When she was my age, mom disappeared to Florida for some weeks, came back clean and sober, buckled down into a government job for the next 20 years.
At 42, this respectable life is wearing thin, making me twitch, looking toward the Everglades for what the old lady traded in.
Lee DeAmali can’t remember where she hid her secret getaway fund.
In a consultation, a patient asked his doctor how much longer he would likely live.
“…10,” the doctor replied with empathy.
Overwhelmed and baffled, the patient asked the doctor again: “What do you mean? Ten years? Months? Weeks?”
“9, 8, 7…” the doctor counted as he looked at his watch.
Benjamin Morrison enjoys writing short stories because his writing style is short to the point. One day he wants his writing to be as efficient as engineers building.
This is where they fell in love.
Midnight, in the back of her truck. Her eyes in the moonlight were the perfect shade of green, the color of the first leaf in spring, calming and full of life to come.
A year later, he places flowers on the skid marks.
Serena is a high school student who loves expressing her creativity through writing.
In this new world, the colors carried their own sounds, the air tasted like gingersnaps, and birds tweeted the blues.
A gruff gnome told Philip, “You are the chosen one.”
Nancy from HR hovered above, frowning. “We know you’re on drugs. We have to let you go. Get some help.”
L.L. Madrid lives in Tucson with her four-year-old daughter, an antisocial cat, and the occasional scorpion. Her work can be found lurking in places like Flash Fiction Magazine, Dali’s Lovechild, Literary Orphans, and in shoe boxes under her bed.
The chauffeur dropped Lila off by the barbershop with the twirling pole, next to Daddy’s law office. Her lunch money was still in her pocket.
She hated her long chestnut hair, the tangles, the velvet hairbands from Grandmother.
Mama would scream.
Lila went inside. She gave the barber her money.
Megan Abrahams is a Los Angeles-based writer / art critic and artist. A contributing writer for Art Ltd. Magazine, ArtPulse Magazine, Fabrik Magazine, LOST WKND and WhiteHot Magazine of Contemporary Art, she is currently writing her first novel. Sporadic updates appear on her blog.
Water drives down around me making the world shake. I am buffeted from all sides. In total isolation there is no-one to hear me scream. My hands are clammy with sweat as I slip backward into an eternity of fear.
It is impossible to overcome claustrophobia in the car wash.
Carol Argyris lives in the North of Scotland, has had poems and flash fiction published in various small press magazines and on-line sites. Her inspiration mostly arrives when sitting in cafés watching the world pass by.
Before winter, Mom’s garden glowed with lanterns where ladybugs nested but forgot how to leave, curling up like Mom on the kitchen floor after her Christmas stroke.
She would’ve remembered to free them in winter.
We didn’t.
Come spring, a green breeze shakes out dried memories of last year’s joy.
Rachel Burns is a student of creative writing. Her current project is a chapbook comprised of poetry and prose.
The story of the week for March 7 to 11 is…
Luck by Viv Burgess
The range of emotion from the woman’s experience to the reader’s realization is really well executed.
The rocks slip and crumble beneath my feet. A bead of sweat rolls into my eye as I balance.
I use the last of my strength to pull myself up to the peak.
I look around at the world stretched before me and think, “How will I get back down?”
Megan Alexander is a high school English teacher and lives with her fiance in Redwood City, CA where she is just beginning her journey as a writer.
The ink keeps smearing.
Johann, dinner! Kommst du hier! His wife’s voice, sweet notes on spring breeze.
The ink hides in the whorls of his fingertips.
Just one more try. A finer sheet, smooth but dense.
He leans into the crank. There’s an art to the turn of the handle.
Juliet Hubbell teaches English Literature and Humanities at Arapahoe Community College. Her short story “The Owl” won the 2015 Montana State Fiction Award. Rick Bass called the story “mysterious and powerful.” Her work has appeared before in Hektoen International: Journal of Medical Humanities, Workers Write, JAMA: Journal of American Medical Association, ACM: Another Chicago Magazine, Progenitor, and Midwest Quarterly. Her rendition of a medieval Black Forest fairy tale, “Saarbrucken Witch”, won the 2013 British Fantasy Society’s Short Story Contest. She is an active member of both the Lighthouse Writers and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and attends writing and publishing conferences annually, including the Association of Writing Professionals conference.