Your yoga teacher makes Triangle Pose look easy: raise your left hand, lean to the right, touch the floor. But after weeks of practice, you can barely reach your ankle.
“I just can’t get to the floor,” you sigh.
Your teacher’s unmoved. “I’ve been to the floor. There’s nothing there.”
Pamela Bloomfield is an independent consultant to governments and nonprofits. Her stories have appeared in Parhelion, Rivanna Review, Foliate Oak, Molecule, and other journals.
Day after day, Niles sits at the kitchen table contemplating the same glass of water. Is it half empty or half full? Niles realizes that once he’s peeled back all the perceptual layers, there is no glass. He just wishes his dad had finished the damn thing before he died.
Râna Campbell wrote this story.
You don’t see them. Not through your binoculars, not even when everybody else in the boat is yelling with surprise and delight. You don’t see them after searching and searching along the blue choppy water of the horizon. Still, your heart dances. It is enough to know they are there.
Hetty lives in Scotland and works in publishing. When not reading or writing, she likes exploring new places.
Raven sat on the branch of a strangler fig, staring sideways at the sun. The sun stared back. For a long while, neither moved. The world yawned. Then, gradually, the sun slunk down behind the hills.
“That’s what I thought,” said Raven, and took off, triumphant, into the gathering dusk.
Sam Hall is a writer from England. He lives in a cabin he built in an apple orchard, keeping bees and chasing after chickens.
After I called Mom
Listening to the remnants of her fragmented memory
Memories flooded my mind
Memories of
____hiding under a piano bench
____growing up and graduation
____her officiating my wedding
____divorces, worship and children
Memories that are now more a part of me
Than the woman who raised me
Stephen Wood is a professional magician working in Northern Texas, entertaining with his brand of magic, humor, and family observations.
The story of the week for September 30 to October 4 is…
Whispers by Angela Carlton
As the leaves turn on campus, the college freshmen gather at Target with the same bright eyes and school t-shirts you had fifteen years ago. They leave with gaudy pumpkin decor—no one has yet convinced them their tastes are stupid. You purchase only the necessities, longing for new beginnings.
Haley DiRenzo is a writer, poet, and practicing attorney specializing in eviction defense. She lives in Colorado with her husband and dog.
He made sure to hand her a flower with an odd number of petals.
Alternately reciting “loves me” and “loves me not,” she pulled off the petals, one by one.
Leaving the last petal in place, she hesitated slightly, then handed the stem back to him.
He got the message.
John H. Dromey has micro-fiction, flash fiction, and short stories published in over 220 venues.
A trip to grandma’s once involved baking cookies, licking spoons and cherishing stories about the past.
Today, the trip involves eye-rolling patience while teaching her to use her smartphone.
Wise old granny is suddenly clueless.
Be not fooled. She is teaching her last, best lesson—aging with grace.
Watch carefully.
A prolific writer, Carol Reeves is loving the freedom and challenge of Flash Fiction. Her stories frequently reflect the vicissitudes and blessings of aging and can be found in Flash Fiction Magazine and 50 Word Stories. Carol’s memoir, “All the Little Miracles,” was published in 2022.
His blade punctures the pumpkin’s flesh with more force than is necessary, and once he has scalped it, he digs out its innards and tosses them onto a newspaper.
He didn’t realize it would be this easy to carve up something.
He didn’t realize how much he would enjoy it.
Ran Walker is the author of over 30 books, including the microfiction/poetry collection Apollo’s Toy Box. He teaches creative writing at Hampton University and lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter.