It wasn’t the way we thought it would be.
There should have been fanfare,
cake,
balloons,
laughter,
endless pats on the back,
shouts of “Happy retirement!”
Instead,
there was downsizing,
quiet looks,
hushed remarks,
the packing away of desk contents into boxes,
a sudden, newfound awareness.
They’d moved our cheese.
Susan Gale Wickes is a writer from Indiana. She enjoys writing short stories and greeting card verses and the joy of cartoon captioning.
I’ve noticed that on many days
my muses, in their varied ways,
amuse themselves at my expense
and leave me in a hapless daze.
To compensate, I make them wait
and while I do, I contemplate—
when I unfaze in future days,
might they catch up a bit too late?
Ken Gosse usually writes whimsical, rhymed verse. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, later in Pure Slush, Home Planet News, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Spillwords, and many others. Raised in Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife live in Mesa, AZ, with rescue dogs and cats.
We surveyed our house’s carbonized skeleton.
“Remember our wedding night?” Marla said. “Dancing in the living room.”
“Right here.” I pointed to a depression in the charred floor.
“The beginning of our new life,” Marla said.
I wiped her eyes and held her, then whispered, “Can I have this dance?”
Tim Boiteau is a Writers of the Future winner and author of The Nilwere (Grendel Press). See more at timboiteau.wordpress.com.
He must have seen me a mile away, free falling. Now I’m on the ground, lines tangled in the oak above, money scattering like feathers. And a fractured patella.
Yellow talons, big as a fist, coming closer. Eagles are good luck, no?
No.
Stern, cocky countenance, punishing eyes.
Divine judgement.
Steve Saulsbury lives on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A writer of flash fiction, his work has appeared in many online journals and several printed collections. Most
recently, his piece, “The Field,” was included in the Halloween anthology Flash of the Dead.
Your precious smile is a rarity. What ails you cannot be remedied. You eat less and weaken, growing pale and gaunt, clutching your crucifix tight. Your family despairs. Only you can hear my voice, growing stronger. You spurned me in life, but soon, my love, we will be together forever.
Paul lives in Scotland. Sometimes he writes stories. Sometimes they’re even published.
Nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, neon,
helium, krypton, hydrogen, and xenon
are the gases which make up
the Standard Dry Air.
And it’s air, but also love, and faith,
and trust, and warmth,
and friendship, and thoughtfulness, and courage,
and everything we can’t even see
that which keeps us alive.
A marketing specialist at a Romanian national radio station, Teodora Vamvu lives in Bucharest, Romania. Her microfiction and short prose have been featured on 101words, Spillwords, and MetaStellar, and her first non-fiction piece was a finalist in F(r)iction’s Creative Non-Fiction Spring 2024 contest. She is also part of two prose anthologies published through Amazon, available in Kindle format and print-on-demand, and an upcoming poetry one.
The story of the week for November 25 to 29 is…
Spring ’89 by Charlinda Banks
and
Abduction Sarah Gane Burton
He recognized the tape recorder in his childhood bedroom. He rewound the tape and pressed play, listening to his young voice chattering about whatever came to mind. When his mother’s voice joined in, he paused the tape, heart aching with nostalgia and loss.
He had forgotten. How had he forgotten?
Janelle Seabock is a writer with a love for horror, fantasy, and animals of all kinds. She currently resides in Florida.
They said I did it for money, or clout, or spite.
It’s true. I envied you, sprawled out maned and muscled as a sleeping lion in my bed. How I wanted it, a golden tassel.
But no one ever guessed the truth: that I wanted your strength for my own.
Elizabeth Wing is a writer and trail worker based in Portland, Oregon. Her work has appeared in 7×7, Hanging Loose Magazine, The West Marin Review, and other venues.
I can hear the mountains whisper, the rain clouds call.
Come home.
I can hear the subway, heels click on Manhattan streets.
We do not need you.
I close the plane ticket tab on my computer.
Sometimes you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.
Seven is a writer living in Brooklyn (for now), who knows there is more for them to do before they can find their way home.