DEIRDRE SMITH: Expiration

Amusing, Artistic, Submissions, ,

The forgotten pumpkins are black with rot.
Dogberries squish and bleed underfoot.
The trees have been battered, standing half-naked and disheveled, robbed of their beauty.
Brown leaves scurry across the pavement, finding refuge together.
The smell of death and pumpkin spice lattes is in the air.
This is the end.

Deirdre Smith has dabbled in writing for as long as she can remember. She is a part-time Guidance Counsellor and a full-time mom. She resides in the always colorful St. John’s, Newfoundland.

SAMI MATIN: Childhood in Bangladesh

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

We celebrated the four main religions here: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity. Regularly we sang, danced, cooked. Painted. Learned truths about our history through fearless journalists, families’ testimonies, the war heroes the government erased from textbooks. Nobody hesitated joining the Monsoon Revolution, arms drenched and outstretched as bullets sped toward us.

Third-person bio: Sami Matin is a writer from Bangladesh. She holds degrees in English and Creative Writing from the University of Michigan and the University of Arizona. Their literary work is forthcoming or published in SmokeLong Quarterly, Hobart Pulp, and the Wingless Dreamer.

KEN ZANG: First Funeral

Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

He never saw a corpse before. Grandpa lay in the casket, but it didn’t look like him. Was Grandpa still a ‘he’? An ‘it’?

The expression seemed wrong. The real Grandpa would never make that face.

The same nose hairs, though.

“Don’t touch,” an old woman scolded.

But why not?

Ken Zang loves observing the world around him almost as much as living in it. If Ken isn’t learning what makes something, or someone, tick, then he is usually trying to make family, or potential family, laugh.

ALEXA DONLEY: After Death

Adventure, Submissions, Touching, , , ,

It turns out, if you want to pretend you’re normal, you don’t talk to your dead grandfather in the cemetery, resting your head on his tombstone like resting on his lap.

And you definitely don’t come home smelling of tobacco, humming a lullaby he sang your mom but not you.

Alexa Donley is a speculative fiction writer from Washington. When not writing, she can be found traveling or walking in storms. Her first novel, The House on the Rocks, is available now.

ROBERTA BEACH JACOBSON: Cocoa

Amusing, Submissions, ,

Birthday gift? Chocolate bars, please. For as long as she could remember, Cocoa adored chocolate.

When Cocoa married her high-school sweetheart, their wedding celebration was delicious, from hot chocolate (with or without marshmallows) to a fudge chocolate wedding cake.

The couple adopted a Chocolate Lab, and lived happily ever after.

Roberta Beach Jacobson is the author of Demitasse Fiction: One-Minute Reads for Busy People (Alien Buddha Press, 2023).

CHRIS NEDAHL: Human Error

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

Strawberries and wine, long nights on the porch, all-consuming, never-ending love. But the Universe changes in a heartbeat, our cabin, my heart, left to the ravages of time. Taxi drop at the end of the lane, an overgrown path, cheerless door, descending chill, ice cold hands pull my collar tight.

Chris Nedahl is a writer of anything and everything. Micro fiction, flash fiction and poetry are favourites. The desire to see her words published is increasing with age!

LEONIE GREGORY: Crunchy Sensation in Every Bite

Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , , , ,

A colourful gelato cone in hand, and I’m magically back in dolce Liguria: blazing sun, turquoise water, your damp curly hair and laughing mouth. Taking a bite, I crunch; the spell breaks. But then you crunch, and the magic returns. Your silver hair glistening, smelling, as then, of the sea.

Leonie Gregory lives in Australia. She has a passion for photography and writing about her experiences, as well as subjects she wants to explore further.

GAYLE BEVERIDGE-MARIEN: So There!

Artistic, Submissions, ,

Although small in stature, she is a force to be reckoned with. An aggressive lobbyist for the homeless, her modus operandi is to be very much in the Minister’s face. He sees her enter the restaurant and flees through a backdoor exit, stumbling upon the cardboard tents of desperate souls.

Gayle Beveridge-Marien writes because she loves it. It is her radiant red-sky sunset, her budding spring flowers. It is bird song and a long walk in the bush. Gayle is a past winner of the Boroondara Literary Awards. Her work has appeared in Award Winning Australian Writing, The Umbrella’s Shade, Vegemite Whiskers and Mosaic.

ANGELA CARLTON: The Boy Who Became a Man

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

As a young nanny, I adored him quietly, this boy. When he turned twelve, I bought a drone so he could fly-fly-fly away from selfish parents. At fifteen, I taught him how to navigate black, winding roads.

At twenty-one, he came back to me, before the March rain, in bloom.

Angela Carlton wrote this story.