The raincoat did little to keep her dry. She hadn’t bothered with an umbrella; rain hit from all sides, rendering it useless.
Perhaps the storm would wash away the fear that clung to her like ivy growing around an old tree.
Letting go, she let the rain wash over her.
Jane McMaster wrote this story.
People pass; most don’t notice my existence.
I lived through two world wars, bearing witness to horrors. I harmed no one.
Yet they want me gone.
They come to end my life. I hear the saws, suffer the cuts in my trunk. Soon I will fall.
They call it progress.
Lynne North writes humorous fantasy novels for children. She decided it was time she tried something else…
Walter emptied the urn into the Grand Canyon.
They’d planned to retire and travel. Now Ruth flew solo: her particles frolicked between sun and shade, lingering to say goodbye before their exodus.
He shuffled back to the truck and pondered the drive home to Minnesota—then steered south towards Phoenix.
Joe Lunne wrote this story.
I transferred the hook to her clumsy hand, my heart pounding in my chest. The lights in the room seemed more sinister reflected in the red glass. Maybe I shouldn’t have entrusted such a delicate operation to a toddler?!
…She did it!
The last ornament was finally on the tree.
Dave Cox is a native of the San Francisco Bay area and occasionally writes things that make sense.
“Death comes for us all little one, and I’m so tired. I can’t keep running away anymore.”
His tiny fingers slid in between my own, tears dripping from his nose onto the back of his hand in rhythm with the heart monitor.
“Dad, can’t you keep running a little longer?”
Alex is a student at the University of Victoria. He divides his day into two parts: the hours when he has something to write about, and the hours where he has nothing left to say.
At the pinnacle of the mountain peak, looking down, she felt the fear take her over. Vertigo hits hard when you’re over fifty.
Her life had disintegrated with the death of her only son.
The decision filled her mind: the path down, or the fall?
Sighing, she took the path.
Lisa is a writer, traveler, former vent Mom. She recently published her first book See You Now on smashwords.com, which was driven from her heart to the page to honor her son.
I poured one for myself and one for good luck and drank them both. It was going to be a long night.
Through darkness I crept, my heart racing as I clutched the high-value cargo against my chest.
The scream came as I reached to switch on the baby monitor.
Guy is equally scared of war and parenthood. This is his second fifty word story.
I watched bemusedly from above as the young man climbed towards the opening of the dragon’s lair.
“Oh, look. Another man has come to save me from you…”
I caressed my dragon’s snout and grinned as he prepared to show another hero just how much I did not need saving.
MeLisa has always loved stories, and has recently decided to tell some of her own.
“Don’t stand too close to the counter, or a spider might come bite your toe,” she tells me as I get ready to wash the dishes.
“Are you serious?”
She stops and gets that real hard thinking look in her eyes.
“Nah. If you wear sneakers you should be fine.”
Valarie Bradshaw is a nomadic mother who just graduated from college and spends her days in her pajamas writing all the stories that swim in her head. Her family is very patient.
The story of the week for August 17 to 21 is…
La Costa by Robert Carcache Flores
It’s a wistful, poetic thing of beauty, inspiring a lot of imagination.