The presidential cabinet huddled in their murky war room to discuss rejecting the enemy’s offer without escalating tensions.
“Send them an insult disguised as a gift,” said the president, “maybe a box of chocolates-covered ants?”
“One problem,” said a diplomat. “They’re insectivores. They won’t take ants for a no, sir.”
Marsrick is a social worker living in the Midwest. Read more short writings at marsrick.com.
Seas warming by degrees, growing more acidic, weakening the skeletons of animals and plants. The scientists call it “mass bleaching.”
Giant clams with green dots on their flesh. The hawksbill turtle and hammerhead shark, damselfish and manta ray turn paler, swimming through rippling tendrils of ghost coral.
Nemo seems unaffected.
Beth Sherman received an MFA in creative writing from Queens College, where she teaches in the English department. Her fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including The Portland Review, Sandy River Review, Blue Lyra Review, Panoplyzine, Peacock Journal, 3Elements Review, Gloom Cupboard, The Delmarva Review, Sou’wester, Sinkhole, Compose Journal, Ponder Review and Marathon Literary Review. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has written five mystery novels.
The flip of a coin: win or lose. Three dilemmas to solve. Stay in the countryside or move to the city? She relocated. Stop in or go out? She went out. Coffee shop or wine bar? She found a coffee shop and met the person who would end her life.
Kathryn Evans was born in Wales, raised in Scotland, has an Irish grandfather, and lives in Plymouth, England. She studied genetics to PhD level. Her main passion is rock/indie music.
The story of the week for February 19 to 23 is…
Gospel by Beverley C. Lucey
Folks at church think it be a sin just to pause by the basement doorway where that type music flowed raw. Our hymns was crumbs compared. But I took me a sip of saxophone, a gulp of jazz piano, and drank myself to heaven. Was blind but now I see.
Beverly C. Lucey prefers to write short pieces because she is always getting interrupted. Her work has been published online and in anthologies.
I wanted to pet that bunny, so I followed him to his hole. Determined, I muttered a spell and shrank to the size of a grasshopper. His nose twitched side to side when I found him.
We stared into each other’s eyes. Then I learned that rabbits will eat bugs.
Eddie D. Moore travels extensively for work, and he spends much of that time listening to audio books. The rest of the time is spent dreaming of stories to write and he spends the weekends writing them. His stories have been published by Jouth Webzine, Kzine, Alien Dimensions, Theme of Absence, Devolution Z, and Fantasia Divinity Magazine. Find more on his blog.
Little if any sizzling. Pulling away from the pan.
A toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
She turned it upside down on a wire cooling rack then righted it on another.
That brief time left an impression.
The crisscross pattern reminded her of her mother.
Dead at forty-two.
Jennifer M. Smith was taught the family baking secrets at an early age. She never met her maternal grandmother.
For months the space next to me had been empty. Yet tonight, it was occupied by a stranger. My husband glared at him.
“How could you do this to me?” he whispered.
“Til death do us part,” I replied.
My husband glowered. His ghostly figure slowly disappeared into the darkness.
Patricia Santillan likes climbing up chairs because she is too short to reach the top cupboard. Because self-love is important to her, she loves hugging herself. Her most recent publications can be found in Leaves of Ink and Fairy Talez.
I didn’t go to his first wedding—the one that was supposed to be mine, too—but I went to all the ones after that.
The last one was different… bittersweet. It felt like a goodbye as much as a beginning, but in some ways, aren’t all weddings like that?
Erin is an artist and editor living in Los Angeles.
They’re walking hand in hand like always, blushing as red as the leaves they kick up while they walk.
He can almost remember the smell of her perfume.
“Come away from the window, now,” the nurse says, toting his oxygen tank. “You shouldn’t stare like that. What’s there to see?”
Jamie Brian is a pilot and flight instructor from Pennsylvania. She makes sense of the world through poetry. Her office may be in the clouds, but she feels firmly rooted with a pen in her hand.