The story of the week for March 24 to 28 is…
Rock Pool by Lynn White
LEIGH LOVEDAY: Calling Card
The detailing on each figure was exquisite. Facial features recognisable at minuscule scale, hand-crafted garments threaded onto limbs like insects’ legs. A startling talent at work.
Shame about its application, mused the CSI, lifting the latest doll delicately from the victim’s rigid palm and sliding it into an evidence bag.
Leigh Loveday grew up in south Wales and now lives in the English Midlands, besieged by cats, writing fiction aggressively slowly. Find him loitering online at @leighloveday.bsky.social.
LYNN WHITE: Rock Pool
Just a small gap in the cliff side,
dry and bare,
unremarkable.
Then in came the sea
washing over it,
some staying
leaving
a little
pool
of salt water.
Like a pool of salty tears
filling the gap,
bringing it back to life
temporarily.
Tears can sometimes do that
temporarily.
Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for Pushcarts, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. See more at lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/
GARY THOMSON: Who’s Away?
Four golfers wait on the tenth tee, handling their driver grips.
“Ron, how’s your wife?” Aaron asks his partner. “Haven’t talked with her in ages.”
Ron’s silence is fraught. “She wants a divorce. Now the kids’re gone.”
Awkward reticence envelops them.
“Fairway’s clear, good to go,” Dave announces. “Whose honour?”
Gary Thomson, in his aging tetchiness, finds diminishing pleasure in social jock talk.
ABBEY PARENTE: Dusk Diary
Yesterday the sunset happened to me. Facing the West in earnest, the sky in my open mouth, I tasted the colors like they were sorbet from a street vendor, mangoes and strawberries and tangerines.
Then I went back inside, sent four emails, and clicked “Add to Cart” ten more times.
Abbey is a 22-year-old living in Brooklyn, NY. Her writing has appeared in her high school’s newspaper and the journal on her bedside table.
JANET CLARE: Fire
Remember we reached out to each other and brought our sprawling, diverse county together? It wasn’t eastside or westside, it wasn’t over there. It was right here, with the smoke and ash settling in our backyards, filling our noses, and making our eyes water. None of us were unaffected. Remember?
Janet Clare’s first novel, novel, Time Is the Longest Distance, was published in 2018 and her second novel, True Home, will be published in May 2025. She previously had fiction and essays published online and anthologized. She lives in Los Angeles. See more at janetclarewriter.com.
ALISON MOORE: Jerusalem
I stood behind a soaring stone pillar, summoning the courage to walk down the aisle I trod three days ago towards my father’s ashes, a box draped with a white cloth at the altar. “Jerusalem” started, yet again. My grandfather tucked my hand under his arm, and we soldiered on.
Alison Moore has spent much of her career in marketing. Now she’s writing fiction for fun. Her work can be found in Edible Boston and 50-Word Stories.
ED WALKER: Momentum
The astronaut’s tether breaks. She has suit air for several minutes and, tying her backpack to the remaining line, slings it away from the space station, hoping for the best.
A child sees a shooting star. Her father says, “Make a wish.”
“I wish mommy could be here with us!”
Ed Walker is a retired engineer currently living in Catalunya, Spain. His work can be found in The Arcanist, Blink-Ink and elsewhere.
TERESA FAIRWEATHER: A Slice of Life
I’d worked in the café man and boy. All that time Maggie came in, 9 every morning.
“Grilled ‘am an’ cheese, a bit o’ mustard an’ a nice ‘ot cuppa’. Pay yer tomorra’.”
Then she didn’t come any more. The wake served grilled ham and cheese. Mornings weren’t the same.
Teresa lives in Suffolk UK between land and sea and has always liked telling stories. Finding time to write is hard but she’s trying.
GEORGE EVANS: Nudge Nudge Goes the Fixit Man
We poisoned Alexander, gave Brutus the knife, slit open The Great Khan’s loins, injected Napoleon with the makings of that stomach ulcer, seeded Jefferson Davis’s downfall, taped Nixon’s inconvenient leak.
Restoring order to a wobbly-top world never sticks, ain’t permanent, but it’s honest.
One hundred fixers. Our faces—each the same.
George Evans is a querulous nuisance from Birmingham, Alabama. When he isn’t teaching English (and sometimes when he is) he writes. You can find him on Substack at Fourth Castle on the Left.