Your yoga teacher makes Triangle Pose look easy: raise your left hand, lean to the right, touch the floor. But after weeks of practice, you can barely reach your ankle.
“I just can’t get to the floor,” you sigh.
Your teacher’s unmoved. “I’ve been to the floor. There’s nothing there.”
Pamela Bloomfield is an independent consultant to governments and nonprofits. Her stories have appeared in Parhelion, Rivanna Review, Foliate Oak, Molecule, and other journals.
“Magenta roses!” she exclaims as I step off the bus. “My favorite!”
“Ma’am, have we met?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “But it was fun to pretend to be the lucky lady.”
That evening, my mother reaches for her second best vase, then remarks, “Your brother got me opera tickets.”
Joanna Norland is a writing coach, playwright, mother of two and mom blogger at mumswrite.com. With just enough spare time on her hands to scribble fifty fictional words a month and read two fifty word stories a day.
My date never showed, never texted.
I sat through the entire movie alone.
The boy didn’t get the girl. They went their separate ways.
The end of the movie was the end of the world. The screen faded to black.
There were no credits, no music. The silence felt right.
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.
I looked forward to being Uncle Joe. I would buy my nephew a dog and teach him how to bluff at poker. I’d read “The Lorax” to my niece and introduce her to jazz. Then my big brother became a priest. To devote himself to God? Or to deprive me?
Ann S. Epstein writes novels, stories, memoir, poems, and essays. Her novels are On the Shore, Tazia and Gemma, A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve., The Great Stork Derby, One Person’s Loss, and The Sister Knot (in press). Her other work appears in North American Review, Sewanee Review, PRISM International, Ascent, The Long Story, and elsewhere. She also has a PhD in developmental psychology, MFA in fiber art, and certification as an end-of-life doula. Her website is asewovenwords.com.
The road stretched on into the night, a mournful song on the radio. The car’s driver was alone. Beside him sat a full bottle and a cabin reservation for two. He focused not on the song, the full bottle, or the empty car. His sad eyes focused on the road.
Robert Trueblood is an amateur writer, professional bookkeeper, GM, and possible Vampire from Alberta, Canada.
Nutcracker blasts. My bills bloat. Family demands gifts.
I get replaced at work. They use buzzwords. Streamlining. New direction.
One day, I walk past a poster festooned with a smiling stock family and CELEBRATE in huge block letters.
I ravage it. Leave only disembodied eyes, torn smiles.
This is truth.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.
I avoid Father’s Day.
People ask me what I’m getting him. I laugh. I’ll figure something out.
Maybe I should. Maybe I’d be the bigger man.
But that word, father, slams in my ears, a fragile door.
Giving him anything’s pointless.
He’d just say it’s cheap, flimsy, another door slammed.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.
Those TV liars promised peonies, polliwogs, picnics. I’ve been duped! I scream from my rooftop. Only old Agnes, a lip reader across the street, hears. She marches over, shakes the base of my ladder, mouths Come down! I sit, pat the shingles around me. It’s warmer here, near the sun.
Mikki Aronoff’s work appears in New World Writing, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Tiny Molecules, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Gone Lawn, Mslexia, The Dribble Drabble Review, 100 word story, The Citron Review, Atlas and Alice, trampset, jmww, and elsewhere. She’s received Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction nominations.
Diana saw Him enter the room… with Her. First time since Their eight years ended. She wanted to run but stayed, coached herself: be brave, be friendly, meet the wife. They’re coming over; breathe… chest out… further out. Here they come, big smile.
And…
There he goes right past her.
Carol Tymann is a retired kindergarten teacher who loves to play with her granddaughter, read, write, cook, and work out.
At home her fully grown children caused constant stress. Here in her hospital bed she could rest. Though sore and afraid, she appreciated the nursing care, the nearest in years she’d felt to a caress. Her tears were as much about the life she’d led as it being under threat.
Joanne Bowers lives in England and likes reading and writing microfiction.