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.
Birthday gift? Chocolate bars, please. For as long as she could remember, Cocoa adored chocolate.
When Cocoa married her high-school sweetheart, their wedding celebration was delicious, from hot chocolate (with or without marshmallows) to a fudge chocolate wedding cake.
The couple adopted a Chocolate Lab, and lived happily ever after.
Roberta Beach Jacobson is the author of Demitasse Fiction: One-Minute Reads for Busy People (Alien Buddha Press, 2023).
Strawberries and wine, long nights on the porch, all-consuming, never-ending love. But the Universe changes in a heartbeat, our cabin, my heart, left to the ravages of time. Taxi drop at the end of the lane, an overgrown path, cheerless door, descending chill, ice cold hands pull my collar tight.
Chris Nedahl is a writer of anything and everything. Micro fiction, flash fiction and poetry are favourites. The desire to see her words published is increasing with age!
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.
The story of the week for October 7 to 11 is…
Not Everyone Likes Cookies by Nissa Harlow
Although small in stature, she is a force to be reckoned with. An aggressive lobbyist for the homeless, her modus operandi is to be very much in the Minister’s face. He sees her enter the restaurant and flees through a backdoor exit, stumbling upon the cardboard tents of desperate souls.
Gayle Beveridge-Marien writes because she loves it. It is her radiant red-sky sunset, her budding spring flowers. It is bird song and a long walk in the bush. Gayle is a past winner of the Boroondara Literary Awards. Her work has appeared in Award Winning Australian Writing, The Umbrella’s Shade, Vegemite Whiskers and Mosaic.
As a young nanny, I adored him quietly, this boy. When he turned twelve, I bought a drone so he could fly-fly-fly away from selfish parents. At fifteen, I taught him how to navigate black, winding roads.
At twenty-one, he came back to me, before the March rain, in bloom.
Angela Carlton wrote this story.
Death didn’t want him.
So he came back and lived under the porch.
Mostly, he’s quiet. I leave out food sometimes, but he never eats it.
The best part is how he drives away the solicitors and evangelists.
I just wish he didn’t scare away the little girls selling cookies.
Nissa Harlow lives in British Columbia, Canada where she dreams up strange stories and writes some of them down. She is the author of a number of novels and novellas, all embellished with a touch of the fantastic. You can find her online at nissaharlow.com.
“My goodness – triplets!” The woman clucked over the babies. “How do you tell them apart?” Hannah just smiled.
Later, as the girls splashed in their bath, Hannah noticed the ‘F’ on the bottom of Felicity’s foot was fading. She darkened it with marker, then blew raspberries on her daughter’s toes.
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.
The fog swirled in thick clouds. She heard a familiar voice. It was fading into the mists. She had to act quickly before it was gone forever. “What’s the afterlife like?” she called. A pause. “Confusing,” came her father’s voice. Letting go, at a loss yet somehow comforted, she awoke.
Sarah Tyk is an aspiring writer from Iowa and host of The Interested Reader podcast. An astronomy major in college and grad school, her true love has always been writing. She writes what she can, when she can; usually during her toddler’s naptime.