice by the Doubleday Book Club. Applying Mr. Albert: 365+ Einstein-Inspired Brain Boosts, her 62nd book, will be released by HRD Press in 2018.
You and me. A fantasy.
Love, pain — ecstasy, agony — life. That night, frigid, blankets, warm. Stars. The stars! Magic.
But we knew. We lay there, lying to ourselves, lying to the stars. The million ways it was right couldn’t overcome the handful of ways it was wrong.
Us. A fantasy.
Bob Silva wrote this story.