Poised between fog city and oblivion, he spat and stepped off the railing. Regret hit hard, and too late.
The unforgiving bay knocked him cold, a goner, except for the nearby trawler crew who fished him onboard—gasping, now knowing what to live for every day: friendly smiles, and breakfast.
Kathy Myers finds these 50-word stories a challenge, but fun, much like her 24 years working on a San Francisco locked psych unit.
She had tiptoed through life, always on the periphery of happiness, teetering precariously. The decision brought her peace.
It was not impulsive, but rather long contemplated. It quelled the voices.
She slid over the bridge railings, and as her body slammed into the water, the motorists continued busily on above.
Alison is an executive in a mental health agency. She knows that fostering hope is the most important element of treatment, and she witnesses recovery daily. The trauma of completed suicide continuously haunts her. This is her fourth 50-word story.
Surging waves rolled against that shore, as always.
Perhaps the cliffs had receded in places, wind-battered and rain-washed, but I knew them and they welcomed me. I stood on the edge, naked as my first day, arms spread wide, ready.
It was the sun on my face that stopped me.
Garth Pettersen is a Canadian writer living in the Fraser Valley near Vancouver, BC. To date he has written children’s stories, a YA novel, adult short stories, and an historical novel, and is currently working on a sequel. His short stories have been published in Queen Anne’s Revenge, Vol. I, and Wherever We Roam, an anthology of Canadian stories. In 2016 his stories will appear in anthologies published by Horrified Press and Main Street Rag Publishing. Read Garth’s blogs on writing at garthpettersen.com.
There was never any need for words. We communicated through riddles, stole knowing glances and smiles at jokes nobody else could catch. Our connection was intimate, assured.
But as I watched her swing from the rope around her neck, I couldn’t work out what she was trying to tell me.
Guy writes to entertain, provoke thought, and silence the voices in his head. This is his fourth fifty word story.
At the pinnacle of the mountain peak, looking down, she felt the fear take her over. Vertigo hits hard when you’re over fifty.
Her life had disintegrated with the death of her only son.
The decision filled her mind: the path down, or the fall?
Sighing, she took the path.
Lisa is a writer, traveler, former vent Mom. She recently published her first book See You Now on smashwords.com, which was driven from her heart to the page to honor her son.
The man, who it later emerged had lost his family’s savings on a lousy pair of nines, stepped off the ledge of his office window on the 44th floor.
His wife below, suffering a rush of blood to the head, ran forward, arms out. Their last embrace was very brief.
Ross Sayers is a Creative Writing Masters student at the University of Stirling. He got the idea for the story from Placebo’s music video for ‘Pure Morning’.
“Apparently she wasn’t coping with the divorce,” said the lady from 19B.
The man across the hallway put it down to drugs.
Even the postman had an opinion.
But when looking upwards, the uninitiated passerby would see only the billowing nightgown, a strange flightless bird moving wordlessly, determinedly towards death.
Megan has just started a PhD in Writing at Murdoch University in Western Australia. Despite the vibe of this particular submission, she’s moderately funny, and she’s got the blog to prove it.
Hector heard God, when least expected but most needed, the unmistakable voice dripping intravenously into his brainspace, booming, “Stop! Don’t end your life!”
Hector stepped back, flabbergasted, dizzy with adrenaline and rapturous bafflement as the unexpected unbalancing cocked him over the edge of CityPoint. He fell: weeping, laughing, screaming, praying.
Shark Trager lives in North London and has been writing and blogging 50-word stories erratically for five years. He is a novelist in progress as well as a jobbing copywriter and ghostwriter.
The man jumped off the window. Not unhappy. Not disgruntled.
The building was 100 stories high; he had a story for each flight he climbed, as he now flew past them. Some funny. Some sad. Some crazy. Some had wisdom.
He was about to see something he’d never seen before.
Alex Mascarenhas is an actor and a poet, and has written for the stage and screen as well. His debut novel(la) THE DOG, THE VOICE & THE SIDE ROAD is available on Amazon. He is also fluent in Portuguese and has worked as a translator.
The weight of the Winchester lifted, pain like none he had known following in its stead.
It wasn’t his entire life but just a single childhood memory that played him out: sitting on the bench, the nurse disinfecting the needle, saying, “It hurts for just a second.”
A cold comfort.
Dylan S. Gonzalez lives in Toronto. He likes writing.