Tag Archives: tragedy

STEPHANIE HURLEY: The Waiting Room

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Life swerved to a stop, wheels spinning. Time shattered.

Sirens faded into the fragile rhythm of plastic-chair percussion. Here, memories caught in their throats, clogged beneath the sterile smell of white. Fingers clenched tight around prayers as silence held the room like breath.

The door opened, and grief fell out.

Stephanie Hurley is a writer and English teacher based in Manawatū, New Zealand. She is passionate about all things creative; in particular, using writing to examine the world around her. Her work has been published in Tarot, Mote, Chortle, and fiftywordstories.com.

MEG POKRASS: Frog Music

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

There were nights of learning to dance, practicing with the dog. At fifteen, too old for scraps, I was the star of my own disaster movie, climbing out a window to meet a man by the creek, kissing to frog music while my mother slept, dreaming of her lost loves.

Meg Pokrass is the Series Co-Editor of Best Microfiction. Her new collection, The First Law of Holes: New and Selected will be published by Dzanc Books.

MADELEINE McDONALD: Death of a Delivery Cyclist

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Time is money. Every second counts. He takes shortcuts, and shoots a red light at the big crossroads. He lies crushed, his insulated backpack spilling its contents over the tarmac. His bicycle wheel still spins. Someone dials 999.

Elsewhere in the city, impatient customers telephone the takeaway shop to complain.

Madeleine McDonald relishes the challenge of flash and micro fiction.

ROWAN TATE: Past Lives

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

My sister believes we were monks once, tending a quiet temple. Another time, soldiers who died on the same battlefield. I ask her why I don’t remember. She just shrugs, peeling an apple. “You never do,” she says. I watch the knife flash. Something about it makes my hands shake.

Rowan Tate wrote this story.

JOANNA NORLAND: A Letter to Yarden Bibas

Artistic, Submissions, , , , , ,

Yarden, I think of you, in that gunshot moment when you learned that the body in the coffin was not your wife’s.

Did you allow a bright bullet of hope to pierce your darkness, even though you knew that it was aimed, with ruthless precision, at your thrice shattered heart?

Joanna Norland dedicates this story to the Bibas family — Yarden, Shiri, Ariel (age 4) and Kfir (9 months), all abducted from the Nir Oz Kibbutz on October 7, 2023, and held in Gaza. Only Yarden returned to Israel alive, February 1, 2025. Hamas claimed to return the bodies of Yarden’s wife, Shiri, and children on February 20, 2024, but DNA testing revealed that the woman’s body was not Shiri’s. Her fate remained unknown until her body was returned by Hamas on the evening of February 21, 2025, and identified by Israeli officials.

SC SHELBY: My Sister’s Shadow

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

I haunt my older sister, entangling our shadows, speaking simultaneously, infuriating her with how much I want to be like her—my idol.

As the car plows through the red light, the intersection, she doesn’t glance up from her phone. Doom-scrolling, appropriately.

I see it. I follow close behind her.

S. C. Shelby is a versatile author with a background in literature and creative writing. Her work spans children’s stories, speculative fiction, tragic dramas, and situational haiku. Under her dog’s name, she has contributed copywriting to various blogs and websites. Outside of writing, she enjoys reading, crafting, spending time with dogs, and travelling. See more at scshelbyauthor.wordpress.com.

SUZI HARRIS: Color My World

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

Color vanished from the world with his wife’s last breath. Murmured words of sympathy hovered at the edge of sound. Endless gray corridors led to the NICU. Masked and gowned, he stood beside the incubator, dark spines of hair visible among the tubes and wires. In that moment, color returned.

Suzi lives somewhere between truth and interpretation and writes whenever the words must come out and speak to others.

DAVID McCAHAN: Dusk

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , , ,

I heard leaves and branches singing to the sun
I watched the trees singing as one
Grace for the day
Prayer for tomorrow

A daily prayer for one hundred years
A daily prayer answered
Until today

Whirring of encroaching engines portends the end
Of one last sunset
And no dawn

David is a St. Louis-based writer who enjoys all forms of writing from microfiction to novels.

JEZ POYNER: Twelve Weeks

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , ,

We’re leaving our child in California.

It’s a relief boarding our return flight,
Backs turned from the hotel room,
the hospital ward,
this ruin of a holiday.

Yet as the skyline tilts and expands beyond our window, our hearts ache.

Goodbye, little one.
If only we could have said hello.

Jez Poyner lives in Manchester, UK. He writes on his phone at night, whilst his wife sleeps beside him.

ABHIJITH PARMESHWAR: Please Don’t Go

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

“Mr. Dawson, I’m sorry for your loss.” One of the cops speak but I barely see his face. Red and blue lights flicker as a yellow convertible laments in flames circled by dismayed faces. Yet, I keep calling. The sun sets in tears as I wait for her to answer.

Abhijith is a university graduate from southern India who likes writing micro fictions and musings. A steaming cup of latte and sunset walks is all he need to free fall into thoughts, connecting words that express emotions.