JON NIXON: Life Encapsulated

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories,

Arrived, fed, grew
Depended
Developed, schooled, achieved
Aspired.

Travelled, explored, adventured
Perspired.
Partied, worked
Laboured
Succeeded.

Desired, succumbed, loved
Partnered, invested
Calculated, maximised
Wished.

Yearned, bore, nurtured
Cherished, compromised
Blossomed
Rewarded.

Enveloped, worried, cared
Comforted, wondered, protected
Imparted
Released.

Maintained, reinvigorated, ordered
Lost, grieved, wept
Honoured.

Slowed, reflected,

Departed,

Content.

Jon works in Local Government in the North of England, with a background in Newspaper Journalism. He is currently experimenting with short written forms.

CAROL BROWNE: Cold Callers

Amusing, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,

Yesterday, insurance. Today, religion.

So far this month six unsolicited callers had knocked at her door, eager to sell her something.

Was there no end to this outrage?

She looked at her tiny garden.

If this continued, she was going to have a problem finding somewhere to bury the bodies.

Carol Browne first appeared on the planet in 1954. She regards Crewe, Cheshire, as her home town and graduated from Nottingham University in 1976 with an honours degree in English Language and Literature. Now living in the Cambridgeshire countryside with her cockatiel, Sparky, when she’s not writing fiction, Carol spends her time as a housekeeper, proofreader, and ghost writer in order to pay the bills.

BROCK: An Unusual Encounter

Odd, Submissions, , , ,

I was kayaking alone when I noticed a random tree in the middle of the lake.

It said, “Hi!”… and I froze. I didn’t talk back; I just started kayaking away as fast as I could.

It said, “Where ya goin’?”

I got back to shore and started regretting kayaking.

Brock wrote this story.

STEVE COVERDALE: Dream Big

Amusing, Odd, Submissions, ,

My old business lecturer at Harvard always used to say, “If you can dream it, you can do it.”

Hauntingly ironic really. Last night I dreamed I murdered her.

The body is now in the trunk of my car. I will wait until it’s past midnight, then dispose of it.

Steve Coverdale is an Englishman living in Nova Scotia. He is currently writing his first novel about a football player who lives forever.

PAT BENEDICT: Vanilla Serenade

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

Tracy scampered through the puddles, ruining her new Birkenstocks as she ran.

There he was, waiting patiently in the alley, parked at a 30-minute meter.

Teddy hated dealing with wet feet on their trysts. They made such a mess on the counter in the back of his ice cream truck.

Pat Campbell is a retired Professor of Drama. She has been writing short stories for many years and is a published Haiku and Tanka poet. She loves the challenge of writing a complete story in just fifty words.

GUY PRESTON: Her Omission

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

There was never any need for words. We communicated through riddles, stole knowing glances and smiles at jokes nobody else could catch. Our connection was intimate, assured.

But as I watched her swing from the rope around her neck, I couldn’t work out what she was trying to tell me.

Guy writes to entertain, provoke thought, and silence the voices in his head. This is his fourth fifty word story.

DENNY E MARSHALL: Odds

Adventure, Amusing, Submissions, ,

“The odds? Almost zero,” Captain Lu thought, an instant before he died.

The spaceship Quantum was in its tenth year of a twenty-year voyage searching for extraterrestrial life. Until then, there had been no problems on the journey.

Having a head-on collision with an Earth-bound alien spacecraft had seemed… unlikely.

Denny E, Marshall has had art, poetry, and fiction published, including fiction at 101 Words. See more at dennymarshall.com.

BOB THURBER: Word Perfect (For C.)

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , ,

If your memories are like mine, you’ll recollect on the night we met the wind was fierce, so we inked a kite and wrote poems on clouds.

But that wasn’t the fantastic part. The fantastic part was when the moon recited those poems back to us thirty years later. Verbatim.

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”. Visit BobThurber.net.

JAMES P SPITZNOGLE: A Daughter’s Hope

Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

A gentle breeze made its way through the cemetery trees,
and her hair.
She stood shocked among the sea of people, watching her mother descend
into the ground.
Disease or not, this reality hadn’t set in.
That’s when she realized: secretly, every daughter hopes their mother has to bury them.

James P. Spitznogle is an aspiring writer from the green hills of West Virginia.

MARCUS BENJAMIN RAY BRADLEY: How I Got Published

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

Tim’s dry, red eyes lost focus again.

His mind had begun to wonder while reading story after fifty-word story, most of which were asinine drivel.

The hour was late and he needed to select just one more before he could rest. Finally throwing in the towel, he chose this one.

Marcus Benjamin Ray Bradley grew up in Perryville and now lives in Versailles, KY, with his wife and daughters. Other work can be found in the pages of Chiron Review.

Editor: Most of the submissions are definitely not “asinine drivel”, but I enjoyed the joke behind the story. Cheers, Marcus!