Both our wives walked out within a week. We hadn’t spoken in years, but now all we had was each other: though divided by parents, we were united by divorce.
We fished from the harbour wall, with bated breath and baited lines, sharing tales of the one that got away.
Guy has never taken his brother fishing. This is his twenty-second 50-word story.
Oh, I craved it constantly, then a sudden explosion.
The public was fascinated, fawning. I was inside a window of luminosity that broke the law of conservation. More joy flooded from me than I was stocked with.
A brief moment.
Then came the weight, far more than I ever dreamed.
Todd Mercer was nominated for Best of the Net in 2018. Recent work appears in The Magnolia Review, Praxis, and SOFTBLOW Journal.
Old.
Lost most of my teeth and sight. Not rambunctious like I was.
She still loved me, unconditionally. She looked at me as if I was still a pup. “You take love with you from one world to the next,” she once told me.
Never thought that I’d outlive her.
Jody loves to write fiction. She is inspired by her old hound dog, who puts a smile on her face every day with his silly antics.
You told me the story of the blind man out in the rain: grabbing the bus stop sign and leaning into the wind. You were in the back of the car and wanted to get out and offer him an umbrella you didn’t have.
Some days are bad like that.
Kiah Mott has been published previously in Flash Fiction Magazine Online. She was also a finalist for the 2018 Moon City Fiction Competition.
Is it finally over? Whatever this was?
Not dating, not friendship… It’s giving me pause.
I am angry. Hurt. But not that upset.
I wonder, was it love? And will I forget?
Not that long ago, I seem to recall,
Still had that nice flutter feeling,
Do you? At all?
Michelle is an award-winning author and poet. She is a contributor in the most recent Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Spirit of Canada, and a quarter finalist in the 2017 ScreenCraft Short Screenplay contest. Her writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, (one of Canada’s National newspapers) and a number of local magazines and newspapers including The Briar Crier, Total Sports, Voice of the Farmer, Arts Talk and Focus 50 Plus. Her short story “Lightning Strikers” (also featured on Commuter Lit) was made into a series in the Focus 50 + Newspaper because fans asked for more! This year, Michelle won the Ontario Writers Conference Story Starter Contest in two categories. You can find her online at commuterlit.com, fiftywordstories.com, femininecollective.com, michelledinnick.com and @MichelleDinnick.
Forty years of life swell between us since graduation day.
Yet here we are, time melted away in sunny blue Homecoming skies.
Youth aroused,
Pure spirit lurking in football memories
and tangible attraction amidst the Rah and Rah.
Back home, to the future, soft remnants remain, glowing…
Please don’t go.
Judi MacKenzie is a writer who recently attended a reunion.
We waited until the twittering mums at the school gates dispersed before leaping the fence.
Instead of Geography, the Ferris wheel. Candyfloss for a packed lunch. Faces painted like tigers in place of double Art.
Home, hours late. Still gleeful, until I realised I’d forgotten to wash my whiskers off.
Rachael is a teacher from Scotland.
Wisps of sandalwood fill my nostrils.
Dan told me the smoke would unlock my chakras and balance my soul. I sat across from him. We hummed and chanted, inhaled and exhaled. Apparently I wasn’t loud enough.
I lick my fingers and press them hard against the ember, dousing his memory.
Koji A Dae is an American writer living in Bulgaria with her husband and two children.
In our third hour,
Father left us
to the nurses
while Mother slept.
At home, he played
his guitar,
then fixed it
to the stairwell –
wood on wood,
lacquer on varnish,
screwed in
tight.
Now Mother aligns
the tuning pegs,
wipes away dust,
but every string
is brittle and
slack.
Mark Farley was raised in Zimbabwe where he survived two dog maulings, a swarm of killer bees, and being run over by a horse.
When I woke, he stood by our bed, his suit muddy, eyes clouded, skin sickly pale.
“I’m home,” he croaked around his decomposing tongue.
“You shouldn’t be. You’re death walking again, honey.”
“Can I stay?”
“I wish…”
Taking his icy hand, I led him from the house, towards the cemetery.
GB is a writer from Tasmania. She prefers grey areas to the clarity of light and dark.