NICOLE CASTILLO: Bathroom Selfie

Adventure, Submissions, , ,

The bathroom lights flickered out, my phone casting a dim glow.

“Come out! That place is haunted!”

“Oh? Well, bathroom selfie!”

I turned on the front camera and pressed the button, a flash illuminating the room before I glanced down at the picture.

An arm was wrapped around my shoulders.

Nicole Castillo is currently a senior in Cerritos High School who is planning to major in Business Administration with a focus on Marketing. She likes to write poetry and short stories in her spare time and has won awards for her work such as the PTA Reflections First Place Award of Excellence. When she isn’t writing, she likes to spend her time going out for a run or listening to a good song.

CONNELL WAYNE REGNER: Communication Breakdown

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

“I’ve been up all night. I couldn’t sleep.”

“We know what’s wrong,” they winked. “You’re in love!”

“No, I’m not…”

“You’re a sly one. Tell us who she is.”

“If you’d let me finish, I’d tell you it was diarrhea.”

“Oh, that’s a pretty name. Is she foreign?”

“BLOODY HELL!”

Connell believes that words can get in the way of meaningful communication. See more of his “Communication Breakdowns” at paragraphplanet, home.wtd-magazine.com and postcardshorts.com.

PENELOPE YAGAKE: Dissolution

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Cheryl stood on the train station’s platform, breathing the thin, icy air.

In her hand was a train ticket. On her finger was the indentation of a wedding ring. On her legs the colors red, purple, and blue married.

She thought, This is what it feels like to be free.

Penelope Yagake lives with her cat and makes digital art when she is not writing poetry and short stories.

DEBBI ANTEBI: The Same Old Arguments

Odd, Submissions, Touching, , ,

Again I hear our neighbor arguing with her husband. Some days she is more quiet, on others she screams and often cries. As a new resident in the old apartment, I wait a few months before reporting it to the landlord. “The poor widow,” he responds, “really misses her husband.”

Debbi Antebi (@debbisland) exhales oxygen while writing stories. Follow her at debbiantebi.wordpress.com.

PERRY McDAID: Damned Inconvenience

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Revelation dissolves into reality as the mundane aches and pains of middle-age seep into his perception. He watches the blood spread like a tide on a mud-flat and gradually understands that the sleeping tablets have worn off. The medicine cabinet is beyond his reach. The pain laps at his ankles.

Derry-born author Perry McDaid is internationally published. His poems, stories, reviews, and articles have appeared in diverse magazines, anthologies, and websites. A prize-winner with short stories, poetry, and articles, the Irishman’s work can be found both in hardcopy and online. Recent publications include fifty-word stories at entropy2, fiftywordstories.com, and Beeched in AlfieDog’s Romance anthology By My Side. He has a SF story accepted for publication with Stupefying Stories and his latest indie personal anthology of short stories is String o’ Misery.

MIKE JAGUNIC: Happy Anniversary

Odd, Submissions, , , ,

Every year, on the anniversary of the last time he looked into her eyes, he wore the same outfit: a threadbare tweed suit and the ugly necktie she’d always hated. But then, corpses rarely change clothes.

Neither do prisoners, it turned out, because she always wore orange for the occasion.

Michael is a part-time lawyer and a full-time dad.  You can read more of his creative writing at timintemecula.wordpress.com.

BARRY O’FARRELL: Call 911

Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

When Facebook crashed for 14 hours, 911 was inundated with calls from millions of panic-stricken people. This was an emergency on an unprecedented, incomprehensible scale.

Their lives came to a complete, instant standstill. All they lived for had been taken away from them.

Thank God I am not a screenager.

Other stories by Barry O’Farrell appear in Cyclamens & Swords, A Story In 100 Words and of course here at 50 Word Stories.

DIVYA: The Other Woman

Artistic, Submissions, ,

Our eyes met and she shot daggers of hatred. Could she know that her man had dropped his mask of “playing nice” with me? That we had both been victims?

We stood there, confronting unspeakable truths, while our object of love, bereft of these feelings, happily danced with the crowd.

Divya is an IT nerd by day and a blogger by night. She’s also a coffee junkie and a Cancerian. She lives in India.

J SCOTT MERRICK: Mom’s Lesson

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, ,

Mom danced fluidly with an infectious smile. Then, some upbeat excuse, “We ran the 5K.” No reason to add downer to congestive heart failure and cancer.

After recovering, Mom smiled, bobbed to the music, and another took her hand to dance as her less vivacious contemporaries, with longer futures, watched.

J. Scott Merrick lives in Portland, Oregon and writes fiction when he is not in Portland. He has a few degrees. However, when applied to Mr. Merrick, MFA usually means Mother-F’ing Attorney. Previously, he has not published in Paris Review, Tin House, or New Yorker.

MATTHEW D WHEATON: Paradise

Adventure, Submissions, Top Stories, ,

After many long years underground escaping the global nuclear war, it was time to emerge. Naked and alone, we climbed from the depths of the mine.

Nothing was the same. Lush jungle had reclaimed the entire land except for a small clearing holding a solitary tree, fruited with one apple.

Matthew is a retired computer systems analyst.