Edward hasn’t gone into the basement in awhile, the stairs as old and rickety as he is. He trembles, stares at the door.
Something on the other side wants out of the basement, into the house. It knocks, politely. At first.
Edward turns to run as the door groans open.
Madeline Mora-Summonte reads, writes, and breathes fiction in all its forms. She is the author of the flash fiction collection The People We Used to Be. See more at her blog.
Her great-great-grandfather was governor of North Carolina. Grandmother dressed for a tennis match and eloped, at age sixteen. And Grandfather owned half the gas stations in town.
Now her two dogs sleep on heirloom oriental rugs.
“No more Christmas turkey,” she declared. “We’ll eat barbecue with Granmama’s silver this year.”
Frank Gallivan is a thirty-something South Carolina native and long-time San Francisco resident. He is working on stimulating his creative side and shedding fixed identities.
I could go on about spirituality or a higher wossname
But this marvelous feeling I have upon finally discovering Carfury Menhir
After a glorious twelve mile walk
Can be explained away in terms that are entirely scientific
All the same I believe that I’m going to have to sing again
Philip Zunzuncito Sequoia once appeared (briefly) on the popular Channel 4 quiz show 15 To 1.
They fed the talking lawn gnome Burger King in the backseat, heads swirling. Half-hour later the radio announced an amber alert—missing two-year-old girl taken while playing in front yard. They stared at the odd being and wondered, isn’t it strange how she ate all those fries? Isn’t it strange?
Caitlin McGill is the 2014 winner of the Rafael Torch Nonfiction Literary Award, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in 48, Crab Orchard Review, The Cypress Dome, Digital Americana, Prairie Margins, The Southeast Review, Solstice, Sphere International, and Spry Literary Journal. She is also a writing instructor at Emerson College, where her students continually remind her of the power of language.
The ticket stub for the 8:50 showing of The Grand Budapest Hotel floated onto the bathroom floor.
It lay buried in my winter coat pocket all summer; today it fell out.
A bittersweet reminder of the last date before you left without a word. I can’t bear throwing it away.
Kristin Ronzi is a freelance writer and editor living in Tokyo, Japan. Her work has been featured in EastLit, Paragraph Planet, Anak Sastra, and The Anthem.
As 50WS continues to grow, I’m seeing the submission inbox get more and more full. That’s great, and I welcome the submissions, but it also means it’s taking longer and longer before I’m able to get back to authors with my feedback and decision on whether or not to publish their story.
To help with this, I’ve changed the guidelines for now. Until further notice, I’m asking that authors only send in one story per month, instead of the previous guideline of two per month.
For those of you who have been diligently submitting your two stories per month, thank you, and I hope this won’t be too much of a hardship! I look forward to receiving and reviewing your very best work.
The Story of the Week for January 26 to 30Â is…
Math Lesson by Cathy Ulrich
and
A Presaged Day Ago by Bob McNeil
Yep, that’s right: I picked two stories of the week this week. I couldn’t choose between the two!
Math Lesson is really powerful and heartbreaking, and the way it disguises its intentions mirrors the way the father disguises his own intentions, which shows some beautiful writing.
A Presaged Day Ago is that rare beast, an effective piece of 50-word sci-fi. The key phrase that really earned my appreciation in this story was “Acclimated to Armageddon”, which is just a fantastic little trio of words, and so significant.
Congratulations to both of you!
“Crud!” The woman slammed her hand down on the flimsy plastic tray, sloshing her complimentary beverage onto the seatback in front of her.
Her husband glanced up from his SkyMall catalogue. “Something wrong, dear?”
“I forgot to buy a souvenir magnet. Now it’s like we never even went to Hawaii!”
Devon R. Widmer, a graduate student in chemistry, spends far too much time worrying about remembering events and not nearly enough time enjoying them (as evidenced by a refrigerator littered with souvenir magnets).
Despondent about the Earth’s ecological state, an old, grey scientist named Arthur Quisling entered his six-by-eight, pyramid-shaped Dimensional Flier. In search of better universes, his yellow ship, which was capable of elongating and navigating through celestial holes, left our flawed planet behind.
Acclimated to Armageddon, the Earth awaited its fate.
Bob McNeil is a writer, spoken word artist and illustrator of some modest renown. Influenced by the Beats, he attempts to address the needs of our human mosaic.
I’ve lived over twelve thousand years.
Or I’ve never lived a day. It’s just a question of semantics.
The humans who built me called me a soulless monstrosity, but I’ve outlasted all of them.
Now, alone on an empty planet, I wait for…
…anything.
But still, I’m alive.
Or not.
Chris Fries is a still-developing writer, slowly working to hone his craft. He is an engineer by vocation, a guitarist by avocation, and a writer by compulsion. So far, his blog has been his primary outlet for his quasi-creative meanderings.