It begins early evening, lasts twelve hours
Resolute, incessant, deliberate
Weighing down the coloured canopy still clinging to the branches
Seeping its way into covered porches, rusting brake drums, and the joints of old men
Cold, wet, relentless
I pull the quilt over my head, for just ten minutes more
Paul Hock wrote this story.
The raincoat did little to keep her dry. She hadn’t bothered with an umbrella; rain hit from all sides, rendering it useless.
Perhaps the storm would wash away the fear that clung to her like ivy growing around an old tree.
Letting go, she let the rain wash over her.
Jane McMaster wrote this story.
Rain and wicked wind pelted me, inverted my umbrella into a baptismal basin. Not once but three times.
The accumulated water spilled out each time with the weight of my sins. Metal ribbing could not be reshaped and the umbrella had to be thrown out.
I wasn’t blessed that day.
Krystyna Fedosejevs writes poetry and short stories. She has had several of her poems published, and has recently had flash fiction published online at Flash Fiction World.
In Shastonbury children weep
for want of food and lack of sleep.
They drink the rain and talk to sheep
in the ancient town of Shastonbury.
Shastonbury, I’ve heard tell,
is like a wetter form of Hell.
They rue the clouds and curse the smell,
the shepherd boys of Shastonbury.
Percy peered out the window of his old, beat-up car, scanning the dismal grey plains. Rain again.
The endless prairie highways made Percy feel like he was constantly moving but never approaching his destination. To stay sane, he counted raindrops, trying not to think about who was in the trunk.
The clear plastic umbrella lay broken on the side of the road, twisted and forlorn. It looked so sad. Unloved.
And it wasn’t exactly keeping the rain off any more–cold rain that drove in at an angle.
Never mind; it’s not mine, I thought, as the bus pulled away.
Chrissey started writing seriously in May. She now has a second draft novel and material for four sequels. She is part of an online writers’ groups at http://www.kelleyarmstrong.com/forum, and recently challenged her group to come up with some 50-word stories.
It was a dark and stormy night.
The meteorologists were all very confused. They had anticipated darkness (because the first lesson of Meteorology 100 is that it’s always dark at night, which tended to confuse the Alaskans), but most of them had only predicted light showers.
Actually, none of them cared.
After thirty days of rain, the clouds got bored, so they made it snow, instead.
People whined and complained, but the clouds didn’t speak English, because they had come from Brazil.
The local government hired some Brazilians to complain to the clouds on their behalf. It didn’t really work, though.
“Sleep. Don’t cry. There is nothing you can do.
“They are gone, never to return. We cannot bring them back, and I am sorry, but you must live with that.”
That’s what she said, but today they died, and I will cry with the rain.
Today I am an orphan.
Matthew Trotter is 21 and lives where the wind carries him. He enjoys writing to pass time and reads as much as he can.
It was a dark and stormy night.
Good thing I’d brought my flashlight and umbrella. Man do I hate being wet. It’s pretty much the worst. I’d rather be sunburned a hundred times than have to go slogging through the rain. At least it’s warm.
Nothing interesting happened that night.
It’s, like, a character study or something. The fact that this story has no plot makes it super artistic. Trust me. Besides, look at that title. You just know something like that is packed with meaning.