Estranged darkness
A match struck
The scent of sulphur
Flicker, flicker
The candle speaks
Only shadows live within this room
Haunted
Hypnotized
Inside the dancing flame
His life
He blows it out
The curtains thrashed open
Blinded
His dark eyes open
The spell broken
He breathes deep
And dreams again
Patrick is a novice writer, and would like to say a special thanks to Tim and to those that might read his tenth post.
Hey, Famine? Death here. Got your diary? What about the 17th?
No, it’s weight watchers on Tuesdays. Next Friday?
Darn! Forgot Plague is off sick until next month.
What about War?
Her diary’s always full. She’s usually out somewhere, dressed to kill.
Lord, looks like we’ll have to postpone. Again.
Viv Burgess got this idea from the usual 80-email marathons trying to arrange a date to meet with three other women friends.
They had to cut me to take you.
I heard your cry fade down the hallway.
It haunts me nightly.
I bought you cards every birthday, not knowing if I should buy for a son or daughter.
You are fifty years old today.
I still crave my beautiful bastard baby.
Joan is an educator in Australia who loves the beauty of language.
The story of the week for July 25 to 29 is…
At the Zoo by Scott Ragland
So much story behind so few details. Great use of every word.
She stared, blank; he gazed lovingly back. Perhaps it was true her skin hung a little loosely upon her bones. Perhaps it was true her hair was just a little sparse.
Yet his mother’s disapproval meant little. He loved her just the same.
After all, aren’t zombies just people, too?
Jenora Vaswani holds an avid fascination for the undead, and avoids horror movies like the plague, a rather unfortunate combination, really. Considering the gradual shifts in perception regarding the LGBTQ+ community, she thought it might be interesting to ponder the extremes of finding acceptance… within zombie/human relationships. Read more of her work at openingdoorsofperception.com.
“How are you?” it starts.
“I miss you,” he says.
“When are you coming over?” he asks.
I say I’m fine. I tell him I’m busy. I say I’m too tired to come over right now.
I waste platitudes on him when I should just say two words: “It’s over.”
Lucinda is a housewife, blogger, and aspiring writer. She is currently experimenting with different writing styles, hoping to enhance her somewhat rusty writing skills.
The house’s weathered “For Sale” sign sways over the brown remains of the lawn. A cold wind licks at my bare feet. The crying grows louder.
I enter the basement where the infant’s body lay for months, abandoned in death as in life. An icy breath suckles at my breast.
Jayne Martin’s work has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, Blink Ink, Literary Orphans, Flash Frontier, F(r)iction, Sick Lit, and Hippocampus, among others. She is the author of “Suitable for Giving: A Collection of Wit with a Side of Wry.” Find her at injaynesworld.blogspot.com and on Twitter.
He’s four. Pasty-white, squishy chubby.
I’m his patient day camp counselor.
Currently, he’s screeching while incessantly racing around the perimeter of the shade house.
He stops suddenly, begins repeatedly smashing his tender forehead against a support column.
We know not to intervene. He’s unstoppable.
He’s the son of mother’s psychiatrist.
Sadly, this is a true story. Leslie doesn’t know what became of this child. Her mother, on the other hand, thrived, despite her shrink.
Holding the colorful bracelet, Ellie remembers: its green beads had matched his eyes.
In the car, they’d laughed, hearts beating for tomorrow. Her wrist wrapped in sky.
“The next jewelry’ll be for your finger.”
Now, scraping red—paint? blood?—from the bracelet, Ellie regrets ever wanting more than him, then.
Kerry Graham lives, teaches, writes, runs, and photographs in Baltimore, MD. Connect with her on Instagram and Twitter.
“What a horrible final,” Gretchen mumbled to herself as the crosswalk light turned green.
She took a step off the curb and saw the reflection of her face on the black paint of a hatchback as it passed six inches from her face. She fell back and noticed the sky.
Floridian, but not “Florida Man“, Anna Steward writes short fiction and poetry, and is currently working on her first novel.