A beautiful flower, blooming for a season; radiant colour, my soul lifted. All things are fleeting, the fragile more so. Your short season over, you left us, transformed back into the loam, nourishing the earth as your love once nurtured me. Goodbye my daughter. Your time short; your existence profound.
Bill lives in Aberdeen Scotland. He tried to be good once. It didn’t take.
I searched for you among the tumbled, crumbled tombstones in the cemetery.
I sat quietly in the vaulted cathedral watching candles flicker in the gloom.
You did not appear. No apparition. No sound of your voice.
The air turned icy and I pulled my sweater tighter as I walked away.
Candace Kubinec wrote this story.
I fell in love rapidly,
with a strong, sweet, chivalrous man.
You adored me then…
before the breakdown.
It took you away. I understand.
I’m not the same so you’re not the same man.
I patiently await your return.
I’ll never give up.
Please! We can fall in love again.
April is a hopeless romantic, even in hard times. Life equals love.
I spin with my daughter in the front yard. Stars cut the night. Together we get dizzy. She sinks to her knees and giggles. She orders me: “Faster! Faster!” I turn round and round. Arms out. Head back.
Selling the car gives us another month in the house. Spinning. Spinning.
Jonathan Kosik takes photos of fast cars and lives with his wife and daughter just outside Nashville, Tennessee. See more at jonathankosik.com.
Crisp
My pillow greets me
My soft slumber
Recalls romantic memories
My soul whispers…
She finds my pillow
Entangles my dreams
Capture…
We land eyes
walk within a summer’s breeze
Our hearts embrace
A moment held
Till sunbeams
Melt our reality
Tomorrow
Fresh flowers
Will grace the earth
Above you
Fifty words is such a challenge. Patrick hopes to improve.
Mum came to stay the day after her funeral. She was waving from the doorstep when I returned with the groceries. I carried her suitcase into the hall then set a place for her at the dining table, beside the ghost of my father.
Neither of them enjoyed the meal.
Mark Farley was raised in Zimbabwe where he survived two dog maulings, a swarm of killer bees, and being run over by a horse. His story Knight of the Rocks has been published by Old Words Home.
Last night, Dad came round to introduce us to his latest bride to be. “There’s life in the old dog yet,” he said.
She said nothing.
This must be his third engagement since Mum died, or his fourth including Carol.
“Who’s counting, anyway?” he asked with a grin.
I am.
David is remarkably immature about these things. He finds that writing about it does help a bit.
Since my grandfather’s death
I’m convinced the clocks
have stopped working properly.
Hours are now arriving
equipped with extra minutes
that weren’t there before.
My throat burns from the scotch in my glass,
but it’s as impermanent
as the fuel trails of the planes above.
It won’t last. Nothing does.
EO is making a first attempt at a humorous fiction novelette called Id/entity, which, if it doesn’t suck, might actually see the light someday on Amazon Kindle. If not, EO will probably make some nice origami, or a LOT of paper footballs.
Sarah couldn’t bear to look out the back window. She hated the garden. Peter had been promising to remove the yard toys since January, but he didn’t have the heart to do it. They fought about that. They fought about everything.
Tina was only four. Perhaps heaven has yard toys.
Paul Laughsend is a previously unpublished writer, always looking for support and guidance.
The Crossing Guard stands her vigil in the rain. Sign held high, she shepherds the helpless ones against the harried, cell phone-obsessed masses.
She is always watching, but you will never see her. She was struck and killed last year, blood seeping into the crosswalk. Still, she watches.
Will you?
A. Elizabeth Herting is an aspiring freelance writer and busy mother of three living in colorful Colorado. She has had stories featured in Dark Fire Fiction, Bewildering Stories, New Realm, Friday Fiction, Peacock Journal, Speculative 66, and Under the Bed. She recently completed a novel called Wet Birds Don’t Fly at Night that she is hoping to find a home for one day. See more at her website or Facebook page.