The time had come for growing old together. She welcomed it with no regret, foreseeing tranquil days of tales retold, of common memories.
But he has lost the early days they shared. He wanders without her in a shadowy past.
Alone she cares for him; alone he lives on unaware.
Catherine Mathews is a State Department retiree formerly stationed overseas in Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv, Athens, Frankfurt, and Istanbul. She is now living in Northern Virginia and writing about her life.
Emily’s crib remained empty, except for her teddy bear. I looked at it and tears filled my eyes. Its button eyes were filled with melancholy.
The divorce was finalized yesterday and Greta took Emily to Chicago.
I grabbed the teddy bear and smelled it. It smelled of baby shampoo: Emily’s.
Doug has contributed to the popular horror anthology Demonic Visions 50 Horror Tales. His poetry is also featured in Poetry Quarterly and was an editor’s choice in a New England poetry publication.
Downsizing after his death, she makes difficult decisions. Heirlooms, his suits, shoes, gone. The hardest? Her wedding gown, 50 years in its box. With parting tears she donates it, hoping another bride may enjoy her luck.
Halloween. The first child on her stoop, dressed for a wedding.
In her gown.
Tom Barlow is the author of Welcome to the Goat Rodeo and I’ll Meet You Yesterday.
Little duck,
born a runt, in muck,
wouldn’t last long.
She gave him a cage, gave luck.
He twisted, turned,
head to the sky, bet it burned,
flicked his wings one last time, twitching.
Her tears ran fast; she adjourned.
Death devours.
Painlessness fills eyes
beneath a bed of flowers.
Anoushe Seiff is from Chicago, IL. She writes in her spare time. Anoushe will be attending Drake University in the fall, studying Law/Politics, Psychology, and Arabic. Her hobbies include watching Criminal Minds, playing with her cats, and attending conventions and concerts.
Reality became clearer as the epidural lost its grip on her. She looked down at her beautiful creation, counting ten fingers and ten toes.
The room was bursting with happiness for the new addition to their family.
Her heart shriveled as she handed over her baby to his new mother.
AJ Pierz is from St. Paul, Minnesota, and is currently working on her debut novel. Follow her on Twitter.
He didn’t mean to black her eye.
Yes, he balled up his fist, drew back, and let go.
But it was her mouth that did it. Her fault. Not his.
He barely touched her.
Yes, he meant to hit her. But the black eye? Well, that was just an accident.
Lucy Q. Williams is a social worker from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. When she is not writing, she’s thinking about it. She is currently working on her first novel and tracks her progress on her blog at LucyQWilliams.com.
Late night coffee is the only thing that helps me sleep, although most believe the opposite is true. Within the silence, nightmares of your dying rise in a silent shout and the happy buzz of caffeine deafens them.
Eventually, my mind quiets from exhaustion and your ghost releases me temporarily.
Jessica Andrews is an Event and Wedding Planner who lives in Sacramento. She also stays at home with her twin children. She was an early adopter of the E-reader and finding that such an item existed was a dream come true. If she had her druthers, she would read and write all day.
A witch stole our only lemon tree from the backyard. She rode on it, shoving the last ripe lemon into her toothless mouth.
A frightening, nonsensical sense of helplessness woke me up.
Auntie hovered over me and I remembered that real life is scarier than the witches of our dreams.
Azarin Sadegh, a former student of the late Les Plesko, is working on her 125,000 word novel, The Suicide Note.
Private helicopters and jets whisk coddled, air-smooching trophy wives off to be detoxed, Botoxed, Gucci’ed and Armani’ed. Yacht captains are given their sailing orders. More wings are added to megamansions. Indolent, entitled Trust Babies wreck this year’s batch of their daddies’ Ferraris and Lamborghinis.
Your stolen pension funds at work.
Carl Dinerman is a retired ex-physicist and ex-telecom website designer with untreatable delusions that he could be an entertaining writer.
Every summer my father paints three boulders beside the road in white reflective paint to warn motorists.
The cousins from Quebec had missed the sharp turn one night to crash against the muscular oaks that flank our property.
I heard their screams through my bedroom window until the ambulance came.
Ann de Bruin is an interior designer and writer living in Los Angeles.