I escaped. I locked the door and fled into the country where I absorbed sunshine and gentle breezes; pondered fields, flowers, and flowing water; chatted with friends, would-be friends, and ice-cream servers; and marveled at winged flight, before responsibilities returned me and my key to the lock on the door.
Anne Rokeach thanks the public library systems of Upstate New York for offering workshops which bring to her the joy of learning to write poetry and prose.
I want an app that paints my ceiling and convinces my boss to give me a raise. One that teaches where the past years are. I want an app that cheats death, picks up drunk friends from the airport, and puts a dollar value on kindness.
They’re working on it.
David Holloway lives, works, and writes from Northern Virginia. He has been published in Gargoyle, Agnes and True, The Mad River Review, and 50-Word Stories.
Jerry glanced down at his perpetually untied sneakers and noticed that he was wearing two different socks, one ankle and one crew. He pulled the left up and pushed the right down.
He rang the doorbell for the second time, then knocked for good measure, hoping that she would answer.
Nick works as a clinician at a mental health crisis hotline. He writes a bit for fun.
You said you’d always love me. I said the same. Your hand touched me, soft, like swansdown. Unseeing, I folded my body inside the comfort of your embrace, nestling into your feathery warmth.
Too late I felt you move apart, your wings opening wide as you lifted upwards and away.
Pauline writes mostly crime, and has a novel published on Kindle in her pen name Paula K. Randall, Hangman’s Wood. She also enjoys writing in short bites. See more at wivenhoewritersblogspot.com.
In his hospital bed, my father,
the hearty man with the booming voice
and a thousand friends,
curls into a shell
and whispers,
“Every day I ask the Lord to please take me.”
Every day he curls a little more.
From fetal ball
to fetal ball
the endless cycle continues.
Marilyn McFarlane is a travel writer and the author of Sacred Stories: Wisdom From World Religions. She writes poetry and fiction and occasionally explores memoir. She lives in Oregon, where there is a lot of scope for the imagination.
Bills crinkle. Words crack. Four letters.
Drawers groan. Doors slam.
Toyota roars.
Pick up cell phone. Straight-to-voicemail.
Merlot pops. Glass clinks and tinkles like tears.
TV laugh track assaults.
Words break into regret.
Drawer opens and closes. Picture frame scrapes and lands with a thud.
Air conditioner whooshes. It’s cold.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. His work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.
Between the commuter train and the office, the lunch break and working late.
Between the park and the bookshop, where I delay going home, to the apartment where I don’t want to be.
Before the morning alarm begins another day.
I never really stop.
Anything to not think, not feel.
Brian Maycock’s short stories have recently appeared in The Drabble, Flash Fiction Magazine and Paragraph Planet. He lives in Scotland.
I run so fast I might fall and ruin my dress. My heart is about to explode! You wait for me on the front porch. I scream your name. I hug you. I tell you we won 500 dollars at the lottery: we can pay rent, buy groceries this month.
Linda Moon really loves flash fiction! She writes every day and reads short stories collections while working in (mostly sustainable) fashion collections in Italy.
Pools of water glisten where tidy lawns once grew. Streams gurgle and rush along the roads. With the kids gathered close, we lean from windows and perch on roofs. The more fortunate propel themselves around town in dinghies. They hail us. “Neighbor,” they call to those they once ignored. “Friend!”
Katherine Gleason’s stories have appeared in journals such as Cheap Pop, Derelict Lit, Every Day Fiction, Gone Lawn, Hobart, Juked, Jellyfish Review, and Menacing Hedge. Her play “The Toe Incident” won the Christopher Hewitt Award for Drama in 2020.
After anger, hurt got exposed
again. We sit quiet on a deck,
six feet above ground. A sprinkler
waves water east to west
across new grass, yellow straw,
but some drums hard, like soldiers’
cadence across the deck. Our cat
peeks from behind a post,
pads by, avoids our touch.
Matthew writes poems and short stories, and is worried how divided America is. Like Pink Floyd, he can no longer tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain, a green field from a cold steel rail or a smile from a veil. Wish you were here.