Meet me where the setting sun kisses the roof of the lighthouse, I said, that familiar place where we whispered secrets at two in the morning. I needed to be there because I remembered all the things that we had said. She didn’t show up, because she remembered them, too.
L.S. Engler writes from outside of Chicago, though she grew up chasing dragons in Michigan. She is the editor of the World Unknown Review and is currently finishing up a trilogy about zombies called The Slayer Saga.
“We’ve had enough of your cowboy attitude in the workplace,” the boss said. “You’re fired.”
I glanced at the clock. High noon.
“That’s mighty fine,” I drawled, spitting my tobacco onto the floor.
Holstering my six-shooter, I darn grabbed my Stetson and moseyed on out, heading for the nearest saloon.
Jon is from the Northwest of England and wastes most of his time working in local government, when he really wants to just read and write. He thinks his attitude to his hobby of rustling cattle back at the ranch is more lasso-faire than cowboy. He has recently been told one of his slightly longer worded shorts is to be included in an anthology. A doggone first.
Emilia passionately claimed that everyone she loved didn’t love her, and vice versa. She knew that true love was tricky, rather like a sort of magic.
Then one day, quite inexplicably, Emilia met Fred. He was busking on a street corner and just happened to pull rabbits out of hats.
Linda is a teacher from Sydney, Australia, who has had plays go from page-to-stage and poems published in both Hemispheres. Once upon a time, she was invited to the same function as Ben Stiller.
Hezekiah was “soul” caretaker at the Mount Airy Cemetery. He liked to call himself “the keeper of the bones.”
While he prided himself in the lush, green grass and carefully groomed rows, it was the unmarked grave in Row 38 that had given him the greatest amount of personal satisfaction.
Susan Gale Wickes enjoys writing and daydreaming about where it might lead.
It was his birthday. Born seventy years ago on the last day of December. So this is how his year was to end, wracked in pain, body contorted. He always thought he would enjoy retirement, old age, dying gracefully.
He should never have given the kids that stupid Twister game.
Gordon Lysen resides at Sugar Point on Lake Manitoba. Retired from police work after some 27 years, Gordon co-authored the novel “A Deadly Blend of Souls” with his wife, Lisa. Writing and painting are Gordon’s relaxation methods when retirement becomes too stressful.
To test the old saying ‘misery loves company,’ Henry subscribed to a binge-watchable streaming video service, rented a humongous flat screen TV, and hired a caterer.
The first weekend in January, with dieting and exercise strictly prohibited, Henry and his party guests broke their New Year’s resolutions in record time.
John H. Dromey has had short fiction published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Crimson Streets, Stupefying Stories Showcase, and elsewhere.
The Story of the Month is chosen from the Story of the Week winners announced from the past month.
The finalists for December were:
My Fortune by David Rae
Choice by A. Elizabeth Herting
Buried in the Meadowlands by Bob Thurber
Pieces in Place by Raphael Bastek
The Weight by Kimberly Edwards
The winner of the December 2016 Story of the Month, and the $10 prize, is…
My Fortune
There was so much reality, art, and message packed into this month’s stories. I honour and appreciate Bob and Kimberly, especially, for sharing their hearts with us. At the end of the day, I’m awarding David for his brilliantly executed anticlimax and character work.
Who is that smiling at me in the looking glass? My reflection, I’m told, a true-to-life spitting image. Curiously, he seems not to know his left elbow from his right. So it seems we are one and the same, he and I, except that he is the wrong way round.
Edmund Piper was born in rural Sussex, England, and educated through grammar school to reading classics and law at Cambridge. Athletics Blue. Since graduating, he’s led a lifetime of wedded bliss and a career in paper making and publishing, moving from old fashioned Organisation & Methods to more with-it IT Director. Now he’s free to enjoy life exempted from working for his salary by his employer and is excused from all household chores by his wife.
I don’t know
what I said.
I only know that
it was wrong.
I’m not sure why,
but the pillow in my arms
says that it is so.
I’m well acquainted with my couch these days
–but there I’ll stay.
I love life way too much
to sneak back in.
E.O. Hargreaves recently misplaced a really comfy feather pillow and wishes he knew where the heck it went.
The funeral was an hour away but his grandmother was still in her robe in the kitchen , stirring away at a large pot. Transfixed.
Nobody said anything. The rest of the family sat in the lounge, talking about nothing. They ignored the phone calls.
Clouds gathered and parted. Grandma stirred.
PJ is a dramatist obsessed with writing the perfect short story.