Warren staggered out onto the porch, coffee in hand. As he lifted the mug to his lips, their eyes locked together. She examined him stoically from across the street.
Then, like a yogic guru, she lifted her leg—and licked her butt. Hot coffee spewed from his nostrils.
Stupid cats.
Kurt is a screenwriter based in Toronto, Canada.
She loved the beach.
Yesterday I found sand in my shoes.
Today, flecks of seaweed clinging to my clothes.
Now the scent of her coconut tanning lotion traces the air.
I haven’t gone to the beach in the year since she drowned.
I wonder what she’s trying to tell me.
Mary lives on the coast in the south-east of Ireland, where the sea has a habit of seeping into her writing.
I don’t know why the starry sky
I cannot see how the river carves its way all the way to the ocean
I can only dream where songbirds go to die
I don’t know why
or how, left to its own
a salmon spawning upstream
swims hundreds of miles—home.
Todd is an amateur writer and poet. He met the love of his life in a college writing class. Since then, the two have spent their lives together.
My heart pounding in my chest, I watched as you lay on the white linen, still and silent. The fan’s breeze fluttered your hair and eyelashes. You looked cool, reposed, as though sleeping. I squeezed your hand and whispered for you to open your eyes, once more.
But you didn’t.
Melanie Cranenburgh lives in Western Australia and rescues wildlife in her spare time.
Tears wanted to flow but nothing came. I wanted to cry but the guilt was too strong. In one fell swoop, my entire world crumbled before me, and I could not have done anything.
In that one moment, I understood what love and friendship meant because I had betrayed both.
Armaan is a bibliophile who listens to punk and alt rock, plays APRGs and likes to get serious sometimes. He started writing because his friends told him his English was better than theirs. His strong belief in friends has made him continue writing short fictional stories after high-school even though he currently pursues a degree in business management. He has recently entered the flash writing scene.
It was peaceful in the near-empty compartment of the 22:30 to Belfast. Carrie felt so secure, with the guard’s regular walk-bys, that she could have stolen an hour’s sleep.
Yet she was fixated on the man with his finger up his nose.
That saved her life when the train derailed.
Irish writer Perry McDaid lives in Derry under the brooding brows of Donegal hills which he occasionally hikes in search of druidic inspiration.
The woman who taught the prison’s Tuesday cooking class was a caricature named Milly. She spoke in exclamation marks and block letters.
“HI!” she said, the first day, into the overweight silence. “I’m MILLY! Welcome to COOKING for BEGINNERS!”
Fiona looked down at the knife in her hand, and wondered.
Anna Ascott is an Australian expat living in rural Germany in a village where the cows outnumber the people. When she isn’t organising her colleagues’ office supplies, she writes creative non-fiction, short stories, and flash fiction.
The story of the week for August 21 to 25 is…
Mother by Yong Takahashi
The world went quiet when she was eleven years old. Deaf as a stone. She compensates now if you know what to look for. You can’t tell any difference unless you call to her. Same spirit, same energy, only now has to be watched out for.
Still a faithful dog.
N.T. 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.
The first thing we did was hide the body, which was not a small thing.
Then we came home, tidied up, and made dinner as though nothing had happened.
If she came home and found the house a mess—even if she couldn’t find our brother—we’d be dead, too.
Deborah Garwood is a writer from Missouri. Well, not really from Missouri, like, she now lives elsewhere. She still lives there. Forever and always. Probably.