I knew this stupid wall would be trouble. We intercepted intelligence to “Scramble.” By the time I got there it was chaos. Absolute carnage. There were militia everywhere, cavalry included. The rank stench of death hung in the air. I retched.
My initial impression was that Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
David McTigue is from Liverpool, UK. Writes flash fiction and poetry and loves music, football, crosswords, cookery, reading, and his wife, three kids, and baby grandson.
The press pool asks Senator Minotaur why he won’t campaign outside of Florida anymore.
His campaign manager remembers the reporter in Montana who wandered off of a cliff, the reporter in Iowa whose stolen car doubled as his coffin, the reporter in Texas with a smile no stomach should make.
Jesse Bradley wrote this story.
When your name was
bantered about our kitchen table,
I was too young to understand.
Now you are back
like a ghost from Salem,
mocking the innocent,
burning them at the stake
in the halls of power.
I’m old now, but understand.
Wake up Joseph McCarthy,
you will lose again.
Matthew lives in Maine.
The new Authority made changes.
My comrades looked on with wide-eyed but silent alarm.
We had to assert ourselves now, or we were surely lost.
I opened my mouth wide. “WHAAA!!!” I wailed at full volume.
The others joined in.
The new babysitter quickly flicked back to the children’s channel.
Mary Sheehan writes from the occasionally sunny south-east of Ireland.
We dock at two. Take a tour of an ancient church overlooking the sea. Climb narrow cobblestone streets polished smooth by centuries of passing feet. Sip cappuccino while people-watching at a café facing the town square. Contemplate calling this home –– a Croatian escape appealing, looking easier than a Canadian one.
Across the land, shouts of “Vote for me!” echo, answered by, “No, vote for me! I’m better!”
Other lands watch in confusion, so being a good citizen I place a sign on the door to comfort them: “Gone Crazy; Back Soon.”
And then off to bed I run ‘til December.
His audience applauded the conclusion of his speech as he smiled and waved from above his podium. The fools, his critics, had it all wrong; his people revered him, and the power they bestowed to him had every bit as much to do with love as it did with hate.
“…So, between emigration and attrition, our population has been in steady decline, damaging our international image. That’s why today we’re announcing a moratorium on death.”
The press clamoured. “Ma’am! Ma’am! How can you possibly enforce this new policy?”
The president waved her hand dismissively. “Pharmaceutical bailouts and creative book-keeping, mostly.”
This story was based on the prompt “moratorium” at TypeTrigger.
I should have run for office when I had a fighting chance, before the scandals: my son’s arrest and my wife’s affair did me in.
Now it’s four years later and I’m getting crucified by my opponent; somehow she’s the one leading the polls.
My ex-wife hasn’t changed a bit.
Sean Pravica is a journalist and photographer living in southern California.