Tag Archives: tragedy

PERRY McDAID: Foiling Alzheimer’s

Submissions, , ,

The scented treasure of the park tempered his confusion as he followed the path. Sammy used to know every species of tree. Now they were just comforting presences. Sammy used to know his way back home. Now there was just the terror of loss…

And the invitation of the pond.

Irish writer Perry McDaid lives in Derry close to the Donegal hills. His diverse writing disciplines and genres appear in international multimedia, recently with entropy2, Amsterdam Quarterly, Plotters Ink, Alfie Dog, and 50-Word Stories among others. He has one imaginary cat, Stinky, who is mostly nailed to a board above an allegorical scat-ruined flower bed.

JIM PURDY: No More

Adventure, Submissions, , , , ,

You see these small roadside memorials occasionally. This one was a white cross with silk flowers tattered by blowing rains, a frayed ribbon, a dog’s collar.

She was Abby. Her dog was Rex.

The drunk, just out of rehab, was leaving another bar, squinting woozily as I pulled the trigger.

Jim Purdy is a retired engineering manager who lives in Oregon and spends his day with his faithful dog who never gives him disparagement. She wags her tail as he reads her whatever he has just written.

RUBY RAY: Soldier Blue

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Trapped in a cellar, with little ammunition.

They shouted to him:
he’d heard propaganda,
they weren’t barbarians,
he’d be treated okay,
Geneva Convention.

He was doubtful, but he didn’t want to die. He threw the AK rifle up through the trapdoor.

They beat him senseless.

Some time later, he died.

Ruby Ray has been a Jill of many trades and mistress of some of them. Anyway, she hopes to have mastered (mistressed?) a few more before she takes it easy for good.

MEGAN GREEN: Nightgown

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

“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.

JASON HUYNH: The Meadow

Submissions, Touching, , ,

Her eyes water as she searches for her son among the wreckage. There are floating ashes. Smoke.

When she blinks she sees the meadow they wandered in yesterday. Floating pollen was airborne, but it was his wide-eyed wonderment that made her eyes water.

She’s found him. He’s in the meadow.

Jason Huynh finds himself not writing what he knows, for he has realized that he knows very little in the world of experience. Jason should prioritize better and finish his homework first…

PAUL JENKINS: Last Refuge

Artistic, Submissions, , , , , , ,

I saw the child in the church where he’d taken refuge. An atheist myself, I wondered at his old-fashioned notion of sanctuary.

He pretended not to see me, but I knew he could. I waited for the boy to show himself. At last he came weeping to me, another unbeliever.

Paul Jenkins is director of library services at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati Ohio.

SPRING STORIES – CONNELL WAYNE REGNER: A Winter’s Tale Told in Spring

Artistic, Spring Stories, Submissions, , , , ,

Some said, “He ran off with another woman.” Others suspected she drove him away.

And so the rumours continued, until he was found in a ditch with the soft spring sunlight slowly melting the ice and snow that covered him, after being fatally injured by a hit and run driver.

Connell wrote this in good spirits for those languishing in the warmth of spring as he begins to enjoy the increasingly dark and refreshingly nippy mornings of autumn.

GARY ZENKER: It Goes So Fast

Artistic, Submissions, , , , , ,

The 35 miles per hour sign whizzes past.

“Maybe we should…” is drowned out by the squeal of rubber on wet blacktop and thunder resulting from metal fracturing 20-foot wood poles.

Wires spark and flail with activity no longer present within the car. Traveling faster than the speed of life.

Gary Zenker enjoys the challenge of making people think and laugh. He runs the Main Line Writers Group and the Wilmington Writers Group where they encourage both.

JEFF SWITT: The Note

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

The note, scrawled in haste, read “be back in a min.” It didn’t mention a stop sign unnoticed or thumbs on the text pad. It didn’t say I would never again see your smile or taste your lips or feel your breath or share our silly dreams.

You didn’t know.

Jeff Switt is a retired advertising agency guy who loves writing flash fiction, some days to curb his angst, other days to fuel it. His words have been featured at Dogzplot, Boston Literary Review, Flash Fiction World, Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, 100 Word Story, A Story in 100 Words, 101 Word Stories, and Shotgun Honey, and have appeared at lots of places that take whatever you send in.

EMILY MERRELL: Our Baby

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

Born two months early, unable to breathe on her own. She lived only one day.

Everywhere, I see women toting new babies or proudly displaying pregnant bellies. That should be me.

I want to shout, “I have a baby too!”

But I just smile over the screaming in my head.

Emily Merrell is a mother and a writer. She is currently working with an illustrator on her first children’s book.