Day dawns like a drill sergeant barking orders. The tarnished door flap swings open, announcing breakfast: rubbery eggs on a tin plate and a heel of stale bread. The door clangs shut like a license plate dragging on pavement.
He crawls out of his cot. Another day at the monastery.
Debbie L. Miller is a Brooklyn, New York writer. She writes plays, monologues, short stories, micro fiction, and memoir.
Imagine a leather strap looped from neck to ankle. Their beauty and magnificence hobbled us like that. When they spoke about marriage we surmised their words had more to do with things we didn’t know, things we were incapable of learning, than with anything they were prohibited from telling us.
Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and prizes. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled “Nothing But Trouble.” His first novel, “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel,” was recently rereleased. Visit BobThurber.net.
Earth is a pretty strange place. These beings are only interested in destroying each other and their planet. Their machines constantly belch thick black poison, clouding the view of my ship.
Oh well, I think. They can have fun while they can, because their planet won’t belong to them soon.
Mathieu Munroe is a self-taught artist and writer. You can find him loitering in his room or in tree covered areas.
Jack glanced around the office. As usual, everyone – including the cute girl from finance – was ignoring him.
Photocopiers hummed, water coolers bubbled. Jack took a deep breath and typed:
Mum, I’m sorry, I can’t cope any more. Goodbye forever.
Then he hit ‘send’ and walked away from his boss’s keyboard.
Mark Farley (mumbletoes.blogspot.com) is attempting to write 1,000,000 words in 2016. Please wish him luck!
Locating a missing stiletto was the key to solving a heinous crime.
The prime suspect had a closet dedicated exclusively to footwear.
Finally, the broody detective in charge found a pair of shoes that matched the bloody footprints in the parlor, but only after a great deal of sole searching.
John H. Dromey has had short fiction published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Crimson Streets, Stupefying Stories Showcase, and elsewhere.
Across the land, shouts of “Vote for me!” echo, answered by, “No, vote for me! I’m better!”
Other lands watch in confusion, so being a good citizen I place a sign on the door to comfort them: “Gone Crazy; Back Soon.”
And then off to bed I run ‘til December.
John Keeley is an NYCer and poll site worker, feels we need to keep the humor in the elections or face going mad!
The neighbors who’d once welcomed the Joneses with home-baked cookies are milling restively outside. The sheriff’s car stops briefly, then slowly pulls away, and the rampage begins.
Finally the mob disperses, leaving an uprooted sapling at the curb. Again the Joneses’ house looks like all the others on Pleasant Lane.
Alex has the only red car on his street.
There’s no time to explain this. You have to believe that the girl I killed wasn’t me. She’s the wrong me. Alternate reality me. Our realities can’t co-exist in the same timeline. Butterfly effect, inverted: murdering me doesn’t change what happened to her. Twenty years later, you’ll regret this. Don’t—
Stephanie Selander lives, writes, and teaches in Miami, Florida. Her work has previously appeared in WomenArts Quarterly Journal, Yellow Chair Review, and elsewhere.
When Dad lost the remote, he made a game. He’d call out numbers and, using the cable box, I’d change channels from black and white fuzz to sounds and spectrums of light.
The cable company never took it back, and I kept that disconnected box—long after Dad was gone.
Frederick Charles Melancon is a native of New Orleans. Currently, he lives in Mississippi with his wife and daughter. In his spare time, he watches cartoon movies with his family, and he enjoys every minute of it.
The gun shots ring out in the night.
There is nothing I can do but hide and wait for this hell to be over.
When the morning comes I’ll leave this place forever, become a refugee, someone trying to escape this carnage.
Maybe some day I’ll be free at last.
Scott Gambon is a student at Orion High School in Illinois. He is 17 years old, the youngest of 4 siblings.