I shadow the blind man. I’m the reason he’s still alive. I stop traffic for him, nudge him when he’s about to fall down open manholes. For this, I take a cut of his disability and sleep in his house. He’s unaware of my service or the fee I exact.
Sam Hall is a short story writer and poet from a miserable island. When not writing, he’s either fixing leaks in his cabin, building uncomfortable furniture, or chasing after runaway chickens.
Midnight, in the frozen space where the Old Year greets the New.
“This is yours now,” says Old.
Stooping, broken, he can barely lift the world: its wars, famine and suffering.
New takes it, flushed with youthful optimism.
“I will make paradise, just watch.”
Old sighs. “You won’t survive January…”
William Mitchell lives in East Sussex in the South of England. He is an award-winning author, having had early success with various Horror and Science Fiction publications before winning the Writers of the Future contest in 2012. His first novel, CREATIONS, came out in 2014 with John Hunt Publishing.
“Not a star in you, I see,” my father says.
“I worry when I think about you,” he continues.
The outside man may not be the one my father desires. However, the person inside supports the one on the outside, who is on a path leading to a blooming meadow.
Thompson Emate spends his leisure time on creative writing particularly, poetry and prose. He has a deep love for nature and the arts. He is trying his hands on different genres of fiction. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
“It’s just a sprain,” her parents shrugged. “Use Tiger Balm.”
“You’ve walked on a shattered fibula for weeks,” the radiologist says. “You need surgery. Doesn’t it hurt?”
If you want impervious, robotic offspring, she thinks, you beat them, belittle, humiliate, minimize.
Body, mind, heart, soul: shattered.
She smiles. “I’m fine.”
Z.J. Lee is a neurodivergent, nonbinary, chronically ill person of color who lives near the Pacific Ocean and writes by the seat of their pants.
The story of the week for December 23 to 27 is…
Punctuation Sale by John Holmes
Just wasn’t Christmas ‘til Auntie Arlene got up on the roof—tangled in lights, hollering “Silent Night” in sweet, festive irony. Figured herself the neighborhood tree topper, I guess. All December long, we’d hand her trays of goodies through the attic window like some kind of advent calendar in reverse.
See more from Abbie Doll at bsky.app/profile/abbiedollwrites.bsky.social.
You were our blessing, given when the first leaves changed colour. Autumn, such an appropriate name. As the last leaves fell, and before we could know you, you were snatched away. A single copper leaf held fast, the colour of your hair. Tenderly we took it, pressing it for eternity.
Writer of anything and everything. Microfiction, flash fiction and poetry are favourites. A desire to see her words published is increasing with age! See more at christinenedahl.wordpress.com.
Using a questionable metaphor, the chief prosecutor marveled why go down with the ship if not the captain. Then he reminded me of my allegorical status, a mere sailor.
I explained my rank didn’t matter because I am on the ship, it’s our ship, and there’s simply no other ship.
J. S. O’Keefe is a scientist, trilingual translator and writer. His short stories and poems have been published in Everyday Fiction, Roi Faineant, 101 Words, Spillwords, ScribesMICRO, 50WS, AntipodeanSF, Friday Flash Fiction, Spirit Fire Review, Medium, Paragraph Planet, WENSUM, 6S, Satire, MMM, etc.
Above, an azure layer so thin you can see the blackness of space behind. My eyes slide west across layers of green and yellow to a fire beyond the horizon, so deeply red that I could take comfort in its apparent warmth if the evening air wasn’t so bitingly cold.
Apricity is a favorite word of Stephen’s, especially during this time of year, meaning ‘warmth of the sun in winter.’
Candles burning on the tree, greatest beauty that child could see, but children grow.
Then a mother seeing baby at her breast, what greater beauty could there be?
Until entranced, watching grandchildren leap and dance.
Still, there’s more. Son as grandfather, glowing bright, the greatest beauty a mother could see.
Eileen finds inspiration in her family.