My heart has shattered and the shards are everywhere.
Each shard a memory, each memory most precious.
Goodbyes were said, tears were shed, hugs gratefully given and received.
The end of the school year; I will never see most of these students again.
China is a long way from America.
Daniel Quillen is retired and living in China, teaching English at a Chinese university. He just wrapped up his final semester there.
I step in something cold, slimy on the kitchen tile.
Gelatin-encased golden suns. Crushed shells.
Gwen is slumped in the corner, rage melted.
I grease up a pan, ignite the burner, scoop up the ruined eggs with a spatula, and toss them into the spitting oil.
Then help her stand.
Tim Boiteau writes and lives near Detroit with his wife and son.
You break the news in a sombre tone, voice barely a whisper. My guilty eyes fixate on your office floor. You blame government cuts and funding, anything but the truth: your wife found out.
I don’t tell you I’ve already found another job. I started looking the day we kissed.
Anna Sanderson writes about the world as she sees it (with the odd twist and turn). You can follow her story on Twitter at @annasanderson86.
Fibonacci was fascinated by spirals. Mathematical patterns in flower petals, repetitive details in seashells – Nature’s inescapable, infinite cycles.
As I hear you arguing with your father, drink-fuelled tempers curdling love to spite, I wonder: are we all like this? Caught in eternal circles, passing around the point where we began.
Jo Withers writes micros, flash and poetry from her home in South Australia. She is also author of the children’s science-fiction adventure 5 Simple Steps to Saving Planet Earth.
“Do you see it?” asks my father, pointing up at the night sky. “The little one under the Big Dipper. That star appeared right after your mother died.”
I smell alcohol on his breath. This is not the time to discuss physics or astronomy.
“I see it,” I tell him.
G. Allen Wilbanks is a member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and has published over 60 short stories in Deep Magic, Daily Science Fiction, The Talisman, and other venues. He has published two short story collections and the novel When Darkness Comes. For more information, visit gallenwilbanks.com.
I’d like to have many hearts to offer you, like hand-made biscuits of several shapes and tastes.
I’d lie them down on the kitchen table, for you to choose one each morning.
Comes sun or rain, there will always be a leftover heart, misshapen, unwanted, neglected, to keep you alive.
Russell Hemmell is an alien from Mintaka snuggled into a (consenting) human host. His recent fiction has been published on Aurealis, The Grievous Angel, New Myths, and elsewhere. See more at earthianhivemind.net.
Mr. Burnett picks up his newspaper from his doorstep, scans the picket-fenced street, then retreats inside.
He’s a respectable, decent man, I remind myself.
His wife, Helena, hasn’t been seen for several months. Visiting her sister in Wyoming, apparently.
This is suburbia. We go about our day, no questions asked.
Mark Towers writes children’s books, short stories and poetry.
He plunged the knife into his chest, carved a circle through the muscle and bone, and withdrew his heart. He placed it in a box and neatly wrapped it.
The day before she left, he presented her the gift, to carry with her to the other end of the world.
Francisco Tutella is a public relations specialist at Penn State University. His work has appeared in Fifty-Word Stories and Wilkes magazine. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Wilkes University. Like him on Facebook.
“I need to see you,” he says, phone denting his cheek.
She swallows, hard. That “sucking on a penny” taste.
20 minutes later, he rings her doorbell.
“Your dad is dead,” he says, no warmup.
“Oh thank God. I was afraid you were going to tell me you’re leaving me.”
Anne Gudger is a Portland writer who has been lucky to have words in Real Simple Magazine, The Rumpus, Slippery Elm, and more. In November 2017 Anne won two contests: Hippocampus and New Millennium Writings. She lives with her sweet husband, and their grown kids and kid-in-laws live not far.
Lying on the sofa with reruns of Family Feud and Wheel of Fortune for her company, she waited for sleep to embalm her. She no longer dreamed of him. Those nightmares were now locked away in an unused master bedroom, behind a firmly closed door, under an ink-black midnight sky.
Arlene writes poetry, flash fiction and song lyrics. More of her work may be found @ I am not a silent Poet, Tuck Magazine, Little Rose Magazine, London Grip, The Open Mouse and Literary Heist.