Father was a painter; thus, art was in her blood. Or so they would say.
She could see no art in the blood on her forehead, but she knew all about complementary colors. Orange covers up blue, yellow covers up purple. A smile covers up pain. Still the perfect family.
Sally Wagner lives in Luxembourg; with her two rabbits, and a dream of becoming a published author one day. Until that dream comes true, it will just be her and the rabbits. Which is good too.
She’s huddled at a corner table in the dark bar.
A jazz band is playing.
She lights a cigarette and sips her drink.
Designer sunglasses hide a black eye.
Lipstick covers bruised lips.
She’s a striking presence in designer attire,
but wealth and status can’t protect her from angry fists.
Peter Blau works in Minnesota’s Twin Cities in a variety of settings. He believes everyone has a story to tell. His goal is to help people discover their unique voice and style as they tell those stories with their writing. Peter believes that writing is more than just a means to an end; it is the end in itself.
Are you listening, Father? The difference is dosage.
Milligrams, it’s medicine. Grams, it’s snake venom. If your memory were better, you’d remember how much you’ve had today.
No, I’m not going to tell you. That’s my little secret.
A pill lies before you. Is it your first or your twentieth?
Graham Robert Scott’s stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Hobart, Pulp Literature, Barrelhouse, X-R-A-Y, and others.
Shane had convinced her: that he was kind, that their fates were entwined, that he wasn’t like those creeps her mom breakfasted with on weekends. Liv couldn’t save her mother, but she could save herself. That she was now running for two was a wild card she’d figure out later.
Carolyn R. Russell is the author of The Films of Joel and Ethan Coen, published by McFarland & Company in 2001. Her humorous YA mystery, Same As It Never Was, was released in 2018 by Big Table. Carolyn’s new YA dystopian thriller, In the Fullness of Time, was published by Vine Leaves Press in March of 2020, and her essays and short stories have appeared in a variety of publications. She holds an M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University, and has taught on the college, high school, and middle school levels. Carolyn lives north of Boston with her husband and two children.
The rules are easy.
Don’t hit people, or shout at them.
If they say you’re too close, you’re too close.
If they say don’t touch, you mustn’t touch.
When I grew up, people didn’t follow the rules.
Didn’t follow them with me.
That’s my excuse.
I know it’s not enough.
Michael Bird is a Romania-based writer and journalist, with stories published by Here Comes Everyone, Lune Journal, Bandit Fiction, Storgy, Grist and Bristol Short Story Prize, among others. As a journalist, his work has appeared in Vice, Politico, Mediapart, EU Observer, and Business Insider, and on the BBC and Deutsche Welle. See more at michaelbirdjournalist.wordpress.com.
I could have stolen the sandwiches but I needed the shoes more. The beach was busy but nobody noticed me. They rarely do during the day.
The boys come for me after the pubs have closed. Restless, bored, vicious.
But tonight I won’t be kicked or punched. Tonight I run.
Eszter Molnar is a former teacher who lives by the windswept British seaside. She has been published in one of the UK’s biggest subscription magazines for children. By day, she cleans up after preschoolers, by night she writes flash fiction, picture books and Middle Grade fiction.
First the whispers
Then the shadows
His skin bites
Alert
He stands braced
Screams flash back
Demons taunt
Alive again…
He must…
He fails…
She wakes him
He leaves the sweat-soaked sheets
Hours later
She makes oatmeal
He almost smiles
A goodbye kiss
She revisits her spell book
And laughs
Patrick Yu says: It didn’t work out in the end.
I kiss my daughter; she twists away. “No,” she says.
“Don’t you hate that?” Margie sighs. “We do enough. We deserve kisses.”
I remember uncomfortable playground embraces. Unwanted subway pawing. Nights reluctantly spent.
“No,” I say. The word is whiskey. Dark, strong, medicinal. I smile and watch the girls play.
Ashley Scott lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest. She loves writing that packs a lot into a little. You can find her short stories and flash fiction in online literary publications, including On the Premises.
Art’s avuncular fingers plunged deep into my girlish flesh,
plowed furrows,
planted seeds of rage that grew into Sequoias that stretched upward
to scratch his deeds into the very sky
beckoning Mom’s eyes,
demanding that she countenance his crimes.
Then, having at last seen, she might beg me for absolution.
C. Christine Fair is an associate professor within the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She has published poetry in the Dime Show Review and The Bark and has pieces forthcoming in Clementine Unbound and Badlands Literary Journal. She also published a short story in New Reader Magazine. Her scholarly website is christinefair.net; her blog is shortbustoparadise.wordpress.com. She tweets at cchristinefair where, for some reason, she has some 42,600 followers.
I arrive at school hot, sweaty. I want to run like Usain Bolt. He runs as fast as a car. My teacher says it’s not possible to keep up that speed for long, but she’s wrong. She has to be.
When I can, I’ll be gone. From he-who-hits and she-who-ignores.
Laura Besley writes short fiction in the precious moments that her children are asleep. Her fiction has appeared online, in print and in various anthologies. She tweets at @laurabesley.