A strange sensation shatters my illusion of protection.
A lump… surgery, and again I’m safe, but less of me today than yesterday.
Flesh heals. My mind wanders. I consider wings.
How many feathers can fall before the bird follows?
My destination still awaits. I’m arriving one piece at a time.
Through pencil and pulp, Mike Keyser shares his best pieces.
She wasn’t breathing. My mother stopped breathing in hospice. Cradling my face, I tried to catch my breath, I tried, as the air conditioner kicked on-off-on-off, a constant groan, before her hand gripped mine, ONCE.
And I’m that frightened child, in the dark, the one who can’t close her eyes.
Angela Carlton’s fiction has been published in Every Writer, Everyday Fiction, 6S, 50 Word Stories, Spillwords Press, Friday Flash Fiction 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 | Facebook.
It was the night she learned that the moon shone brighter in a village than in the city. So bright she couldn’t open her eyes. So bright that the bones of the dead in the illuminated graveyard lay wide awake.
It was the night she was afraid of the moon.
Soofia Mahmood taught herself English as a teenager in Pakistan so she could become the first girl in her family to attend university. She found a love for writing strange things instead. Now in Toronto and having a late-midlife crisis, she just wants to be read. Read her short-story thought experiment, Tiny Tyrannies.
Inez stalked into position and began dancing. Hustle. Twist. Interpretive. Chicken. Electric Slide. Macarena, because he hated it. Salsa, because he refused to learn and accused her of cheating when she went alone. Her heels tore new sod. She smiled, dropped her wedding ring, and strutted out of the cemetery.
Nancy Bagato collects words and images to turn into bite-sized stories. When not writing, she is reading, making art, or substitute teaching.
The story of the week for September 7 to 11 is…
Cradle by Mikaila Nalbantova
“…Bea’s Alzheimer’s – Don’t ask! She’s become a stranger. If my mind ever wanders like that, shoot me.
Kisses.
PS Wish Charles luck with his university applications. His great aunt is cheering him on.”
“Charlie’s a sophomore at Emory,” I answer, then start over.
“Thanks, Auntie G. I’ll let Charlie know.”
Joanna Norland is an expat Canadian playwright and writing coach based in London.
The old man delivers groceries in the neighborhood. One leg is stiff. He works to climb the slightest hill. He uses a child’s red wagon. When routes allow, he folds his bad leg onto the wagon, and, poling with his good leg, he rides in style down the small hills.
Lynn Kozlowski has appeared in The Citron Review, The Zodiac Review, Molecule, 50-Word Stories, Bright Flash Literary Review, Every Day Fiction, The Dribble Drabble Review, Friday Flash Fiction, Switch, and The Malahat Review. He has a volume of short pieces, Historical Markers.
My pirated copy of Cortázar’s “Hopscotch” is rundled with e-reader formaging errorors. The sliding li-
ne breaks meake Chapter 34 espatially interluse. The blundiest part is the mimastic transfer errorors subpausing “life.”
Or is that just post-frankle Gliglish?
I refillill my mate, creep Eden, and refususe to crudate a purated copy.
Nicholas De Marino conserves money, not sanity.
The gum lost flavor an hour ago. It was the last piece, lost to the bottom of the bag. To spit it out is to end something, or to acknowledge its end. So I chew and dig through her purse to find what else is left. She’s nothing but receipts.
Haley (she/her) is a queer autistic writer with an MFA who has published some stuff and spends too much time on Instagram @QAWriterHaley.
I gave my nephew a long piggyback ride. We chanted “It’s a new record!”
“Let’s tell the whole world,” I said.
He paused, then replied, “I don’t want to.”
He’s shy about his speech impediment. But I understand him perfectly.
“You’re right,” I said. “We already are the whole world.”
Nick van Osdol enjoys reading and writing prose and poetry. He is drawn to scenes of decay and rejuvenation. He also enjoys stick shift cars with no SIM cards. His writing is in Hobart Pulp, Citywide Lunch, Plague Circus Press, Dishsoap Quarterly, and several other places.