Dance with me, he said.
He in his socks, she in her nightgown.
In the light of early morning, they danced. Slowly. Familiar with each other’s bodies, they danced.
“You’ve Made Me So…”
Holding her coffee cup in her hand while they danced.
“Very Happy…”
We watched, then joined them.
Deanna is a newbie to writing and is having a great time writing 50 word fiction.
I never claimed to be a virtuous woman. You never claimed to be a rodeo man. Blinded by first impressions, holding hands with false visions, we ran off triumphant from the masquerade ball.
I never learned patience. You never lassoed my demons. But with naked acceptance we learned to dance.
Lee DeAmali resides in the Los Angeles area with a very patient man who one night a long time ago dressed as a cowboy.
I want different tea, she says to him.
What you have now is perfectly fine, he says to her.
It’s so weak. The wife disdainfully looks to her husband.
You’re just bitter. The husband contently sips his black coffee. Chicken for dinner?
She flips the page of a vegetarian cookbook.
An anonymous author wrote this story.
I married a person I did not love. It was easy, really.
Everyone is happy. My mother beams, my father stands proud, my wife is joyous, and her family glows in the light of her happiness.
But most important of all, my lover stands silent.
‘Til death do us part.
Mark Hamilton is a writer and communications consultant in Australia.
I smelled her perfume on him. He was seeing her again. Disappointing.
I had survived his last affair; I could survive another one.
I got him a cold beer and started dinner—steak and potatoes, his favorite—and watched him play cards with the children. They’d chosen Happy Families. Ironic.
Carol is easily distracted by books, and reads just about anything. She has written short stories for competitions, websites, educational software, and even an international cartoon channel.
“Just one more, baby,” he pleaded. “I love how you look with your hair down.”
She was uneasy when her husband took revealing photographs of her vulnerability.
Still, deeply in love, she let him pose her body and snap away.
When their marriage disintegrated, he possessed the picture-perfect revenge tool.
Jocelyn Moore is a female western writer, living in a small, rural community, Pinedale, Wyoming (population 2,000). Though she mostly writes grants for non-profit organizations, she also writes short stories and poetry on nature, interactions between people, animals, and unrequited love. Jocelyn is the webmaster for the Writing Women of Zurich website.
“What would you like for your birthday, honey?”
“Nothing.”
It took me decades to comprehensively understand her answer.
“Get off your butt, use your imagination, innovate, and window shop until you find a gift, an awe-inspiring and unusual gift, to surprise and delight me.”
This is the meaning of “nothing.”
Barry O’Farrell is an actor living in Brisbane, Australia. Barry’s stories may also be found in Cyclamens & Swords, A Story In 100 Words, and of course here at 50-Word Stories.
“Darling, you can’t marry your Teddy Bear.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not real.”
“Of course he’s real. You tell me to talk to him when I can’t sleep. Anyway, I’m not marrying anyone else.”
“Darling, you’ll find someone just like your Daddy.”
“Exactly. I’m marrying Ted as soon as I’m eight.”
Ruby Ray has been a Jill of many trades and mistress of some of them. Anyway, she hopes to have mastered (mistressed?) a few more before she takes it easy for good.
The shadow of the cloud slipping down the hillside reminded me of the chemise sweeping her hips; the pink tinge of the horizon, her modest compliance. The bright glossy red of the burgeoning hawthorn berries reprised both her lipstick and the stain upon the sheets; the gentle shower, shared tears.
Derryman Perry McDaid is currently fiction editor with Liquid Imagination and on the board of silverpen.org. Widely published, his poems, stories, reviews and articles have appeared in diverse and international magazines, anthologies, and websites. A prize-winner with short stories, poetry, and articles, the Irishman’s work can be found both in hard copy and online. He lives with his family beneath the mostly misty Donegal Hills, walking back roads where he can inhale the mystic inspiration of long-dead bards and druids to concoct the weird, wonderful, and downright disturbing.
I woke from my nap soaked in sweat, shivering. I felt chest pain.
In the kitchen my wife had my heart on a cutting board. I watched as she jabbed a fork in and sawed with a steak knife.
“Whoa,” I said. “Easy there.”
The whole marriage was like that.
Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and appeared in 30 anthologies. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled Nothing But Trouble. Visit BobThurber.net.