Lucky I love the sound of my own voice. Echoing, Echoing, Echoing. Lucky I love the sound of my own voice. Echoing of bare walls. Echoing. Echoing. Echoing. Lucky I love the sound of my own voice. No one listening. Listening. Lucky I. Echoing. Echoing. Lucky me. Lucky
David loves the sound of his own voice, but also the voices of his wife, children and grandchildren.
I bite my lips: my father, bold, drank Jack in the yard, watered grass with his spit, bit heads off flowers he never planted, and loved those movies where the geezer’s still got a chance, but yet last week he still laughed—so that’s all I mutter: I don’t know.
The only thing that Mark Li (@markliterary) loves more than wandering museums is getting lost in one. However, he laments, the Mona Lisa doesn’t make very good conversation.
First day of school, jostling for position at the bus stop.
Rory’s acting cocky. Just back from Canada, he’s sporting a new puffa jacket. Superior filling, not the polyester of his peers.
The bus arrives and they swarm towards the open doors.
POP goes Rory’s jacket, and goose feathers fly.
Bryony Lorimer is a Scottish writer living in Edmonton, Alberta. Her work has appeared in Capital City Press Anthology (a project of the Edmonton Public Library) and is forthcoming in DarkWinter Literary Magazine.
Our favorite fall teas, elegant tin. I excitedly open this year’s edition, nostalgia steeping strongly.
Spiced orange warms when we’re chilly, sleepy herbal for cozy nights in. Mystery blend which always intrigues us, berry green with hearty meals.
Robust Irish black, his daily favorite. Even on his very last day.
Sara Kate Egan is a travel writer by trade, turned fiction crafter plus secret poet on the side, most often inspired by Mother Nature’s grand magic. She finds that observing how these four elements relate and intertwine is a fun fascination all in itself.
He hated living in her songs. Each lyric cut too deep, making his life a chorus for strangers.
She called it love.
And then, as if the weight finally reached her hands, the guitar slipped out of tune.
Complete silence.
Perhaps she finally understood love wasn’t meant to be performed.
Ran Walker is the author of over 40 books, the most recent of which is Fragments of the Afroverse, releasing on October 1st. He teaches creative writing at Hampton University and lives with his wife and daughter in Virginia.
To cast this spell
ink the wrinkled skin
of a virgin centenarian
making these markings
a ritualistic sigil
utilising quills
plucked from a specific fallen angel
whose once white feathers
are dyed eggshell blue
in psychedelic tribute
to a sky they once knew
and the time that they once flew.
Steven Holding lives in the United Kingdom. His story SMUDGE appears in the collection TREMBLING WITH FEAR MORE TALES FROM THE TREE VOLUME 5. You can follow his work at stevenholding.co.uk.
After bouts with vertigo, I step onto the ferry and pause; the floor shimmers with waves. Saints and witches walk on water, but I am dizzy on a boat. There is an anxious line of sightseers behind me, though. I take a desperate breath of air and begin to swim.
Colleen Addison completed a PhD in health information. She then promptly got sick herself. She now lives and heals on a small island, writing stories of various length about her life.
When we were kids—
Don’t judge—
We went to the woods at night.
Hunting.
For chandeliers.
Burning bright beyond the shadows.
We would level your .22.
Easy.
Big dumb prey not going anywhere.
I mentioned we were kids?
So don’t judge.
Wouldn’t have guessed someone might come pull the blinds.
Tim Boiteau lives in Michigan. His short stories have won a Writers of the Future award and Story of the Year at 50WS. His novels include Iltday and The Nilwere. His slasher The Neighborhood Game is coming this winter.
Memories, stacked in moving vans, evaporated like morning dew, leaving the house empty and sad. Rooms shed tears of loneliness, missing love and laughter as loss echoed off bare walls.
With a brisk click, flames swallowed doors, licked ceilings, and seared floors as the unwanted house cried out in agony.
Rita Riebel Mitchell writes in the Pinelands of South Jersey where she lives amongst the trees with her husband. Her work appears in HAD, Flash Fiction Magazine, Versification, and more. Find her at ritariebelmitchell.com/friday-micro.
I saved the last apricot from summer, wrapped in a napkin like a secret. In winter, I found it shriveled but whole. I bit into memory: tart, soft, sun-warmed. My daughter watched, puzzled. “It’s just fruit,” she said. But I could taste my childhood, my mother’s hands, the orchard’s hush.
Aisha is a poet and storyteller based in Srinagar, India. Her work explores themes of memory, displacement, and emotional resilience, often through lyrical prose and quiet imagery.