Like before every job interview, he could feel the sweat staining the armpits of his blue shirt. He buttoned the top two buttons of his suit, then decided to unbutton the first. “Don’t stutter, don’t mumble. Be confident,” he whispered to himself quaveringly. “Okay, Shirley, send in the next candidate.”
Grey Joyner is a Brown University student who often has contests with his father on who can come up with the best 50-word story.
“What are your plans for the future?” Grandma asked me during dinner one evening.
“Er,” I said. “Um. Uh. I guess…”
“You should become a lawyer,” she declared, “and find yourself a wife.”
So I went straight home, fired up PhotoShop, and started putting together some grad and wedding photos.
They gathered around the stump, some eyes wet, some eyes hard.
“This tree,” said the eldest, “meant many different things to each of us. We all have reason to mourn it.”
There were some sniffles.
“Now,” said the eldest, “auction’s open! Who wants to bring this hunk o’ wood home?”
This story was based on the prompt “the stump” at TypeTrigger.
The train arrived without fanfare, spewed its longsuffering human cattle onto the platform, and puffed away to the yard to be cleansed.
At the terminus of their life-changing one-way voyage, five hundred grimy faces searched for any sign of welcome.
Another train packed full of immigrants whistled its impending arrival.
In Shastonbury children weep
for want of food and lack of sleep.
They drink the rain and talk to sheep
in the ancient town of Shastonbury.
Shastonbury, I’ve heard tell,
is like a wetter form of Hell.
They rue the clouds and curse the smell,
the shepherd boys of Shastonbury.
In the ward, pudgy little T.O. Wilson, a prisoner of his own mind, spent all day, every day, writing “T.O.” in spit on the back of his hand or the floor or wherever. A hopeless lifer, if he still lives, by now he’s surely worn that finger to a nub.
Gary Clifton was forty years a Federal officer, has an M.S. from Abilene Christian University and has short fiction pieces published in Spinetingler, Broadkill Review, Yellow Mama, and Dumb Butt Mag.
“Mr. Chang, your program has come a long way. What gave your team such motivation to work with folded paper?”
“Origami has been our lifelong passion. We’re just thrilled to push it to its limits.”
“So what’s next?”
“Now that we’ve achieved a paper-based, human-bearing aircraft, we’re looking towards space!”
This story was based on the prompt “folded paper” at TypeTrigger.
Joey was super great at bouncing on his trampoline. He bounced so high that he flew all the way to Mars, but they didn’t have trampolines there, because Martians are boring, so he had to build a giant slingshot to fling himself back home.
That’s what he told me, anyways.
You ripped out my heart. That wasn’t very nice.
I do appreciate your thoughtfulness in replacing it and stitching me up afterwards, and my new eyeballs work great, thanks, but would it have been too much trouble to remove these huge bolts from my neck, while you were at it?
This story was based on the prompt “ripped out” at TypeTrigger.
Glenda sashayed into the house pulling an overflowing shopping cart.
Trevor nearly fell off his chair. “What in the world? Where’d you get all that butter!?”
“I was couponing,” explained Glenda, “and I got on a roll…”
“What are we supposed to do with it!?”
“…Put it on some rolls?”