I would listen from bed as Father scribbled upon paper. To the soundtrack of snoring I would sneak into the study, steal his pen, and muffle the click with my pyjama top.
I stared at blank pages and waited: but Father had not left any words in the pen tonight.
Guy Preston writes with a pen he found abandoned in a train station car park. He has never changed the ink, and hopes there’s at least another 50 words left.
Sometime after midnight a flame flared outside my window, momentarily illuminating his face. He had a cigarette clenched between his teeth. His eyes mirrored the flame, creating three distinct points of light, which all vanished at once, leaving only the orange tip of his cigarette dancing like a bumbling firefly.
Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and prizes. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled “Nothing But Trouble”. Visit BobThurber.net.
A good mother shows no weakness.
When you left, a guiltless, cowering creature was born. Not one trace of my immigrant misery stained your new skin.
I heard you married a handyman and moved to Yonkers.
The pawnbroker gave me a Benjamin for the gold earrings I never gave you.
Gessy Alvarez is founding editor of the literary website Digging Through the Fat: ripping out the heart. Her prose has appeared in Entropy Magazine, Extract(s): Daily Dose of Lit, Literary Orphans, Pank, and other publications.
The five-person crew slept separately under strict orders. The sentence for co-mingling was death. Still, Annie and Louis persisted, furtive behind the commander’s watchful eye.
When the burgeoning beneath Annie’s spacesuit could no longer be ignored, Louis was summoned.
“You have a choice, Lieutenant. There isn’t enough oxygen for six.”
Clara Ray Rusinek Klein is bilingual in Spanish and English. She holds a BA magna cum laude in Political Science with a minor in Religious Studies. Ms. Klein is an internationally published creative writer and author. For more information and a full list of current publications, see clararayrusinekklein.wordpress.com.
Out of the car before it’s parked, she walks well ahead of him into the emergency and trauma center. They are shown to their boy’s cubicle. She strokes her son’s hand, says mother is here.
Watching from a distance, he recalls another night, sixteen years earlier: mother and newborn, alone.
Deborah Davis writes short fiction and poetry in frigid Michigan, waiting patiently for gardening season.
“Mommy, why you crying?” He interlocks his warm little fingers with mine and squeezes tightly.
I look out the window. It is overtaking the horizon, blocking out the setting sun.
“Because I love you so much.”
“Are we gonna be alright?”
I squeeze back.
“Everything is going to be okay.”
Corey Niles had a 500-word flash fiction published in the fall issue of Eye Contact.
“I want to see it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She frowned at the sticky red placenta in the blue plastic pan.
Could the newborn see it? He eyed the afterbirth and sighed a breath of apathy towards his now-lifeless life-support.
She couldn’t know he’d eventually feel the same about her.
Liz Lambson is a Jane of all trades who might write you a song about painting with cross-stitched sheet music propped on a hand-carved wooden stand. She does things like this when she’s not watching her kids.
Do you want a girl this time? they all asked when the fourth grandchild was on the way.
It really doesn’t matter, and we know what to do with boys.
When she was born after a long labour, it was just relief.
But when we met, I was bowled over.
Ann Sangwin is a retired teacher, now a career grandmother. She has written all her life but until recently has not thought of submitting for publication. She lives in Kent, where she recently joined a writing group which has changed her life.
Dad, how many times have I let you down? The question goes unasked as I stand near you. No need for an answer. I know you’ve forgiven me.
Today, I bury the past. I’ve let you down for the last time.
I thank the funeral director for letting me help.
Crystal Moore doesn’t like to reveal much about herself, which is why she won’t be found working the pole at a strip club. However, she can be found dividing her time between the realm of her imagination and North Carolina’s Coastal Plain region. Her publication credits include humorous greeting card copy, children’s short stories, and flash fiction.
It must have been hard on you, Mother, when I grew
long and lanky and all legs, my waist no longer waif-like.
Gone was your living doll to dress and display, your frilly
designs now silly on gangly me. Such a cruel trick
my thickening, adolescent body played on you.
Deanna Morris is an MFA graduate of Butler University with multiple publishing credits.