Today my father is teaching me math.
He takes me down to the beach and shows me a grain of sand.
Start counting.
After I’ve counted for a while, I notice my father’s shadow stretch and begin to disappear.
When are you coming back?
Look, he says, just keep counting.
Cathy Ulrich had to go to the beach once. It was terrible.
Ted Henson had just finished up his pitch for his crime thriller masterpiece, Graves, and was waiting to hear the verdict.
A suit walked out and ushered him back in. Another suit started, “We’re sorry, Mr. Henson, but we can’t…”
And then he noticed the gun in Mr. Henson’s hand.
Eric has been writing short stories for around a year.
In a remote African village I watched in wonder as thousands of fruit bats blotted out the moon as they crossed the river to settle in the mango trees to feed and sleep.
Soon I learned that the villagers ate the bats.
Later I learned that the bats transmit Ebola.
Michael Coolen is a writer, poet, composer, pianist, actor, and performance artist who lives in Corvallis, Oregon.
Inside the girl’s head a fear grew larger.
As she stood waiting she wrestled with it. She fought it. It kept returning.
She glanced at her reflection and liked what she saw. It did suit her, after all.
Inside her head the fear of hats faded and she breathed again.
Dean Marriner is a production director at a design company in Newcastle, UK. He spends his spare time drawing pictures on old books and has only recently started writing mini sagas.
Editor’s Note: Cocklaphobia is the commonly accepted name for a “fear of hats”.
The gunshot preceding the bullet ripping through his brain should have been the last sound Gary ever heard.
“Try again,” said a deep, booming voice.
Gary opened his eyes to blinding light. Almost as soon as he realized he was being born again he forgot everything that had come before.
Daniel Slaten writes short stories in small notebooks and on sticky notes.
As you may have noticed, today I started switching 50WS over from a star-based ratings system to a “Likes” system. There are multiple reasons I’ve decided to make this change, and I’ll try to put together a post explaining my thought process soon.
For now, the ratings still exist and the “Popular Stories” box in the sidebar still shows the highest rated stories since we started using the current rating system. Over the next days or weeks I will completely phase out the ratings and replace them with the new Likes setup, including replacing the “Popular Stories” sidebar to reflect the stories with the most likes.
I’m definitely interested in your feedback on this change, so let me know how you feel about the switch. I will try to get my thoughts together soon for the sake of more clarity.
Edit: You can read more of my thoughts and reasoning here.
A rather short gentleman.
Answers to the name Shamus.
Wears an emerald green suit, a buckled hat and black shoes and won’t stop smoking his pipe in the house.
Keeps on about his pot of gold but refuses to kick in for the groceries.
If he’s yours, please claim — soon.
David is a writing student, has had work published on a few sites, and seems to be on a supernatural kick at the moment.
As the machine switched off, he knew this was his last chance to say everything he wanted to her.
In the end, he could only muster three words, a melody to accompany her on her final journey, each lyric imbued with pure affection – repeated over and over.
“I love you.”
A Writers’ Centre Norwich-commended writer, Laurence has been published online, in magazines like The Legendary, Story Shack, and Amelia’s Magazine, and in anthologies such as Darker Times Collection and Inspired by My Museum. His website is laurencesullivan.net.
The Story of the Week for January 19 to 23 is Old Wounds by Perry McDaid.
Perry earned this distinction by exploring a relatively rare genre for this site, and conveying otherworldiness and a touch of horror/suspense quite effectively.
The rain beaded on the windshield and scattered the light from the full moon, mottling her face with dabs of gray like an impressionist painting.
I wanted to make love to her, but how could I? She is a work of art, a masterpiece to be venerated from a distance.
Alex Markovich gets his best story ideas in the middle of the night.