These walkways once held herds of travelers, whose suitcases clicked against the tile, whose arguments with gate agents and tired wives flooded the terminal with a warm gray roar.
Tonight, I find empty benches and dark corridors. I hum to myself to fill space. My suitcase clicks to keep time.
Audra Bergevin is a graduate student and writer based in South Carolina.
Lucky I love the sound of my own voice. Echoing, Echoing, Echoing. Lucky I love the sound of my own voice. Echoing of bare walls. Echoing. Echoing. Echoing. Lucky I love the sound of my own voice. No one listening. Listening. Lucky I. Echoing. Echoing. Lucky me. Lucky
David loves the sound of his own voice, but also the voices of his wife, children and grandchildren.
The bus hissed to a stop, doors yawning open. One passenger remained, clutching a torn ticket. The driver met her eyes in the mirror. “Last stop.” Outside was only darkness and silence. The doors closed. The road itself vanished. Still, the bus moved forward toward nowhere.
Mary Wanjiru is a freelance writer from Kenya who is passionate about microfiction, human interest stories, and exploring the eerie in everyday moments. Her work has appeared on various platforms, and she enjoys crafting stories that linger in readers’ minds.
She knew her parents wouldn’t approve,
Of her lover
With a different religion and culture
From a faraway country
Studying at a nearby university, close to hers
She lied she’d be at the library
And spent hours with him
So she never told her parents,
Even when he left her.
Miriam Stein is a social worker, advocacy consultant, and author of Make Your Voice Matter With Lawmakers: No Experience Necessary. Her writings have appeared in local and national publications, including 50wordstories.com. See more at makeyourvoicematter.com.
Greece, together, like we’d planned. Bathing beneath a glassy sky. Wading in a sea the perfect temperature for lucid dreaming.
On the California tarmac, your profile is a sun-streaked mirage filling the airplane window. I wave goodbye to a tomorrow only I can see.
Greece, though, was so very lovely.
VA lives outside Seattle, WA, with her human and animal family. Her work has appeared in The Lake, 34th Parallel Magazine, Ignatian Literary Magazine, Five on the Fifth, Lumina Journal, Panoplyzine Magazine as the Editors’ Poem of Choice, The Basilisk Tree, and Figwort. She has work forthcoming in Crab Creek Review, Courtship of The Winds, and Remington Review, along with a poetry collection through Kelsay Books.
She lies on an isolated sunlounger and reads. From time to time, she gets up and roams the poolside area, glancing down, noting what others are reading. Back on her lounger, she googles the books and reads the preview pages. It helps her feel connected to the other hotel guests.
David Lowis writes in Surrey, England, and prefers going on holiday with his family to travelling alone.
This evening, on the western horizon, a low bank of clouds resembled a fleet of ships moving past.
We sat in the sand and watched until the shadows swallowed everything.
We haven’t seen an actual ship since we dragged ourselves ashore.
I say “we” to forget I am absolutely alone.
Bob Thurber is the author of six books. Regarded as a master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been anthologized 60 times, received a long list of awards, and been utilized in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.
Growing up, we didn’t have much, but we had Mum. Sometimes at night, I would drift into her room, drawn by her CD, ‘Ocean Sounds,’ filling the darkness.
Mum whined, turned, and tugged. Her pillow sopping. It was too late when we finally realised that, all along, she’d been drowning.
Raymond Sloan lives and writes in County Down, Ireland. He has previously been published in Blink-Ink, The Dribble Drabble Review, 101 Words, Every Day Fiction, among others.
The black ballpoint pen almost slips out of my hands. They’re slick with sweat. It’s an ordinary check-up; the paperwork is simple, but my breath catches in my chest. The blank emergency contact line stares back up at me. Your phone number was the only one I knew by heart.
Addison Hammond is a college student who always keeps a journal on her bedside table.
I find more comfort in complete strangers,
Than in good friends.
I’ve always been enchanted by minding my own business.
Them, minding theirs.
I enjoy the concept of territory.
Of personal space, well-kept.
Let’s draw a red line in chalk, straight down the middle,
And vow to never cross it.
Alma Ariaz is a young writer from Ontario, Canada. She wrote her first novel at sixteen, and has since been published in various literary journals. Her work is mostly fiction based in reality, as she seeks to capture her thoughts in little glass jars and force them onto the page.