I couldn’t flush my dead goldfish. Instead, I left him in the bowl in the kitchen and I cry as I mix a tuna salad for lunch. My dishtowels smell like low tide. I keep his plastic toy squid on my bedside table and I dream of a heaven, underwater.
Carolyn Mainardi, a graduate of Boston University, lives and writes all around New England. Her short fiction appears in Danse Macabre and is forthcoming in Burn Magazine.
The pirates broke into cheers as the monster finally collapsed.
They had been waiting a long time for this moment. With the leviathan defeated all of its fabled riches would be theirs.
However, with much dismay the pirates realized that the legendary goldfish was not, in fact, made of gold.
Cameron Boyce is a high school student. He enjoys puns and wordplay though he hasn’t written any stories before.
This story is a finalist for the Audience Choice Award and the Grand Prize.
He fell to his knees and held his hands to his chest, praying earnestly to the Lord.
He sobbed and cursed as they lowered the casket into the ground.
The nurse gently took his arm and led him back inside.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Fredrickson,” she said. “We’ll get you another goldfish.”
Laura Chester is a sixth form student hoping to go to university to study Creative Writing.
Gloria was a performer. She’d known it since the day she’d somersaulted out of the egg and into the fish tank with a brilliant smile and a saucy wink.
Now she performed synchronized swimming routines for the world-famous aquatic circus. With fame came fortune: she dined on caviar most evenings.