MAURA YZMORE: Wayward Willie

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Wayward Willie was warned—woods were worrisome.

“Whatever.”

Wayward Willie walks woodward, whistling.

***

Wilderness.

Werewolf wanders, weary.

Werewolf whiffs, wonders. “Whistling wimp, walking woodward? Wonderful!”

***

Werewolf whiffs.

Werewolf waits.

Werewolf wallops wayward Willie. Willie whimpers.

***

Werewolf Willie wakes.

Werewolf Willie whiffs.

***

Wilderness.

Werewolf wanders, weary.

Werewolf Willie wanders, whistling, wayward.

Maura Yzmore’s day job involves quantum mechanics, dry-erase markers, and bad puns. She lives with her family in the American Midwest. Maura’s short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Fiction Pool, Storyland, Microfiction Monday Magazine, The Dirty Pool, and 50-Word Stories. See more at maurayzmore.com.

NANNA ARNADOTTIR: The Sea is a Living Thing

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The sea is a living thing: shifting, expanding, slipping, withdrawing.

In the depths below I watch him sway, caught up in the kelp. It’s wrapped around his wrists and weaves through his hair.

When I swim past him I can see my silver body reflected in his flat, murky eyes.

Nanna is an Icelandic freelance journalist and writer with her nose to the grindstone. It hurts; please, someone send medical help.

PHILIPP M SELMAN: Be careful what you wish for

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“Be careful what you wish for.”

If Billy never heard those words again, it would still be too soon.

He loved Cindy completely. He brought her flowers and told her she was beautiful, but she looked right through him.

And all because he’d wished—just that once—to be invisible.

Philipp M. Selman is an artist, songwriter, athlete, and professional copywriter. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Dark Fire Fiction and Fifty-Word Stories, and examples of his art, music, and writing can be found at pmselman.com.

ANDREW WALO: No Walk-Ins

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The eggheads cracked it, opened a door to the afterlife. Come and go as you please. They chose me, figuring I had plenty of questions for the Big Guy. They didn’t know I’d need an appointment. Didn’t know I would have blown Him off if I had one.

“Hey, kiddo.”

Andrew Walo is a freelance writer and a hunter of wild paragraphs and domesticated monsters. He resides in Norfolk, Virginia, but he lives for jacket-weather. More work can be found at AndrewWalo.com.

BOOMER TRUJILLO: The Marvel

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I shouldn’t be here, he thought.

But the physicians marveled at him. “Ship broke in atmo?” “How many procedures?” “The team outdid themselves.”

No one asked the marvel whether he wanted saving—without legs, arms, jaw, or sight. So, the marvel sat in his case—talked at, rotated for sores.

CANDACE KUBINEC: Angela

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It rained the day I was born. Momma says the angels were crying because I left them.

Daddy laughs and says I poked a hole in the clouds on my way down.

Momma and I just smile. She winks at me and tucks a stray feather back under my sweater.

Candace Kubinec wrote this story.

BILL COX: The Things We Run From

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He crossed the finish line well ahead of the other athletes. The crowd cheered, a distant roar, but he didn’t stop.

In his mind, her voice was pleading, begging: “Don’t let me die here!”

Muscles pumping, heart racing, he sprinted on, the ghosts of his past hard on his heels.

Bill lives in Aberdeen, Scotland, which will become the capital of his world empire when he completes his anti-matter bomb. But first lunch.

SUSAN WACKERBARTH: And the winner is…

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“I wish your father all the best with his new wife and baby,” said Harriet. “He’s a decent man and he deserves happiness.”

And there’s my plug for divorced mother of the year, she thought.

Turning, she pulled a long knife from the wooden block and began to sharpen it.

Susan Wackerbarth teaches creative writing at the University of Hawaii Hilo. At home, she shares space with goats, chickens and the occasional mongoose.

TAMSIN SEYMOUR: The Minotaur’s Daughter Goes Home

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Her palate was broader than her father’s. On her thirteenth birthday she ate the entire cake. But she’d still not spoken. Too much sky up here?

I led her to the nearest cave and she clattered inside with a thunderous, visceral bellow. I feared it was the sound of hope.

Tamsin and Mark Farley decided to write sequels to each other’s most recent 50-word stories. This is a sequel to Fostering the Minotaur’s Daughter.

MARK FARLEY: Unbowed

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New strings, a polished case, and it was only then she discovered her uncle’s spirit lived on in the violin. The instrument wept tears of resin when she told it of her aunt’s death. That night the strings carved melody from raindrops, sliced moonlight into splinters, whispered chords of regret.

Mark Farley was only too happy to join in with Tamsin Seymour’s lovely idea of writing sequels to each other’s stories. This story is a follow-up to Lost Chords.