I thought it was all just a dream.
I was standing halfway to the basket. All I had to do was put this basketball into the net: $50,000 was on the line for a scholarship.
I told myself to calm down.
I shot.
And it was a dream
come true.
Tobin Wise is in sixth grade. He is a sports freak.
Mom, Dad, I promise that, from today, I will study every day. I promise you that I will pass my exams and I won’t smoke. I promise that I will come back before 6 AM on weekends. I will go to church every Sunday.
I promise.
With my fingers crossed.
Olga Pendones Olmos wrote this story.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
The clock’s echoes reverberate. They are amplified tenfold with each return.
My heart beats at the bars of its bony cage, threatening to find a new abode should I fail to give it respite.
Sweaty fingers slip—I am sorry.
This is it. The end of our world.
Eamonn Hickson is a Creative Writing student in the Institute of Technology, Tralee, Ireland.
Flapping ducks carried
casually
by their feet
Piglets struggling
in nets, rope burns
on protruding legs
Only we pale Westerners
gasp; to the bustling
crowds, the animals are simply
food: meat
fresh as the lush scallions,
the eels
circling in barrels, chosen
by pointing shoppers
the way we
choose lobster.
Jennifer L. Freed lived in China for one year as a college English teacher. She writes mostly poetry and, sometimes, very short stories. To read more of her work, please visit her website, jfreed.weebly.com.
Life is too short,
You hear this… You read these words.
Why don’t I get it?
Why don’t I live it?
Too busy, too hurried to live.
Does this make sense?
How can I justify it?
I cannot.
I will not.
I want to live.
I will embrace my life.
Laurie Jo Litton wrote this poem.
The square is wild. Thousands upon thousands are moving, a restless, heaving mass of laughing humanity running under a darkened autumn sky. Red-yellow-blue neon arches over the West End, a domed canopy of electrifying energy. No jungle of a million years’ duration ever matched this complexity.
This is London Town.
Peter Li-ping is a city-dweller who feels both nervous and relaxed in the concrete jungle. Peter thinks that to feel only one thing whilst in London would be pretty weird.
A pigeon became enthralled when a bird-like design took to the skies. Sitting on the plane’s wing, the pigeon found himself in snow-capped New Zealand, some twenty hours later. It was the longest journey he had ever taken.
Ironically, hundreds of flightless penguins where there to greet him upon arrival.
Linda Nathaniel is a teacher from Sydney, Australia, who has had poems published in both Hemispheres and was once invited to the same function as Ben Stiller.
His name was Will.
He really enjoyed spy work. The group of people he was monitoring for three weeks was interesting, and everybody loved him.
But he couldn’t say a word. He had to pretend, like his master had told him.
Nobody could know that he wasn’t a teddy bear.
Agata Ratajczak reads more than she writes, but when she writes she want to share her literary passion with others. She’s about to graduate high school.
Lachlan was coolest.
He could throw a ball.
He could beat up anyone.
He got dates with the hotties.
And he always managed to outsource his homework.
He tried out for quarterback one day. Fortunately for everyone else, he didn’t see the safety blitz.
Lachlan wasn’t so cool after all.
Joey wasn’t interested in writing while at school but has been writing on his own in recent years. He doesn’t mind the concept of “schoolyard justice”.
The story of the week for December 1 to 5 is Coffee Cups by Sarah Henry.
As a sort of parallel slice of life, the emotional image painted in this story is really great. Well done, Sarah!