I heard your old rocker creak, and for a moment I forgot.
It might have been a stray breeze, or maybe just the cat brushing against it, an old habit from all the years he rubbed contentedly against your legs.
But in my heart it was you, home once again.
Chris Fries is a still-developing writer, slowly working to hone his craft. He is an engineer by vocation, a guitarist by avocation, and a writer by compulsion. So far, his blog has been his primary outlet for his quasi-creative meanderings.
I visited the place of our first date. I stared at the back of a woman’s head, positive it was yours.
I remembered the back of your head well. I missed it.
She turned. It was you, and not. My image of you was different from the real you.
Relief.
Chris Wilkensen is a wandering English instructor. He is trying to figure out what he wants in life, while being careful not to let life pass him by. He has trouble winning both battles simultaneously.
Days disappear into weeks. The weeks turn into months. Months become years.
Forgotten are the early mornings when I crawled into your bed. What was once yesterday, I breathed my secrets in your ear.
Dust has become of your bones. Flowers spring from your late beating heart. Here I wait.
Lynn Marie Lostumo spends her days doing dishes, laundry, and vacuuming. She’d rather be writing, knitting, and finishing her degree.
A drip from the ceiling splatters onto his forehead.
“His eyes… They open,” is heard in broken English.
A fuzzy recollection of the previous night arises.
A fight with burglars in the hotel room upstairs.
A knife flashed and bodies fell.
Another drip, blood… But whose, and why the handcuffs?
John B Sinclair is a much-travelled Scot who has now returned to Scotland, where he enjoys freelance writing on a variety of subjects.
Golden tresses swayed in an ocean breeze. Bright green eyes glowed beneath a red bandana.
Waves crashed against the rocks below the cliffs with the thunder of memory. My fingertips brushed the faded colors.
The wind whipped the photograph from my hand. One step and the ocean swallowed my pain.
Suzi Harris is a retired technical writer working on her first novel with the support of her crazy Canadian husband and two psychotic cats.
For her, each day dissolves into the next, like a sugar cube in hot water. Instinctively she clings, grabs, and clutches to the remains of her earlier self. Memories assemble in a dense haze of déjà vu.
Little-by-little, piece-by-piece, bit-by-bit she forfeits what made her sweet and solid. She dissipates.
Stephanie Glover is a professional juggler. Just kidding. Not a literal juggler, but she does juggle in the figurative sense. Stephanie is a full time student, employee, mother, and wife. In addition, she pursues her passions of writing and photography. Most often she can be found planting idea seeds in the little book she carries in her purse, or releasing the shutter on her beloved camera.
They held hands. The special moments passed, as they do. She smiled that smile he had fallen for years before. Her eyes sparked. Her grip tightened.
“I love you.”
He heard the words before her mouth even spoke them.
“Always,” he heard himself say.
He died.
Memories remained in her.
JH Statts is paralyzed from the chest down. He writes music reviews, draws a lot, likes tacos, and maintains a blog at aspirento.com. Visit him in Savannah, Georgia.
“During this voyage of a lifetime, always remember…” The priest’s nasally voice trailed off.
“Remember what?” said Captain Harkner.
“Just… remember,” said the priest. “In general. You’ll never complete your voyage if you can’t remember things! That’s why I’m staying safely here at home: mind like a sieve, that’s me!”
This story was based on the prompt “the voyage” at TypeTrigger.
I thought stasis would be like sleeping: I’d close my eyes on Earth, and open them a hundred light-years away. I thought it would be an escape.
But it was more like a dream, a slow swirl of half-reality. I spent ten years inside my own head, reliving that memory.
This story was based on the prompt “that memory” at TypeTrigger.