“I don’t know. I just don’t.” He was shaking his head left to right.
“Until last Wednesday I was quote recovering unquote.”
“I just don’t know.”
“My wife two years ago. My son last year. Now me.”
“Cancer. I don’t know. I still can’t sell you a gun.”
Reynold Junker is a short fiction and poetry writer currently living in Los Angeles (Silver Lake), California.
You held her on your arm. She was stunning, and classy too. You didn’t tell her.
You opened the door and walked through first. Like you always do.
That’s how you lost her.
Another guy moved in and swept her away. He held the door open on their way out.
With a background in filmmaking, Justene studied writing and directing at the University of Auckland. Her short story Seven Dollar Fifty Life was recently published in Snorkel Magazine #17. She is from Auckland, New Zealand.
A single thought echoed through my head like a broken record as she slowly uncurled her perfectly manicured fingers from the gun’s handle and let it drop to the blood soaked carpet beside me: This is a woman I could spend the rest of my life with.
And I did.
Chris Griglack was born and raised in Massachusetts where he has lived for 23 years. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2012 with a degree in Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications.
Given within context, he was good, evil, thoughtful, thoughtless, kind, cruel, selfless, selfish, generous, mean, wise, stupid, careless, careful, amateurish, and professional.
Given without context, he was an enigma, a solution in search of a problem, a dilemma, a paradox.
Given the paradox, he was every inch a human being.
Ed Errington lives and relaxes in North Queensland, Australia. Despite being born in the same year as the ‘Rothwell UFO Incident’, he manages to gets on well with earthlings and only uses his tentacles in self-defense.
“I was twelve when I stopped believing,” Aaron said. “I was an only child; I always got what I asked for. Santa seemed like a reasonable explanation.”
Jean said, “I was four.”
“That’s pretty young.”
“I asked him for a normal family. Dad left the next day.”
“Oh,” said Aaron.
JC Brotsky is a history student who can usually be found reading comics, drinking iced tea, and procrastinating on writing her novel.
The first time he kicked her it hurt, but strangely she didn’t mind the pain.
It worried her. If it happened again she would have to tell someone.
The second kick was more powerful, making her gasp.
“This baby’s gonna be a football player!” she blurted to a smiling husband.
John B Sinclair is a much-travelled Scot who has now returned to Scotland, where he enjoys freelance writing on a variety of subjects.
She paused high above the fjord’s cold waters, the wind twisting ice snakes through her hair. Far below, Lars’ boat moved silently, almost beautifully, its wake a great, tranquil spiral, smoke drifting behind.
The resistance would go on – it had to! – but she would miss those two gentle hands forever.
Pierre Dunn is currently working on stories and novels in a range of genres and styles, because every story demands its own form. He’s only 66, so he still has time to get published.
Hometown boys, grown into husbands and fathers, heroes swallowed up in flames.
If someone had told any of them that they’d be on the news someday, they’d have just smiled and shook their heads no.
Nineteen new, humble firefighters in heaven, their last moments spent in the fires of hell.
Brian Sutherland is married to his writing partner. He has two grown amd married children and spends much of his efforts in trying to keep his wife from buying things for yet to be conceived grandchildren. His artwork and writing are featured on www.sobhanastudio.com.
Editor’s Note: This story is a tribute to the Arizona firefighters who were killed in the line of duty on June 30, 2013.
Once upon a time there were three bears, Papa, Mama, and Baby Bear.
They left home one day and a young girl wandered in.
But Papa forgot his cellphone and, though Mama was mad, they returned.
Discovering Goldilocks, they made a quick meal of her, and lived happily ever after.
Alexander Key teaches high school, sometimes, when absolutely necessary.
I’m drowning.
I feel cold and see only darkness the deeper I sink, as the distant light above grows dim. I struggle in vain to move my arms and legs to swim to the surface. There’s no air
until I wake and crawl out from the bottom of the bedcovers.
Connell Wayne Regner had successfully avoided writing creatively since he wrote spontaneous lyrics to music some years ago. Although from a linguistic background, he has serendipitously succumbed to fiction. His other dabblings can be found at paragraphplanet and wtdmagazine.wordpress.com.