Christopher loved his wife, his kids, his dog, his job, and himself.
The only thing in the world that Christopher couldn’t stand was unhappy people. Whenever Christopher met a sad, grumpy, or irritable person, he felt sad, grumpy, and irritable, too.
He was just like the rest of us, really.
Complete darkness.
The man was on his knees in the pale white snow. He pleaded with the Nazi soldier, but it didn’t work. Snow still fell.
The lights all moved towards the prisoner. The soldier took four paces back and said a few words.
And the prisoner awaited his death.
Cameron Brown is a student at Holden Lane High in Stoke-on-Trent, England.
The reporter looked away as the private’s family marched out to face the television cameras. A soggy flag drooped at half-mast on their porch. They spoke of a kid who led rubber band fights, flashlight tag, bicycle jousts. His pen paused, hovered. A phrase consumed his mind: pornographer of sorrow.
Joseph S. Pete won a four month’s supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon by placing second in the poetry category of the 2010 PBR Art Contest. John Donne couldn’t say the same.
I sit and I weep.
I used to be free. The faces gawp at me during the day, while at night I’m observed by darkness. I grow tired of my life, but they keep me alive to watch my suffering.
Outside, the signpost reads “Tiger: The Last of its Kind.”
Adam Baker entered this story into a 50-word story competition for school. He doesn’t know the result yet, but he got it posted here, if nothing else!
“Why so glum?” my old buddy asked.
“I’m getting married tomorrow,” I said.
“You don’t seem too happy about it,” he said.
I just shrugged.
“C’mon,” he said, “pack a bag. We’ll hop a Greyhound and spend a few days in Vegas.”
Now I have to live with the consequences.
Alex Markovich started writing fiction late in life. He’s 76. He also wrote You Promised.
Modest Maude was a very proper woman.
No one had ever seen so much as Maude’s ankles or wrists, not even her doctor.
She had married a blind man, and still made him keep his eyes closed while she was getting undressed.
But her laughter made the stars come out.
Like clockwork, he’d get up at 6:00 AM and get ready for work.
Immediately, the maid who knew her secret scurried into the room to help her choose her costume for the day. Then she, too, went to work.
Imagine their surprise when their eyes met: a client, and a provider.
Tanja lives in Malta, Europe, with her husband and three children. She freelances for print and online media in Maltese and English.
Poor Jack.
Sweet, but a little dull. He liked YouTube and drawing crazy stuff; could have been an artist if it weren’t for me.
We thought the food of the gods was cute stuff like ambrosia. It’s not. I ate Jack. Not all of him, just that bloody, soppy heart.
Claire Martin is an almost-graduate student who must get a job, or learn to eat dust.
For the Dying Race, there is no place,
In worlds of field or forest
For that breed, there is no need
There is no hope of trying.
Yet hope remains, that hope’s campaigns
Will break those chains
And overcome reigns
Of races better fit.
Do not outsource.
Stay the course.
Bobby Langhorne is a programmer and a wishful storyteller.
War was tough, and we had grown soft. The killing proved too much, and so we did the only logical thing. Create two opposing supercomputers to simulate everything for us.
Except they realised the solution faster than we could imagine, and then it was no longer a simulation. We’d lost.
Nathan Barber is a student currently studying nuclear engineering. Most people who know him well find his choice of study material slightly unnerving given his eagerness to capture the essence of a ‘mad scientist.’