The story of the week for May 8 to 12 is…
The fortune-teller’s daughter, pt. 1 by Guy Preston
Part 1, indeed.
NEIL CLARK: Exposed
I couldn’t have anticipated such a boisterous reception, just for winning a preliminary heat at a swimming gala.
The crowd went wild the moment I left the pool! People fist-pumping! Woop-woops echoing everywhere!
Overcome, I took a bow.
Then I realised.
Those were my red trunks bobbing on the water.
Neil writes what he likes. Sadly, nobody likes what he writes.
ROB VASS: Sometime Rainfall
Sometime rainfall
Sometime wet it is
Sometime snowfall
Sometime be cold
Sometime the day be long
Sometime day too short
Sometime you laugh away
Sometime the pain just stays
Sometime young
Sometime be old
Sometime be alive
Sometime be dead you
Sometime God is far away
Sometime in my head
Rob Vass is a concrete guy who got old. Got stuck in the office much like a troll under the bridge growling at office staff and telling war stories of the craft. But he lives on a coffee farm and makes good salsa, growing peppers with his good lady. Who like a good story.
SUSAN CORNFORD: Warning
She watched the woman named Stella adjusting her wedding veil in the mirror. Moving beside her, their eyes met in reflection.
“Please don’t marry him or you’ll be unhappy the rest of your life.”
Stella turned to her. “Are you a distant cousin?”
“I’m your granddaughter,” she said and disappeared.
Susan Cornford is a retired public servant, living in Perth, Western Australia. To date, she has (co)won only one competition but has been short-listed or made finalist for numerous others. She has pieces published or forthcoming in Antipodean Science Fiction, Ghost Parachute, Switchblade, The Fable Online, The Gambler and The Vignette Review. She now considers herself an emerging flash writer.
IAIN YOUNG: More Vegetables Won’t Make a Difference
Death’s hand, which I shook reluctantly, was a plumped pillow.
“You’re safe,” he said. “For now.”
“I pictured you as a, you know—”
“Skeleton? You should’ve seen me before the Western diet.” Laughter rippled his corpulence. “Doctor’s telling me to eat better, but she thinks I’m lying about my work.”
Iain Young hasn’t forgotten the childhood nightmare in which he was chased by angry vegetables. That might explain a lot.
GUY PRESTON: The fortune-teller’s daughter, pt. 1
The day before my sixth birthday I sat on mother’s knee and stared into her crystal ball. She’d flinched at shadows that screamed and slammed doors, clutched my arm so hard her nails broke the skin. Among whirling smoke she saw broken skies, suffering, the End…
I only saw you.
Guy was once declared dead by a fortune-telling fish he found in a Christmas cracker. This is his eighteenth 50-word story.
ROBBIE GAMBLE: Bottoms Up
One afternoon, a priest, a lawyer, and a dentist walked into a bar.
The priest ordered himself a martini, promptly choked on the olive, and died. The lawyer jumped up, crying, “This isn’t funny!” and bolted from the joke.
The dentist, never one for punchlines, quietly called for another round.
PAUL HOCK: Just When You Think
Finally
Last drop of oil
Last chunk of coal
Fracking halted
Pipelines dismantled
Warming stopped
A healing earth
Cheap power for all
He climbed into his all-electric
Entered the coordinates to the Zero Carbon Celebration
Sat back for the ride
The first solar flare hit
And all hell broke lose
Paul Hock is from Fergus, Ontario, Canada, and is a writer of historical fiction. See more at paulhock.com.
TIM WEAVERS: Memories of Home
The beasts surround me, a wall of teeth. I can run no longer.
Why did I leave Earth?
Inside my helmet, I flick through photos from home. The white sandy beaches obscure the beasts. The smiles of family calm my heart.
Lost in memory, I barely feel the first bite.
Tim lives in Sydney where he is writing two fantasy novels, whenever he can spare the time from writing software and collecting sci-fi.
STORY OF THE MONTH: April 2017
The Story of the Month is chosen from the Story of the Week winners announced from the past month.
The finalists for April were:
Canned Laughter by Daniel DiFranco
Window Shopper by Susan Gale Wickes
To Err is Human by Munira Sayyid
Just a slight increase by M.K. Vinne
The winner of the April 2017 Story of the Month, and the $10 prize, is…
Window Shopper
The story is well crafted, with a strong parallelism and effective emotional hooks.