Eager to get some beer, we stopped at Matt’s; he never gets carded. The obligatory awkwardness, greeting his folks in their soft chairs. The thermostat’s up too high, and they smile warmly, unsuspecting.
One of us usually ends up puking.
Lulled by the murmuring TV, I imagine staying, not drinking.
Steve Saulsbury writes best when prompted. He is the author of the chapbook, “Wildlife Study” (Bottlecap Press, 2025).
Every morning when I peer around the door frame, your slumbering teen body is a new shape.
A toppled Roman statue, all broken limbs and alabaster skin.
A wild dog in the desert, curled hard against the midnight elements.
A man emerging; Michelangelo’s Davide.
My love for you is incandescent.
Gabe has been writing and editing for 30 years, from her home base in Sydney. She doesn’t plan on being replaced by AI any time soon.
My eldest daughter deigns to lounge near her family.
My nine-year-old begs me to help build a sandcastle.
We mold and pack, smooth and trim, carve and adorn, laugh and pretend while eyes roll from a nearby throne.
I treasure the time before tides eventually erode the castle we built.
Dave Myers (he/him) lives and teaches in Bend, Oregon.
Like all lovers, they carefully carved their initials into the earth as a symbol of the permanence of their love. Their mission completed, they boarded their respective vessels and shot off into the sky.
Millenia later, archaeologists are still trying to solve the unearthly mystery of the geoglyphs in Peru.
AJ Joseph tweets very short stories as @sonobeus.
“It’s good to see you.”
It wasn’t.
“I hoped we could talk.”
Wished we didn’t have to.
“It’s been too long.”
Not long enough.
Leaning against the air-hockey table, shoes white against the slushy stain, she replies:
“It’s been two days, Tyler. And I only came to get my backpack.”
Kerry teaches English with the comfortable assuredness that he is almost often not wrong about it.
I recognized her immediately. Same eyes, but sadder; same hair, but grayer.
She’d dominated my yearbooks: cheerleader, homecoming queen, class favorite.
As she rang up my groceries, I suddenly wondered which was more unfortunate… Those who peaked in high school, or those of us who wasted our lives envying them.
Gail Warber is the winner of several writing contests including E.K.U.’s creative non-fiction competition. She lives in Appalachia with her four frisky corgis and three frisky grandchildren.
Two teenagers were kissing on an escalator. An old lady stared with disapproval, but the lovebirds were paying no attention to anything around them.
When it was time to start walking again, she decided to warn them. “Be careful, two separate beds for you in hospital if you hurt yourself!”
Katya Duft is a translator, interpreter, and language teacher. She enjoys writing short stories, poetry, and her blog Tales from the Bus.
I stroll past a group of local girls idly gossiping in the street.
One of them deliberately walks up behind me and pulls out the neck of my new sweater, exposing the label.
“It’s crap,” she calls loudly to the others. “He’s wearing crap.”
This is my introduction to labels.
Barry O’Farrell is an actor living in Brisbane, Australia. He is enjoying the challenge of writing microfiction. More of his work can be found at A Story In 100 Words.
Resistance is futile you have been assimilated.
Your mind will experience
a gradual desensitization.
You are not alone.
Your are within the many.
It comes with no pain.
Ignore those over 50.
Do not try to shut off your phone, internet, or computer.
Resistance is futile you have been assimilated.
Patrick once gave up the internet for a year in real life, but then again he is over 50.
Olive the Ornithomimosaur was hurt, humiliated! A social outcast! She knew it wasn’t normal. She knew her friends would laugh.
Her mother had forbidden her to touch it. Olive would show her.
Olive stretched her tiny arms to her chin and yanked, and just like that, the feather was gone.
Catherine Sevenhuysen is an aspiring actor from Nanaimo, BC, and a proud Auntie to Calvin and Victor.