In the BeforeTimes, it was our access point to light and air. At night, its screen would be alive with bugs and moths and buzzing. But in these AridTimes, the screen is history — the buzzing, the bugs, the moths are absent, silent. Only the humans remain. Evolution got it wrong.
Amanda Le Rougetel lives on the Canadian prairie in a small house with ceiling fans, the windows open to whatever breeze can be caught because the bugs are almost entirely absent this summer.
My junior ballet teacher told me she was a secretary for a spy.
I spent countless family dinners imagining her adventures. She’d chaîné down halls lined with gadgetry and tuck her feet into fifth position beneath an imposing mahogany desk.
This last year, she filed my taxes. I didn’t ask.
Jaye Kasey is a script and copywriter who loves daydreaming about the improbable and transcribing all of her most hilarious conversations into her notes app.
“Pull, pull!” shout my grown sons, two at either end of a thick rope straining for victory.
They keep glancing at my husband who watches from his lawn chair in the shade.
Desperate to earn their father’s congratulatory grunt, they struggle despite bloody hands.
I’ll bandage them after the game.
Trish Fegan is a former corporate communications professional who is now focused on writing fiction, aided by her muse, a feisty rescue chihuahua.
Telescopes positioned.
Technicals checked, rechecked.
Lonely tripod sentinels,
their tubular necks tracing the cosmos.
Alien amidst silhouettes
of Joshua tree, cactus and mesa.
Temporal.
Astrophotography novices celebrating
the celestial nuptials between
art and science-
man’s miracle
of making the invisible,
visible.
Unaware that they, too, were being watched-
from afar.
Walking in nature, composing music and staring at the night sky are just a few of Melanie’s preferred pastimes. Occasionally, she may do all of these at the same time.
I only had one pair of socks from you, a welcoming gift to our new house. After I’d put it in the washing machine, one of them disappeared. Have you ever wondered where lost socks go? I’ve kept that washing machine. Just in case it appears again, missing its half.
Alexandros Zochios is an aspiring writer living in Greece. His dog, Suki, keeps him company for the last 11 years. His wish is his works to reach out both International readers and Greek readers.
Vincent unlocked the door to his closet of collectibles—clothes from his favorite people long dead. He walked in and spent an hour wishing he had help to select an outfit to wear on his last day on earth. He walked out in his birthday suit and thought it suitable.
Kay Rae Chomic, novelist (A Tight Grip), and writer of flash: Ellipsis Zine, 50-Word Stories, LISP, Cheat River Review, Cabinet of Heed, Cranked Anvil, Five:2:One, On the Run, Streetlight Magazine, and more. Kay lives in Seattle dodging raindrops, and loves Motown music.
The parrot’s green eye never changed. The lion never hid. Even the zebra owned its stripes. Why was he cursed to keep shifting, never just being?
Then the shadow came — silent, hungry.
Others scattered, exposed.
He stayed still.
Invisible.
Safe.
Maybe he was never changing. Maybe he was always himself.
Kezang Choden is a writer who finds stories in the quiet, overlooked moments of life.
They both wept that night.
Neither ever told the other.
They would never talk about it again.
Two who had once been friends, fading out until nothing remained.
Two who had once loved each other, leaving each other behind.
There was nothing left.
There never would be again.
Nothing Remains.
John Olafsen is a young adult, gaining his footing as he explores the publishing side of writing. He has written over thirty short stories, has completed one full novel manuscript, and is working on multiple others. Someday, he aspires to have no more stories left untold.
I was six years old when I discovered a community of fairies were living between my toes on my left foot. My mother asked me why my left sock always had holes. I said fairy fights. She laughed and said “no more knives allowed in your socks.” I didn’t laugh.
Barb lives at the Jersey shore and gets inspiration from her house plants.
Things went missing when he was around. A dollar here. A cigarette there. He swore it wasn’t him.
The summer he moved away, we kissed behind the bleachers. I found a fragment of me in his pocket. He couldn’t deny it that time–he’d stolen it the day we met.
Alyson Floyd is camping on a couch in Houston, Texas, writing odd little things for your entertainment.