I’d worked in the café man and boy. All that time Maggie came in, 9 every morning.
“Grilled ‘am an’ cheese, a bit o’ mustard an’ a nice ‘ot cuppa’. Pay yer tomorra’.”
Then she didn’t come any more. The wake served grilled ham and cheese. Mornings weren’t the same.
Teresa lives in Suffolk UK between land and sea and has always liked telling stories. Finding time to write is hard but she’s trying.
We poisoned Alexander, gave Brutus the knife, slit open The Great Khan’s loins, injected Napoleon with the makings of that stomach ulcer, seeded Jefferson Davis’s downfall, taped Nixon’s inconvenient leak.
Restoring order to a wobbly-top world never sticks, ain’t permanent, but it’s honest.
One hundred fixers. Our faces—each the same.
George Evans is a querulous nuisance from Birmingham, Alabama. When he isn’t teaching English (and sometimes when he is) he writes. You can find him on Substack at Fourth Castle on the Left.
Frost ferns covered the windows near Margaret’s bed, and frost painted the sere, feathery grasses in the fields, all motionless in the windless morning until sun caught on ice crystals sparking rainbows, all silent until Margaret summoned a blackbird’s haunting whistle to a frost that would… soon… Margaret exhaled… sublime….
Miriam N. Kotzin writes fiction and poetry. She is the author of five collections of poetry, two collections of short fiction, and two novels—most recently the novel Right This Way (Spuyten Duyvil). Her 50-word stories have been published in 50-Word Stories, 50 Give or Take, and Blink Ink. She teaches literature and creative writing at Drexel University.
The story of the week for March 17 to 21 is…
Strangers by Li Ruan
My mother called me in the night, her profile picture glowing. She announced she was moving us: to a place she once called home. A place I have only ever visited. In my bones I feel how right it is.
My gaze still lingers on the people who cannot follow.
Seven is a writer living in Brooklyn (but not for much longer), who is trying to accept the reality that things never stop ending.
March.
Rutted, half-frozen, mud-soup-ugly
tailspinning tire tracks and grizzled snow
shapeshifting to angry slush clogging
the windshield spray nozzles
on my Tacoma pickup.
April.
Glistening wet branches, swollen green
buds popping, sinful yellow Goldfinches,
black humus, fresh plantings outside
the library, and my stealing a cat-glance
at the landscaper’s helper.
Matthew is fortunate to sometimes live near a lake in Maine where loons swim and sometimes yodel and hoot late at night. And sometimes on a day like this with few clouds in the sky and mountains in the distance a warm breeze will sweep across the lake and take your breath away.
The nightmare visits me just before dawn, like clockwork. A horrid black horse, dripping night from her mane, eyes pale moons.
Finally, I’m tired of fear. I climb onto her cold back.
She carries me into the violet morning. Once fear sheds from her pelt, she shines in the dawn.
Brooksie C. Fontaine is a coffee addict who got into college at fifteen and annoyed everyone there. She is a teaching assistant, illustrator, and MFA recipient. Her work appeared in trampset, Bending Genres, Eunoia Review, Literally Stories, Aureation, Report From Newport, Boston Accent Lit, the Things Improbable anthology, and more.
When I look back on us, I can still feel the storm coming. Today, the shutters slam, the coffee house shudders, the dishes clatter.
You check your watch, somewhere between indifferent and avoidant. “I should go.”
The rainwater creeps in, pools around our feet. We never talk about your wife.
Christine writes a lot about big feelings and nature. Contrary to popular belief, she is a Pacific Northwest girl, through and through.
When I saw my doppelgänger across the street, I blinked, but the other me didn’t vanish. Instead, she waved with a sad smile saying ‘goodbye’.
Wait!
I sprinted over the road, hair streaming, oblivious to honking vehicles. A lorry struck me. As my vision faded, so did the other me.
Paul lives in Scotland. Sometimes he writes stories. Sometimes they’re even published.
Doctors hate them. Historically, one attacked Newton. Snow White actually died! When God himself said ‘steer clear, Kids’, and Adam “forgot”, every man since ended up with one lodged in his throat.
I may be two years old, but I think you’ll find my objection is more than justified, Mother.
Ellis Jamieson is a queer, neurodivergent writer, published in New Writing Scotland, Shoreline of Infinity, Bacopa Literary Review, and more. They’re a Pushcart Prize Nominee, winner of Prose Purple Flash Fiction Award, and were longlisted for the Emerging Writer Award.