MATTY JOE AFONSO: Up and Up and Up

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Rusty green 1978 Dodge rumbling down Bennett.
Sneakers slapping concourse concrete.
Up, and up, and up.
Peeking through rapidly passing entry ways.
Bases loaded.
We sit.
Ellis Burks drives an inside fastball clear out of McCoy.
Stand up.
“Never show up an inning too late,” Pop says, chuckling and cheering.

Matty Joe Afonso has been passionate about writing since Mrs. Chisholm’s second grade class and her weekly short story challenges. In college, he studied writing under published poet Randy Blasing. His greatest inspiration came later in life from a familiar source: award-winning flash-fiction author Bob Thurber, Matty Joe’s childhood neighbor and father of his best friend, Sarah Kate. After reading Thurber’s Paperboy, Matty Joe was inspired to one day publish his own work. Matty Joe was raised and lives to this day in North Attleboro, Massachusetts with his girlfriend Corey and their combined six children, two dogs, and one fat cat.

CHERYL SNELL: The Lifecycle of Bread

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Flour spilled in the kitchen
is swept outside to merge
with a tossed crust of bread
borne by two rows of ants
going down the hill toward
the underground grotto
where a rabbit holds
a perfect English muffin
between her paws─
her aspirational muffin.
She’d rather starve than eat it.

Cheryl Snell writes poetry and fiction.

BOB THURBER: The Beginning of the Beginning

Artistic, Submissions, ,

One night, after bedtime stories and goodnight kisses,
the parents of God left the door open a tiny crack,
allowing a sliver of light to shine through.
It was just enough illumination for God to make shadows dance on the wall,
before it was time to wonderfully dream about everything.

Bob Thurber is the author of six books. Regarded as a master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been anthologized 60 times, received a long list of awards, and been utilized in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.

ROBERT CARLBERG: The Importance of Vocabulary

Amusing, Puns and Wordplay, Submissions, , ,

When the writer took his wife on a hike up the mountain trail, little did he know that his difficulty with words would cause her death. As they navigated the ravine they startled a massive rattlesnake, which struck out.

The writer, terrified, tried every snakebite anecdote he could think of.

Robert Carlberg struggles with words sometimes. The ones he’s looking for can stay frustratingly just out of reach, while unbidden nonsense frosts his pirate topiary.

CHIDI YOUNG: The Influence

Adventure, Submissions, , ,

After my release from jail, Dad drives 350 miles away from the guns, thugs, and drugs. The rolling hills and fresh air are meant to calm my restive nerves.

The rural kids are slow learners, which they make up for with loyalty—what every gang leader prizes more than guns.

Chidi Young writes from Jos, Plateau State Nigeria. He’s a teacher, graphic designer, and a photographer who loves to read and write short stories.

LILLIBIT RAY: Wild Wisdom

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Sitting, barefoot in alpine meadow surrounding his cabin, he spoke to her, “Deep wilderness has no bridges, but it has no stop signs either.”

Silence.

They watched coyotes running, marsh hawks hunting, and she realized she needn’t look further than the posturing pines to witness true freedom in this world.

Lillibit Ray has always written in her own personal journals, and she has taken several creative writing classes which helped her to develop and evolve a story or poem using real life experience and richer characters to bring the story or poetry to life. She has had poetry published in Dark Winter Literary Magazine, with the Dark Poet’s Club, and with Scars Publication. She writes on her own, for herself sometimes.

MARTHA ELLEN JOHNSON: Illuminated Places

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

The night she died
I had a dream.

She was walking
on an uphill footpath

toward an illuminated place.
Leaving me for the last time.

She turned. Smiling.
Thrilled to see me.

Baby sister knew I feared
to carry on without her.

“You’ll be OK.
I’ll wait here for you.”

Martha Ellen lives alone in an old Victorian house on a hill on the Oregon coast. Retired social worker. She writes poems and prose to process the experiences of her wild life.

JUDITH DZIERBA: Fifty Words for Cicadas

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Over a decade underground
on tree sap survival
creepy crusty shells
crawl through earth
leaving exoskeletons’
nutrients near trees.

Emerge meta-morphs,
wings as stained glass
in green tinted bodies
with falsettos in tune
to a summer’s ending.

Only weeks left above ground
attracting their mates
to lay eggs by trees.

Judith wrote this unable to ignore critters that remind her of the circle of life.

KARRIS RAE: Ever the One Moon

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,

Suffocating under the weight of the moon, I left—down the street, across the town, into the plane, toward the sunrise, over the sea, out of my seat, onto the bus, between bright towers, among the strangers. Then night fell over the strange new land and the same moon rose.

Karris Rae is a fiction MFA/MA candidate at McNeese State University. Her chapbook, We Obedient Children, recently won the 2024 Etchings Press Chapbook Contest in prose. Her short work has appeared or is forthcoming in 100 Word Story, Fourth Genre Magazine, Eunoia Review, Mount Hope Magazine, and Gargoyle Online, among others.