The story of the week for September 14 to 18 is…
Barren by Cynthia Chrisman
ANGELA CARLTON: Before the Light Shifted
Before the light shifted, mother, you played piano under the stage lights.
Before the light shifted, you faded, ghost skin, hallucinations, loud whispers in your head. Before the light shifted, we waited-waited for medications to make you whole.
We waited, for the next chapter, our new beginning to the end.
Angela Carlton’s fiction has been published in Every Writer, Everyday Fiction, 6S, 50 Word Stories, Spillwords Press, and Paragraph Planet. In 2018, her story “The Roommates,” was made into a short film. In 2023, her story “Swallowed,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. See more at Angela Carlton Stories & Art.
CYNTHIA CHRISMAN: Barren
I left my apartment door ajar for her. Mom sat with her coat on, behind her newspaper, on the only piece of furniture in the barren living room. She wouldn’t look up. I stacked the last box of dishes by the exit. I hoped to bolt before Larry returned home.
Cynthia Chrisman, a semi-retired homeopath from Boston, is an emerging writer working on her first blended memoir. She is having another love affair: writing micro prose.
ASHLEY HOLLOWAY: Somebody’s Boy
She stood watching as the paramedics worked to revive the unconscious man. Loading him onto the gurney and into the ambulance, they took off, sirens blaring. As the crowd dissipated, she noticed discarded gloves left behind, empty of the hands that worked to save him. He was somebody’s boy. Once.
Ashley Holloway writes from her kitchen in Calgary, AB.
JEN KNOX: Fractals
Tell me about the faces that blur, names that disappear. Recall the half-smile of a crush with a moon-shaped scar near her temple. Childhood street names are preserved as passwords. Most memories nestle in imagined palaces, wherein the architecture always shifts. You tell me about presence and its unrelenting beauty.
Jen Knox is the author of Radicals and At Work. See more at jenknox.com.
DEBORAH TAPPER: Birthday Girl
She gathers her family around her. Parents, siblings, uncles, aunts—even an old boyfriend or two. Candles extinguished, she pours sweet tea, cuts wedges of cake. Opens gifts and cards, reading every greeting aloud. Relishing their company, their considerate silence.
They always mocked her interest in taxidermy.
Nobody’s laughing now.
Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.
JOE PEARSON: There Goes the Deposit
The day the sky fell, I was puttering around, whittling down the to-do list. Dang thing went right through me – stung like all hell! I pinned it back up best I could, but it’s leaking cumulonimbus. Birds keep slipping off it. I’ll have to call the handyman. He always overcharges.
Joe Pearson is a British fiction writer living in Paris. He’s no good at DIY. You can find more of his writing at joepearsonwriter.com.
CAROL HUEBSCH REEVES: Again and Again
Mother Nature is flipping channels. A new season airs.
Nights grow cooler; the trees display a familiar tinge of color.
“My favorite season,” I exclaim—as I do the first weeks of every season.
It’s not the colors that excite, but the chance to travel yet again through the memories.
Carol Huebsch Reeves loves the fun, freedom and challenge of writing Flash Fiction. Her stories are frequently found in 50-Word Stories and Flash Fiction Magazine. She often writes of the blessings and vicissitudes of aging. Carol’s memoir, All the Little Miracles, was published in 2022.
ANGELICA JIMENEZ: A Load of Bad Luck
The day Goldie died, he put it in a bag and walked to the park, where, sitting on a bench, he threw it straight up. That day was a load of bad luck.
Didn’t come back down. Could, though, anytime. If you sit there, they say you could catch it.
Angelica Jimenez is a writer who currently serves as editor-in-chief for her high school’s literary magazine, Sin Fronteras. She has also been published in 50-Word Stories and Friday Flash Fiction, including a story in their book, Editor’s Choice: Friday Flash Fiction Favourites.
TODD MERCER: Quotidian Speculation
Maybe this guy visits his local ice cream parlor sixty-seven times through life. Supposing. This instance is sixty-six, but he doesn’t realize what’s coming. Scratch that. Suppose this is that last outing’s cone: a single scoop of praline, not some massive Boston Cooler. Minimal. Again, no foreknowledge, no farewell speech.
Todd Mercer writes fiction and whatnot in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he loves this life.