Francine picked at the stitches, removing them one by one, each a separate, deliberate act.
In the hearth a log shifted as those beneath it burnt away. Sparks glittered momentarily before extinguishing themselves. She glanced up at the sound it made, fingers never stopping, never ceasing to pick, pick, pick.
Emily ripped the list of baby names out of her journal and held it up over the sink, admiring it this one last time. The paper was heavy, as if it were waterlogged with the tears she’d cried after he said it wouldn’t work. But oh, how that list burned.
Julie Judkins is a librarian and famous explorer. She makes art journals under the name Show Me Your Riffs.
The Mastersons wondered if parenting was easier when dead. They agreed it was pleasant observing their boys unseen, but Father preferred chastising in death, believing the boys would only argue anyway, whereas Mother felt she could reason with them if still alive, at which Father laughed. The boys would’ve, too.
Raised in the Deep South by a Catholic Yankee and a Korean Buddhist in a magic shoppe turned comic book store, life was always interesting for Andrea, to say the least. Passionate about reading, writing, and all things comics!
“You’re doing it wrong,” the Hatter said. He laughed as Alice poured the tea. All hands and fingers. No wrist. She was the mad one.
“You’re being rude,” she said.
Laughter stopped when she spilled a drop. He wondered if the Queen of Hearts needed more heads for the day.
Tamra Artelia Martin received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Central Florida. An overachiever at heart and a glutton for academic punishment, or academic joy depending on the day, she’s currently earning her second MFA in stage and screen writing at Lesley University. Check out her blog on writing.
“What’cha doing?”
“Hunting deer.”
“Diana! Why? We have more than enough meat in the larder.”
The thirteen year old put down her bow and glared at her little brother.
“They keep coming up to me every time I go in the forest. Oddest thing. Big white deer, with one horn.”
Eliza Archer is writing a novel and drinks too much coffee.
A pushchair on its side; something’s not right.
A car hastily parked, askew.
An unfamiliar brown (everybody knows blood is red) sprawling stain on the road leads to a lady sitting hunched on the pavement, cradling.
I later discovered it was a dog, fatally wounded.
Relief, yet someone will mourn.
Steve Gardiner is an accountant living in the UK.
My grandmother says, “Words are your air and, to keep breathing, your pen must move forward. Immortality exists only on paper.”
I’ve paused before, but never stopped. Still, my hand tires. After endless inked pages, words lose their gravity. So I pen the last letters that mean anything anymore: goodbye.
Salena Casha’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bete Noire, The Adroit Journal, Fifty-Word Stories and others. Her picture book will be published by MeeGenius Books this summer. Follow her on twitter: @salaylay_c.
The parts of the sea floor pushed against each other, none strong enough yet to have their way. Years pass and humans thrive.
A piece pushes its neighbor and the ground begins to shake. Days pass and humans investigate.
A mountain of water rushes outward. Minutes pass and humans die.
Suzi Harris is a retired technical writer working on her first novel with the support of her crazy Canadian husband and two psychotic cats.
She treated him like dirt.
She showered him with gifts. Soap-on-a-rope, shampoo in a bottle, deodorant in an environmentally friendly container, cologne strong enough to go one-on-one with a sewer rat…
He didn’t take the hint, or a shower either, for that matter.
She dropped him like a used tissue.
John H. Dromey has had a short story published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, a mini-mystery in Woman’s World, plus fiction online at Liquid Imagination, Mysterical-E, and elsewhere.
“Hey little girl,” said the hospital clown, pulling out a red balloon. “What can I make you?”
“How about a heart?” said the little girl.
“Easy.”
“Not so easy,” she whispered.
He pulled out another red balloon.
“Why not so easy?”
“I need a heart,” she said. “A real one.”
Eliza Archer writes fiction and drinks too much coffee.