When Facebook crashed for 14 hours, 911 was inundated with calls from millions of panic-stricken people. This was an emergency on an unprecedented, incomprehensible scale.
Their lives came to a complete, instant standstill. All they lived for had been taken away from them.
Thank God I am not a screenager.
I imagine us together.
I imagine you committing. I picture us making plans.
But you just can’t see it.
Instead, you yell at me to get off your porch. Then you slam the door.
So I take my Acme Vacuum sales kit and leave, hoping your neighbour has more imagination.
Chris Fries is a still-developing writer, slowly working to hone his craft. He is an engineer by vocation, a guitarist by avocation, and a writer by compulsion. So far, his blog has been his primary outlet for his quasi-creative meanderings.
Two teenagers were kissing on an escalator. An old lady stared with disapproval, but the lovebirds were paying no attention to anything around them.
When it was time to start walking again, she decided to warn them. “Be careful, two separate beds for you in hospital if you hurt yourself!”
As the comet streaked overhead, the most extraordinary thing happened.
The turnips rose.
They pulled themselves from their beds and made their way to the streets.
Carrots followed and then potatoes, courgettes…
At some point we knew the vegetable revolt would come, but we imagined the sprouts leading the charge.
I believe in vampires. I never used to but then, one day, I filed for divorce. I saw my wife turn into a blood-sucking member of the undead, right before my eyes.
We have been divorced many years, yet she still phones me to ask for money.
Oh yes, vampires.
All rights reserved. And I mean all.
No part of this text may be read,
browsed, skimmed or glanced upon
without express written consent from the author,
who, quite frankly, is a scamp and a scallywag,
a man willing to dedicate enormous energy
to flushing out careless lawbreakers like you.
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.
They fed the talking lawn gnome Burger King in the backseat, heads swirling. Half-hour later the radio announced an amber alert—missing two-year-old girl taken while playing in front yard. They stared at the odd being and wondered, isn’t it strange how she ate all those fries? Isn’t it strange?
Caitlin McGill is the 2014 winner of the Rafael Torch Nonfiction Literary Award, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in 48, Crab Orchard Review, The Cypress Dome, Digital Americana, Prairie Margins, The Southeast Review, Solstice, Sphere International, and Spry Literary Journal. She is also a writing instructor at Emerson College, where her students continually remind her of the power of language.
“Crud!” The woman slammed her hand down on the flimsy plastic tray, sloshing her complimentary beverage onto the seatback in front of her.
Her husband glanced up from his SkyMall catalogue. “Something wrong, dear?”
“I forgot to buy a souvenir magnet. Now it’s like we never even went to Hawaii!”
Inside the girl’s head a fear grew larger.
As she stood waiting she wrestled with it. She fought it. It kept returning.
She glanced at her reflection and liked what she saw. It did suit her, after all.
Inside her head the fear of hats faded and she breathed again.
Dean Marriner is a production director at a design company in Newcastle, UK. He spends his spare time drawing pictures on old books and has only recently started writing mini sagas.
Editor’s Note: Cocklaphobia is the commonly accepted name for a “fear of hats”.
A rather short gentleman.
Answers to the name Shamus.
Wears an emerald green suit, a buckled hat and black shoes and won’t stop smoking his pipe in the house.
Keeps on about his pot of gold but refuses to kick in for the groceries.
If he’s yours, please claim — soon.