“You shall suffer my wrath, puny one!”
“Perhaps I shall, but you, too, shall suffer it, I think.”
“Indeed I won’t. My own wrathfulness amuses me.”
“Yet does it not also give you heartburn?”
“It has not done so before.”
“Nuts. What shall I do with all this Tums, then?”
“Once AGAIN, I remind you that NO ANIMALS are allowed in the classroom during an examination.”
Jeremy patted the enormous grizzly bear’s head. “Why not?”
“He might, er, help you cheat.”
“Barry would NEVER do that,” said Jeremy, surreptitiously hiding his exam paper, on which he’d written “Grrr, grroowl, roooaarr.”
This story was based on the prompt “once again” at TypeTrigger.
“I really messed that up, didn’t I?” he asked, laughing.
She smiled, tossed her hair, and laughed too.
“Let’s start over,” she said. “Like we’ve never met.”
“Alright. I’m John. I work in construction.”
“No,” she pouted. “Romanticize your life. Make something up!”
He answered only by straightening his face.
Miranda Mann is an aspiring author from Utah. Follow her on Twitter @mirandamann.
The candygram had seen better days. “Do… Do you want me to me to sing?” she said, awkwardly adjusting the French maid outfit to better show off her desiccated cleavage.
I grabbed a blanket, draped it over her shoulders. “Let me make you some soup,” I whispered as she wept.
Chris Puzak lives near Philadelphia.
There was a man who lived on a mountain. It was a stormy place, and the sounds kept him awake each night.
Fed up, the man challenged the storm to a duel.
It responded by spitting lightning bolts and shouting thunder.
Bemused, he caught the lightning and threw it back.
Sean Quigley also goes by “Posh Platypus.” Follow him on Twitter: @PoshPlatypus.
Home alone, almost asleep, she freezes at the sound. Wide awake now, eyes straining in the dark, holding her breath, she listens. The faint rustling grows closer, an alarming noise: intruder!
She reaches for her pistol. Heart pounding, hands shaking, she rounds the corner, aims, and nearly shoots the cockroach.
Lauren McBride’s work has appeared in various science fiction, horror, nature and children’s publications including Scifaikuest (featured poet, August 2010) and The Drabbler (honorable mention twice). She shares a love of laughter, science and the ocean with her husband and two children.
This story was previously printed in Boston Literary Magazine, Fall 2008, under the pseudonym Elizabeth L. Collins.
In the beginning, Emily was born a hunger baby, who ate anything and everything—even non-edible treats like small plastic toys.
Halfway through her life she owned a restaurant—became rich, got married, enjoyed outdoor activities—and traveled the world.
In the end, she ate all her money and died.
Devon Carey joined the National Guard in September, 2010, and is getting deployed to Kuwait in 2013. He is going to wait until after his deployment before he makes the decision to go Active duty. Right now, he writes and reads a lot, and works out on his spare time.
I fell to my knees, drained, ravenous, and blistered. I kissed the car door’s flat surface and nuzzled the chrome handles.
A mere two hours driving time took more than two weeks to hike. The Appalachian Trail had not made a man out of me; it whipped my metrosexual hiney.
This coming week I’ll be posting five stories from guest writers, and won’t be writing any stories myself. Why? Because my wife is due to give birth on April 3!
We can’t pinpoint exactly when she’ll go into labour, of course, but it’s likely to be some time next week. I have lots of great submissions waiting to be shared, so I thought this would be a good time to get some more of them out there, and save myself a little bit of time and work at the same time so I don’t have to worry about keeping up with things whenever Larissa feels the baby start to worm its way out. (That’s how giving birth works, right?)
Enjoy the great lineup of submissions next week! I know I’ve enjoyed reading and vetting them.
Their emotions raged like wildfires. Their passions rumbled like earthquakes. Their fears echoed like windblown whispers through the valleys.
They whirled in their orbits, teasing each other, admiring one another’s moons, coming close and then dancing away, all the while singing to themselves, “She loves me; she loves me not.”