Ted was tired of waiting. He was a man of little patience.
All her life he’d waited while she did her hair, looked for her other shoe, or changed her dress (again).
“Oh, Dad,” she’d scold.
Now he waits to walk her down the aisle. He’s willing to wait forever.
Candace Kubinec posts her stories at storydribbles.wordpress.com and her poetry at rhymeswithbug.com.
I’m not very good with words. Never have been.
So I’m writing this to let you know how much you’ve changed my life. How my every waking moment is filled with thoughts of you.
I hope one day you’ll read this.
When you grow up and learn how, of course.
Franca is a bilingual English language teacher and proud grandmother. She belongs to an international creative writing group and now lives in Italy with her husband of 40 years.
I remember what it was like to go to sleep and just luxuriate in it, swimming in the darkness of hours and hours.
Now you’re here, with your whimpers in the night and your chubby hands clutching me as you feed. You smell like warmth, and love has replaced sleep.
Victoria Davies is a freelance music teacher and writer from London, UK. She loves writing her thoughts and feelings about motherhood after the birth of her son in November 2016, an event more life-changing than she ever expected. You can read her blog at muminmakeup.wordpress.com.
She told me that the cruelest part of it all, after it was over and she was finally allowed to leave the hospital and come home again, was that they had taken the crib away without even telling her.
They pretended like it had never been there to begin with.
Dave Novak works in a fairly serious office that sends him to strange and mysterious places throughout New Jersey. Whenever he feels like being more or less serious, he writes. You can check out his works and thoughts at dumbstupidfakestories.wordpress.com.
I filled sacks with too-snug jeans and sweaters; my closet was finally getting uncluttered.
A fellow donor at the charity shop drivethrough extracted a train set and scooter from her van. I helped her with a dirt bike.
“They grow up so fast,” I commented.
“Tommy had leukemia,” she replied.
Roberta tried retiring, but it didn’t work.
Years later, on a strong day, they retrieved the grey shoebox from the back of the closet and arranged the pictures on the living room rug. They smoothed and flattened curls, mended tears with tape. Then they sat silently, back-to-back, lost in memories of the child who never grew up.
Mark Farley writes novels, flash fiction and the occasional poem. See more at mumbletoes.blogspot.com.
I came off the slopes to join my mother in the lodge.
Instead of cocoa, she bellied up to the bar, ordered a beer, and took it to a high-top. She winked at me from her perch as I looked on from the threshold.
My very first lesson in cool.
Margaret is an amateur writer, but her mother thinks she’s WONDERFUL. She resides in Indianapolis.
I took Maggie Christmas shopping. We bought clothes for the little girl in our adopt-a-family and a Wonder Woman figure for Maggie.
At bedtime, I asked Maggie about her Wonder Woman toy.
“Please don’t be mad at me, Mommy. I snuck it in with the clothes for that little girl.”
This story was inspired by Meagan’s son Kaden.
He smiled while his baby was tapping something on his phone. Children are nearly born with it…
He still tried to sustain her, though she moved perfectly herself. He couldn’t get over it.
“I’ve fixed the connection,” his daughter said. “Incidentally, I got a promotion, so I can move out.”
Ksenia is a beginning Russian journalist with a sense of proportion.
Floorboards creak as the man steals towards the sleeping girl.
Standing over her peaceful form, heart pounding against his ribs, he leans and sticks his hand under her pillow to replace the hand-stitched bag containing her incisor with a dollar. She stirs but does not wake.
“Goodnight, pumpkin,” he whispers.
Tasie E. George is a twenty-year old, as-of-yet unpublished writer, born, raised, and residing in Nigeria.