Joe shuffles to water’s edge to see the sunset. He’s retired, widowed, nearly broke.
A pastel sky bleeds away into twilight, into grayscale, into an impossible inkiness.
He’s alone, except for the loons who call out from the terrible void. Joe suddenly understands what they’re saying but doesn’t dare answer.
Hawkelson Rainier lives in the American Midwest. He dabbles in prose and poetry from time to time.
“Wanna know how lonely I am?” she asked. “The last time I went through airport security, I ‘forgot’ to take off my belt, so that I would set off the alarm and the officer would give me a pat-down. She did a perfunctory, routine search. I revisit the moment daily.”
Joanna Norland is a playwright and writing coach.
The kindergartener stares, forgetting to suck on her glazed thumb. “You’re Sarah?”
I nod. Why the awe when I’ve just met this sprout and her mother at the park?
“Sarah’s the name of her imaginary friend,” Mom apologizes.
The child grabs my hand. “Let’s play.”
I’ve never felt more real.
Sarah E. Morin has published two books, Waking Beauty and Rapunzel the Hairbrained. Sarah E. is a past Premier Poet of Poetry Society of Indiana, Secretary of Community Education Arts, and editor of The Polk Street Review. Visit her at sarahemorin.net.
I haunt my old house these days. Last night, as bats flitted through looking for a way out, I went to check my reflection in my entryway mirror for the first time since I made the bargain. No one was looking back at me. I asked the bats to stay.
Harmony Mooney is a teacher and writer living on the North Coast of California with her husband, two cats, and two dogs.
I lay flat on the cold, wet grass and looked up at the starlit sky. I worried security might catch me. I hoped his ghost, if it existed, might drop by. But the hours unspooled and neither appeared. I was alone, and by morning I knew I’d stay that way.
Litsa Dremousis (she/her) is the author of Altitude Sickness (Future Tense Books). Seattle Metropolitan Magazine named it one of the all-time “20 Books Every Seattleite Must Read”.
The old woman looked helpless.
“Can I reach something?” a teenage girl asked.
“Waffles.”
The girl smiled, reaching the waffles. Their hands brushed as she put them into the cart.
The woman blinked, suddenly tearful, struggling to remember the last time she had been touched.
Last summer. Her grandchildren’s visit.
Melanie Winklosky is a fiction writer trapped in a grant writer’s body. She lives in Swampscott, Massachusetts with her husband and dog, in what those who don’t understand call her “empty nest,” cheering on her children as they chase their dreams.
She lies on an isolated sunlounger and reads. From time to time, she gets up and roams the poolside area, glancing down, noting what others are reading. Back on her lounger, she googles the books and reads the preview pages. It helps her feel connected to the other hotel guests.
David Lowis writes in Surrey, England, and prefers going on holiday with his family to travelling alone.
There was something about the doll that was just a little off: its eyes asymmetrical, hair wild and wiry, lips a little too pouty, skin mottled. Still, her daughter loved it, playing with it often, embracing the creepiness of the strange toy in the way only a lonely child could.
Ran Walker is the author of over 30 books, including Apollo’s Toy Box. He teaches creative writing at Hampton University and lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter.
I enjoyed a particularly great conversation with my mom yesterday. She popped by unexpectedly, offering lavish praise for my latest songwriting endeavor, her smile crinkly bright. She’s usually warm, but this time she was enthusiastically effusive. I flushed with joy. Best conversation since her death 9 years ago.
Jannie Dziadzio is gratefully devoting her sixth decade of life to deep connection, beauty, creative spark and harmony in a myriad of forms.
I can’t contain my tears as I hug my grieving friend, grateful that I’ve never lost a husband to cancer. After she leaves, I change into pyjamas, fill my bowl with cornflakes for dinner, drink the leftovers from last night’s bottle of wine, watch TV and go to bed. Alone.
Fiona H Evans is a mathematician and writer who lives in Perth, Western Australia. You can read more of her stories at fionahevans.com.