The warden thought his track meet event
would be a morale booster,
But a guard reported on Event Day
that the pole vault team had escaped.
The good news was the 100-yard dash team
was overtaken 200 yards from the gate
and the sumo wrestlers were wedged in their tunnel.
Gene Newman was a USAF cryptologist during the Korean War and is a retired engineer and journalist, including stringing for the N.Y. Times and being a crossword puzzle creator for the New York Times and USA Today.
“Come here, little sugar pillow,” my husband used to say, enfolding me in his arms on our sleep-in Saturday mornings. He died before I mastered his native Icelandic and learned he’d been using the literal translation of “marshmallow.” I still glance at my love handles, wondering just what he’d meant.
Râna had a beautiful decade of living in the northwest of Iceland interrupted by the pandemic, and she’s now preparing for the zombie apocalypse in her hometown of Montreal.
The band’s packing up. Last call at the bar. The balloons have begun to wilt, the streamers to sag. Fifty-year-old tales of teenage escapades are echoes, refracted by time. We laugh, slap backs, embrace. “See you in five years!” we say with hope while our hearts are haunted by doubt.
Nick Young is a retired award-winning CBS News Correspondent. In addition to 50-Word Stories, his writing has appeared in dozens of reviews, journals and anthologies. His first novel, “Deadline,” was published in the Fall of 2023. He lives outside Chicago.
The story of the week for August 26 to 30 is…
In Second Place by Matt Strutz
I enjoyed a particularly great conversation with my mom yesterday. She popped by unexpectedly, offering lavish praise for my latest songwriting endeavor, her smile crinkly bright. She’s usually warm, but this time she was enthusiastically effusive. I flushed with joy. Best conversation since her death 9 years ago.
Jannie Dziadzio is gratefully devoting her sixth decade of life to deep connection, beauty, creative spark and harmony in a myriad of forms.
You’ve been gone so long.
And now you’re back!
I missed you!
But you smell different,
And you look happy
Where did you go without me?
What is this?
I can’t believe you ran your hands through someone else’s fur.
My heart is broken.
You smell of next door’s cat!
Francesca Morrison is a born and bred Londoner now living in Vancouver. She recently came runner up in a Flash Fiction contest and was longlisted for the CANSCAIP 2022 Writing for Children Competition.
Indiscriminately, Death danced with man.
He threw his hands skyward, skeletal yet undefined, and began to move irregularly; jarringly. Each mortal decayed – rotting as they moved, ashened and broken – reluctantly reformed and reborn to continue their maniacally frantic fire-pit choreography. Vivid. Brazen. Bare-boned. A final, unending, desperate act of life.
Kristian Hale is a writer based in Manchester, UK. His short story compilation, ‘A Taste of Chaos’ is currently available in Paperback on Amazon, with the upcoming debut novel ‘The Forest and His Lover’ set to be released in early 2025. You can learn more about current and upcoming work at kristianhale.wordpress.com.
the quay is empty now,
the stage where you stood in the light around you
while waving with many gulls.
water, wind, waves, all weave
the same words, over and over
fading slowly into the distance.
how long will they last, these words,
before they turn into
shrieks of seabirds.
KHOP Möricke is just living along in the Netherlands. In 2012, KHOP published a book titled 50 easy pieces.
Brushing my teeth, I see two red eyes in the black window.
They are the rear reflectors of mine and Anki’s bikes, catching the bathroom light. I chuckle thinking about my nervous boyhood self seeing them.
When I straighten up, I remember that Anki’s bike is at the repair shop.
Christina Nordlander lives near Manchester, the UK, with her husband. She has published approximately 25 short stories, almost all of them horror in some way.
The orbiter streaked the pastel skies of Alpha Centauri. Two humans stepped out to view their conquest, carrying with them a flag. But another flag was already there. A tyrannosaurus rex appeared emblazoned on it in red. The humans despaired.
“How’d they plant it with such short arms?” she fumed.
Matt Strutz (He/him/his) is a fiction author living in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Born in Downers Grove, Illinois, he moved out East to live with his life partner. They met online through a shared love of writing and live together with their three cats. Matt is interested in exploring the wide range of human emotion and experience through storytelling. When he’s not writing he can be found running, climbing, woodworking, painting, or hiking.