A pushchair on its side; something’s not right.
A car hastily parked, askew.
An unfamiliar brown (everybody knows blood is red) sprawling stain on the road leads to a lady sitting hunched on the pavement, cradling.
I later discovered it was a dog, fatally wounded.
Relief, yet someone will mourn.
Steve Gardiner is an accountant living in the UK.
It would eventually come up after a few dates, the women wanting to know family details.
“You poor thing, so sad your mother died during childbirth.”
“Yes, sad,” I’d reply, and save the sadder story that my father is in jail for blowing her head off in the delivery room.
Jerri Clayton is a freelance writer/editor and also works full time at Southern New Hampshire University as a copywriter and editor of fundraising communications. Jerri received her MFA in nonfiction from Southern New Hampshire University. She is concurrently dabbling in fiction, working on a series of essays about runners, and continues revising her memoir, In the Long Run. Visit her website: JerriClayton.com.
The truck moved at a high speed, the driver singing along to the music on his iPod.
His phone vibrated in the back seat, receiving a call from his wife. The road ahead was cracked.
It was too late before the driver realized danger. He never reached home for dinner.
Mr. Literato, unlike his name, is not Spanish. He reigns from somewhere unknown in Asia and maintains a blog: alwaysrandomposts.blogspot.com.
Just a minute it took and she was gone.
I put the baby down in the cradle and
picked up your rinsed shirts.
She slipped in the deep
rushing down out of reach of my grasping and gasping last breath.
Tomorrow I’ll reach her.
Today I’ll drown here under quilts.
Ginger Hopkins lives in the Texas Hill Country on top of a mountain where she Celtic dances and teaches English Composition online for Brookhaven College in Dallas, Texas. She holds a BA and MA in English from TX A&M University.
She held up her wrists to show the scar at the end of the world, peeled away flesh to reveal the bruises within.
He kissed her cheek, remembered when they first met—how happy they’d been—and he watched the earth cover the last rose he could ever give her.
Mike McLaren gave up teaching and technical writing to play slide blues. When not gigging, he sits in an RV somewhere in the Oregon Wilderness with a journal—his mish-mosh of stories, poems, and essays.
Jake was a mongrel who howled at the moon. Ma Olson bought him as protection against local thugs, and unfamiliar faces were greeted with menacing growls.
“Too loud,” complained neighbours, sentencing Jake to a premature demise.
One month later, when his owner was brutally murdered, no one heard a sound.
John B Sinclair is a much-travelled Scot who has now returned to Scotland, where he enjoys freelance writing on a variety of subjects.
It was yet another late night for Dave. He hadn’t been able to go to sleep at a reasonable time in months.
The smoke from his cigarette danced in the 4 o’clock moonlight. He reeked of whisky. There was an empty prescription pill bottle in the trash bin.
Finally, he slept.
Vlad is a college student living in the Long Island, commuting into Brooklyn daily, and generally traveling the world. Spending hours on end simply staring out the window of a train, maybe a car or a bus, has never been a problem. No, the real issue is knowing where he’s headed.
The soldiers made him pull the trigger, bury a bullet in his mother’s forehead, watch his village burn.
Some day, he thought, I’ll kiss a girl and see skyscrapers.
His knees collided with now-sacred ground. He gagged on the ashes of his soul.
Through smoky tears, he prayed. Some day.
Salena Casha’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Stymie Magazine, Bete Noire, The Quotable, Silver Blade and others. Follow her on twitter @salaylay_c.
Moira dropped the unopened letter from the Gas Board into the bin. She knelt, weary knees aching, to turn up the oven’s temperature dial as she peeked inside. “Filthy.” She wiped away crumbs and debris. House unkempt? Never.
Sorted now, she thought. Her sigh masked the hiss of escaping fumes.
Dawn, a stay at home mum, likes to write as a release for her busy life.
It was easy, in theory. Swim for a while, find the mainland, send help.
I was the strongest, the only survivor who could possibly make the journey. I was the king of the island. The hero.
As my lungs flooded, I could only wonder: can they afford to lose me?
Brandon King is a volunteer for Leading Edge Magazine, an awesome sci-fi/fantasy publication that will publish and/or edit your short stories, poems, or artwork.