After receiving the phone call, I made sure the front door and ground floor windows were locked. The garage was shut and the cat flap too small. Lastly, I blocked the back door as the wood was thinner.
Satisfied there was no way out, I started to climb the drainpipe.
They study each body carefully. Everyone’s pain is unique. No MRIs or x-rays, either. Their methods are ancient. Hell’s masseuse runs his hands over every inch of your body asking, “Does this hurt? Is this too much pressure? What about here? Is this tender?”
If you are smart, you lie.
Falling.
Richard would have sworn if the rush of the wind wasn’t suffocating him.
Taking that loan was a bad idea, being late on it even worse, and nothing topped getting on their private jet.
He brought his palms together and prayed that he landed on one of their houses.
Wanted: Body parts for use in scientific experiment. Must be in good condition and properly conduct electricity. Any parts from all ethnicity and sexes accepted. Compensation will be provided via anonymous envelops. Please deliver to the laboratory at the base of the stormy castle. Kindly address to one Mr. Frankenstein.
An ant scuttled onto the movie set, a chase scene rolling.
The antagonist, in his haste, crushed the innocent bystander, an unintentional victim.
Life flashing before him, the insignificant ant thought of the cruel-humored lie the movie credits might show: “No animals were harmed in the making of this film.”
Jason needs to get on with his homework: explicating poetry. With this submission also missing crucial points in a plot outline, he is glad that programming basic, random computer simulations is much easier. RIP ant.
She was soft and white, changed and transformed. I felt joy as I held her in my arms, and cuddled her as I danced along the street. I anticipated the moment when I could caress her downy cheeks.
It was wonderful to take my clean duvet home from the cleaners.
Anne Lever is recently retired and is a mature student at ChristChurch University in Canterbury.
“Morning, class. Today, it will be your first course in evolutionary biology. You’ll learn about natural selection and the purpose behind it. As an example, we’ll focus on the importance behind choosing intelligence over stupidity to favor humanity’s survival. Any questions?”
“Professor?”
“Yes?”
“Why are there trapdoors under our desks?”
George S. Karagiannis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, and is currently a PhD student at the University of Toronto in Canada. He enjoys writing science-fiction (in a non-professional capacity, so far) in the subgenres of hard science fiction, bizarro, and apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic settings.
Andy knew how to train a tortoise to move fast. Really fast. It was an eclectic, yet very rarely used skill.
However, when Trevor, a forty-one-year-old tortoise, won the New Haven Marathon in world-record time, news spread quickly throughout the four-legged community. Suddenly, tortoises everywhere began sprinting at lightning speeds.
Match.com confirmed what Ryan and Darla’s friends had been telling them for years: they were perfect for each other. According to the website’s dating algorithms they were a 100% match.
Unfortunately, Eharmony said otherwise, and this was a good enough reason for Darla to reject Ryan once and for all.
Daniel Slaten is a Mountain Dew-addicted writer who currently resides and writes in Montgomery, AL.
Sometimes heralded by trumpet or the quacking of a duck, the phantom is released.
Mischievously, often maliciously, it materializes; only to be rebuked by coughing and the waving of hands.
Retreating into the fabric of both cushion and time, the ghost of wind past lurks, waiting to be released anew.