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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Frost ferns covered the windows near Margaret’s bed, and frost painted the sere, feathery grasses in the fields, all motionless in the windless morning until sun caught on ice crystals sparking rainbows, all silent until Margaret summoned a blackbird’s haunting whistle to a frost that would… soon… Margaret exhaled… sublime….
Miriam N. Kotzin writes fiction and poetry. She is the author of five collections of poetry, two collections of short fiction, and two novels—most recently the novel Right This Way (Spuyten Duyvil). Her 50-word stories have been published in 50-Word Stories, 50 Give or Take, and Blink Ink. She teaches literature and creative writing at Drexel University.
The story of the week for March 17 to 21 is…
Strangers by Li Ruan
My mother called me in the night, her profile picture glowing. She announced she was moving us: to a place she once called home. A place I have only ever visited. In my bones I feel how right it is.
My gaze still lingers on the people who cannot follow.
Seven is a writer living in Brooklyn (but not for much longer), who is trying to accept the reality that things never stop ending.
March.
Rutted, half-frozen, mud-soup-ugly
tailspinning tire tracks and grizzled snow
shapeshifting to angry slush clogging
the windshield spray nozzles
on my Tacoma pickup.
April.
Glistening wet branches, swollen green
buds popping, sinful yellow Goldfinches,
black humus, fresh plantings outside
the library, and my stealing a cat-glance
at the landscaper’s helper.
Matthew is fortunate to sometimes live near a lake in Maine where loons swim and sometimes yodel and hoot late at night. And sometimes on a day like this with few clouds in the sky and mountains in the distance a warm breeze will sweep across the lake and take your breath away.