Tag Archives: secrets

LISA ALLETSON: Decay

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , ,

The house began to eat itself. It had no other choice, having grown sluggish and depressed from the family secrets rotting inside its crevices.

Help would’ve come if anyone asked, but no one recognized its deep decay. It had been staged for sale, appearing in peak condition from the outside.

Lisa Alletson is an emerging writer whose work has been published in The Globe and Mail, Ginosko Literary Journal, and The Write Launch. She was born in South Africa and lives in Toronto, Canada. Follow her on Twitter at @LisaAlletson.

CHAD BUNCH: Hush

Adventure, Submissions, , , ,

I sat, staring at the news station, counting the steps to the door.

I should go in, tell them what I knew, what I’d discovered. But the people who wanted me to stay quiet were out there somewhere, watching. They could end me so easily.

I opened the car door.

Chad Bunch writes speculative fiction from the suburbs of Saint Louis. He is currently trying his darnedest to publish the first book of a series.

ROBB LANUM: Karen’s Stories

Amusing, Submissions, ,

Karen never told her fans what her stories were about; their interpretations were more interesting.

Some saw the salvation of sex. Others a search for God. One reader in Australia insisted Karen was a psychic channeling his own unrequited longings.

Karen knew they were really about her best friend’s husband.

Robb Lanum is a failed screenwriter in Los Angeles. Some of his longer-form, epic works have appeared on 101words.org.

PAUL BECKMAN: Jumper

Artistic, Odd, Submissions, , , ,

My aunt called, said her brother was dead and I should help pay for his funeral since he jumped from his hotel window the week after we met. You likely said something to cause it, she said.

I figured out what, but I never told my aunt or sent money.

Paul’s new collection of Flash & Micro, “Kiss Kiss” from Truth Serum Press, will be out in March.

K JOFFRÉ: Truth

Submissions, , ,

They called me to the principal’s office. Thought I won the essay contest.

I felt good. They seemed worried.

“Was everything you wrote about your uncle true?”

Lying would save us. So I did.

“No, it wasn’t true. Just fiction.”

I hadn’t won. I stopped believing in right or wrong.

K. Joffré is a married gay latino living in New York. He is a Slate contributor and has had fiction published in ContemporaryQueer.com. Slide into his DMs at @meanhood.

CAL S BRANSON: Room With a View

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Socks.
White socks.

Shelly had known they were her husband’s white socks on sight; she’d cleaned them often enough. She recognized them immediately, dangling at eye-level just past the hotel room balcony, with Roy’s feet still inside them.

What she hadn’t recognized was the voice of the girl weeping above.

Cal lives in Hillsborough, NC where he writes experimental fiction, reads detective novels, and talks to his houseplants.

MARY SHEEHAN: Legacy

Submissions, Touching, , ,

He left her a widow, alone… bereft.

Left no will… only debt.

The Repo men left only his urn.

He’d left her in the dark about his ‘little pad’ in the city. It boasted eight bedrooms, a mistress, and three children.

She left his ashes in the bin outside it.

Mary Sheehan lives in what’s known as the sunny south-east of Ireland. Her stories are getting shorter and shorter, probally due to lack of sunshine.

BOB THURBER: Catholic Schoolgirls and Bad, bad Boys

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Imagine a leather strap looped from neck to ankle. Their beauty and magnificence hobbled us like that. When they spoke about marriage we surmised their words had more to do with things we didn’t know, things we were incapable of learning, than with anything they were prohibited from telling us.

Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and prizes. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled “Nothing But Trouble.” His first novel, “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel,” was recently rereleased. Visit BobThurber.net.

BOB THURBER: Facts of Considerable Importance

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

The elephant in the living room
led us to the skeletons in the closets
so we overturned the rug
finding all the things you’d swept there
and in the backyard
beneath a bed of twisted thorns
from which a single rose had bloomed
we dug up every truth you’d buried

Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and prizes. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled “Nothing But Trouble.” His first novel, “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel,” was recently rereleased. Visit BobThurber.net.

MARK FARLEY: Once Too Often

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Sarah donned her sunglasses and meanest look.

As she rode the bus into town, she checked her bag. Knife, gun, capsicum spray—everything was ready.

Six hours later, she headed home. Her glasses were broken, her weapons lay at the bottom of the canal, but she wore a satisfied smile.

Mark Farley eats ice cream with a teaspoon. He once got run over by a horse.