Watching the pair of graceful swans in the pond behind the hospice facility calmed her anxiety in ways the end-of-life therapy regimen had not. During the visit, she said, “See, they’re like us, perfectly matched.”
After her funeral, I returned to the pond.
Now, just a solitary swan swam alone.
Bud is a disabled veteran who writes flash fiction and short stories.
I sit at the same corner table of the same Upper West Side bar every chill autumn Sunday afternoon drinking the same bourbon listening to the same melancholy piano. And every chill autumn Sunday afternoon I realize the same thing—that she’s never going to walk through the door again.
Nick Young is a retired award-winning CBS News Correspondent. In addition to 50-Word Stories, his writing has appeared in dozens of reviews, journals and anthologies. His first novel, “Deadline,” was published in the Fall of 2023. He lives outside Chicago.
She pulled the door closed, trying to ignore the dirty hallway and broken railing. She closed her eyes, straining to hear her daughter, somehow a woman, settling into her first apartment. She walked gingerly down the stairs, her legs and arms aching from carrying. Her heart aching from letting go.
Melanie Winklosky is a fiction writer trapped in a grant writer’s body. Her work can be found in McSweeney’s, and was named a finalist in the 2023 Boston in 100 Words contest and a 2023 finalist in NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction Challenge. She lives in Swampscott, Massachusetts.
The piano is upright, so it takes less space. You have to look inside to see the maker and year. A wire has snapped, yet the hammers hit true. There is magic here; Beethoven, Bach, Rachmaninoff. But our kids play chopsticks and mash away. And for me, this is everything.
Jeremy lives in Ottawa with his wife and two children.
It turns out, if you want to pretend you’re normal, you don’t talk to your dead grandfather in the cemetery, resting your head on his tombstone like resting on his lap.
And you definitely don’t come home smelling of tobacco, humming a lullaby he sang your mom but not you.
Alexa Donley is a speculative fiction writer from Washington. When not writing, she can be found traveling or walking in storms. Her first novel, The House on the Rocks, is available now.
A colourful gelato cone in hand, and I’m magically back in dolce Liguria: blazing sun, turquoise water, your damp curly hair and laughing mouth. Taking a bite, I crunch; the spell breaks. But then you crunch, and the magic returns. Your silver hair glistening, smelling, as then, of the sea.
Leonie Gregory lives in Australia. She has a passion for photography and writing about her experiences, as well as subjects she wants to explore further.
“Excuse me.”
An arm extends into my vision, an item is retrieved, the arm withdrawn.
I continue standing there, unblinking, eyes flooded with tears.
Five days ago my life was overflowing, like these shelves in the hardware store.
I start to sob.
Why are there so many types of brushes?
Stacey Anwin is writer, researcher and educator. Most of her writing combines forms and genres to capture the complexity of lived experience. Her book, The Writing Project: Recovering the Writing Self and Regaining Agency through Writing About Domestic Abuse contains fiction, nonfiction and scholarship. Find her at staceyanwin.com.
Mom so wanted to wear that dress to her granddaughter’s wedding. At least she’s getting to show it off to her loved ones waiting to caress her hand or whisper goodnight.
Look, she’s dreaming of dad, hoping he’ll still see his “lovely girl” when they meet soon, after years apart.
Carol Tymann is still banging computer keys searching out meaningful words, sentences, messages.
The lonely man washed his dishes in the sink and placed them in the strainer, stopping to reminisce over a chipped red mug. His heart skipped a beat: Her job had been to dry, close to him, warm and laughing. Instead, he dried the memory out of the cup alone.
Brenda Lee Carlson is a writer from Minnesota. She has an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing.
The old man’s hand trembled, but the token landed square on the plate.
“A prize for the pretty lady!”
“And on your first try – what luck!” Her eyes crinkled.
“Lucky you said ‘yes,’ my dear.”
The couple shuffled off down the midway, arms linked. Smiling, the carny disconnected the magnet.
K. L. Mill is a voice actor, another profession that revolves around words. Most recently her work has been published by Black Hare Press, Atomic Carnival, and Crepuscular Magazine.