The night road is bitter and black. His old, tired eyes are no match for it.
The radio static buzzes, an earful of gnats. He drives along. The tires thump rhythmically against the gravel.
A blur dashes into the road. Thump. He doesn’t see it. THUMP. He keeps on driving.
Emily Ruth Verona received her Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and Cinema Studies from the State University of New York at Purchase. She lives in New Jersey.
Roseanne held her five-year-old grandson’s hand all during the burial service for her husband, Sidney.
Adam looked up and saw tears in her eyes. He said, “Don’t cry, Grand mom. I can get Grand pop back.”
“How will you do that, Adam?” she asked.
“I have a shovel,” he whispered.
Recently retired, Marian Brooks has begun to write some short fiction. Her work has appeared in Word Riot, The Story Shack, The Linnet’s Wings, The Short Humour Site, and others.
Fluorescent lights reflected onto the cool, rushed water. I walked to the side of the falls, climbing over the fence that I peered over as a child.
Quickly, I checked to make sure no one was watching, then I threw myself over the edge and spread my wings, taking flight.
Emily is a fourteen-year-old girl living in New Jersey. Her dream is to graduate college with an degree in English and finish her first novel by the end of high school.
I’ve had enough of this!
Being held out on, pushed away at every attempt. Does she not understand that I need this?
Staring up at the ceiling; watching the fan go round; going crazy.
She gets to call all the shots… I’m hungry!
Just give me some darn breast milk!
Titans Girl is a teacher from Darwin, NT, Australia.
Yes. This tour is quite legal.
Observe the unnecessary space.
The quietness is rather extraordinary, isn’t it?
I respectfully disagree. It’s quite orthodox to contemplate the aliens’ mind set.
This is a complex carbohydrate. This is alcohol. Please activate your toxicity filters.
This is not illegal.
Please eat and drink.
Deborah thinks: least said, soonest mended. Find her on her blog: Deborah Walker’s Bibliography.
After rolling out of bed at 8:00 every morning, I shuffle into the kitchen. I make breakfast. I shower, iron wrinkled dress shirts, and read headlines pretending to be news.
I leave my house for work at 10:00 and remind myself to be thankful that I’m not a coal miner.
Jon Harahan used to be a writer. He now sells beer for a living. It’s nice work if you can get it.
There, by the pond, was the prey. Taking careful aim, I killed it instantly.
Ever since the drought three years ago things had been bad. Really bad.
Global warming? More like global meltdown. But survive we had.
Throwing the twitching body of the boy over my shoulder, I headed home.
Tony is 54 and lives in Manchester, UK. He became interested in 50-word stories after helping his son with his homework, and enjoyed the challenge of bringing a story to life in so few words.
The aroma of chicken soup teases my nostrils, now red and swollen.
I squinch my eyes from sinus pain. Temples throb. Joints ache.
My pity party halts as I reflect on the chicken’s last day. What it ate. How it died.
Maybe I’ll eat scrambled eggs and buttered toast instead.
Jeff Switt likes to write.
We held a backyard funeral for Oscar the dachshund. I delivered a memorial about squirrels, ear scritches, and bacon.
Our toddler loved him fiercely. I asked if he wanted to add anything. He knelt, patted the grave, and offered, “Just, ‘Good boy.'”
He always did know what Oscar liked best.
Beth is a whirling dervish who pauses now and again to write something. Her blog can be found at sideglimpses.blogspot.com and she can be found drinking coffee.
He hid her name in others’ tattoos: in mermaids’ scales, dragons’ spines, and the red of bleeding hearts. Now he was too blind to do the work.
He pulled a lever: mechanical fingers splayed opened his eyelids. Tears came just before the needle pricked HELEN into his eye’s soft flesh.
Petra McQueen is a writer and teacher. Her writing has been featured in The Guardian and You magazine, and her stories and poems have been published in the UK and abroad. She lives in the farthest reaches of Essex with her wonderfully supportive family who suffer with grace her moody silences as she composes yet-to-be-written award-winning novels in her head.