An awkward, stilted embrace. A clumsy patting of the back. A final sticky handshake.
I stood and watched him depart into the throngs of people, then boarded.
I sat at the window smiling, thoughts centered on the complimentary drink. My pre-flight numbness faded, enabling me to savour his unspoken love.
Raymond has pieces published in 101 words and 101 fiction. He lives in Ireland.
He had so many abilities to bestow, my dad. He could tie shoes, tell time, build tables, fix carburetors, throw, catch, hit. But for all his superhuman powers, he contained almost nothing else, and he withheld most of it.
And stoicism, I’ve since learned, is far less heroic than advertised.
Robert Hoekman Jr. is a writer and editor, and part of the Litmus Collective. His nonfiction work has been featured by Fast Company, WIRED, Huckberry, and many others.
“Daddy loves you,” I say, placing my daughter in her crib with a fresh diaper.
I notice the crease in each elbow as she shakes her toy at me and laughs.
I linger.
If I don’t survive the surgery tomorrow, I pray that I can take this memory with me.
Seth Pilevsky lives in New York with his wife and five kids, trying to tuck away those precious moments for a rainy day. His work has been published in the Long Island Literary Journal, Literally Stories, Memoir Magazine, Stinkwave’s Magazine and in the YA anthology What Doesn’t Kill You. Sign up for blog updates at spilevsky.com.
As an adventurous toddler, I was a little unsteady. Dad held my hand, guided me, protected me from falling.
Fifty years later, he’s a little unsteady. I hold his hand, guide him, protect him from falling.
He smiles at me, a grown woman to others, but always his little girl.
Lisa Chambers is a Texas girl who always enjoys a good story.
Wake kids,
Make breakfast,
Dress kids,
Walk to school,
Home from school,
Help with homework,
Make the dinner,
Run their baths,
Bedtime story,
Goodnight kisses,
Collect laundry,
Clean clothes,
Tidy kitchen,
Wash dishes,
Polish table,
Mop the floor,
Wake up Mother,
Bring her bottle,
Avoid eye contact,
Make no sound.
Jo Withers is author of the middle-grade science-fiction adventure 5 Simple Steps to Saving Planet Earth. Her recent shorter fiction can be found in Spelk, Molotov Cocktail, Ellipsis Zine and Flashback Fiction.
He wraps the pillow around is head, diving deep beneath the covers.
The yelling always keeps him awake. Mother checks he is asleep.
His door closes softly, then a loud pop comes from downstairs.
Mother checks on him again. The yelling has finally stopped.
He drifts off to sleep.
Kristyn Mass lives in Iowa with her husband and three cats. She is a professional voice actor and aspiring writer.
The filament flares of our violet sun act like milestones of the day; less so, the red night sun that chases—it’s too weak to emit much of anything.
A lot like my father and I.
I wiped the knife. “You won’t call me your red son anymore, I suppose.”
E.O. figures that people on other worlds probably still have daddy issues and bad blood. But they also have space cars, e.g. a flying Maserati. And that’s pretty cool.
Wake, feed, burp, change.
She sleeps again, small breaths warming my neck.
Wake, feed, burp, change.
She cries; loud and angry wails.
Wake, feed, burp, change.
We go out, finally, and I’m always surprised that the world carries on, as if to mock the broken record of our banal existence.
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.
Pop always let me help lay out the sod. Mom would sit on the porch, sipping a lemonade and heckling him for letting the lawn die again.
It wasn’t until I saw you, tiny hands gently patting down the green corners, that I realized the lawn hadn’t mattered a bit.
Hunter is a rising junior at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, majoring in Math and Comparative Literature.
Several people saw her running toward the orphanage, her hair a witch’s broom in the night. Later, they told her husband’s family. They didn’t mention, for they hadn’t seen, the tarnished jewellery in her arms. Nor could they feel the memory of an infant’s breath still warm against her chest.
Monica Wang has fiction in GHLL, Electric Literature, The Temz Review, Midway Journal, and Gaze Journal, among other publications. She spent childhood in Taichung, Taiwan, and Vancouver, Canada, and now writes in Germany.