I haunt my old house these days. Last night, as bats flitted through looking for a way out, I went to check my reflection in my entryway mirror for the first time since I made the bargain. No one was looking back at me. I asked the bats to stay.
Harmony Mooney is a teacher and writer living on the North Coast of California with her husband, two cats, and two dogs.
Few numbers short of a Lottery win
Six, to be exact
That deal I made with Satan?
He screwed me on the pact
I really thought him trustworthy
His eyes, they shone like gold
To be fair it might not be all his fault
As I sold him another’s soul
Kent Oswald teaches at CUNY and tweets at @oswalke.
“Psst. Hey. Come over here.”
“No. I have nothing to say to you.”
“Your father made me a promise and he didn’t follow through.”
“So? He died last night.”
“He sold his soul first.”
“That has nothing to do with me.”
“He used you as collateral. I’m here to collect.”
A graduate of the University of Minnesota’s Creative Writing program, Soma Datta is reinvigorating her poetry and flash fiction muscles after over two decades of writing stories for businesses and brands. She intends to tell her story as a first generation Indian woman growing up between Western and Eastern cultures.
Mandy watched the fire take the building and her company’s financial records.
My secrets die here.
“…Or there’s hell to pay?”
She turned round to see her accountant, red faced and furious.
“You cannot break our deal. Follow me. Now.”
She followed, stepping in each of his cloven hoof prints.
Allyson Salmon is married with one grown-up daughter. She has previously had one 50-word story published on FiftyWordStories.com. She has also had three poems printed by United Press and one in The People’s Friend magazine.
The devil appeared before an old man who wished back his wasted life. He could be eighteen again and relive his years, but he would die upon reaching his present age.
The deal was struck and he dropped dead that very moment, having ended up in exactly the same place.
James Baxenfield is a writer who was born in England but has lived in Eastern and Central Europe for most of his adult life, predominantly in Estonia. He’s working on a collection of short stories, entitled “The City of Good Thoughts”, which depict the Estonian city of Tartu throughout different eras of its history.